Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-10-07 | Page 55 | Why our Engines may all Stop Running

' Why Our ENGINES May ASI STOP RUNNING ! THE predicted shortage in the world's gasoline supply is dimmed in importance when it is realized that the supply of lubricating lubri-cating oil is diminishing in pace -with gasoline. We could dispense with gasoline entirely and still the great engines-of engines-of commerce would grind on with coal or fuel oil. The natural water power, such as is derived from Niagara Niag-ara Falls, would continue, to store electrical energy. Automobiles would run with other fuel than gasoline. But there is one item on which all engineering depends, regardless of the fuel used. That item is lubricating lubri-cating oil. There has never been discovered dis-covered a substitute for' the heavy lubricating oil derived from crude petroleum. Without it no steamships could sail the seas, 110 cities could be lighted by electricity, no railways could operate, no manufactories could exist as we know them to-day. The world's very heart would ''freeze," as machines "freeze" when deprived of lubrication. It has been estimated by a Government Gov-ernment board of investigation that, at the present rate of consumption, the world's supply of crude oil will have disappeared within forty years. These figures are based not only on the known product of existing oil fields but include an estimate of the world's unexplored supply. If this estimate of the oil situation proves true, it is a more appalling catastrophe for the coming generation genera-tion than the world ever experienced. experi-enced. To imagine that in forty years not a single large machine of any kind will be workable, is to imagine the end of the world, the starvation at least of millions, the disappearance of the "progressive races from the face of the earth, and a return to the most primeval forms of Jmnian life. Thus would bo thwarted at a single stroke the marvelous mar-velous inventions of the last century. cen-tury. The electric light, the telephone, the automobile, the steamship, the aeroplane, and the manufactories for every necessity of human life, would be mere worthless junk. A siuglo half-hour without lubrication and there would be a world-wide scream of hot bearings, and in a few weeks the world as we know it would die. Authorities agree that thejin-crcased thejin-crcased consumption of oil, over tha increase of supply in sight, is becoming becom-ing 'so serious a problem that very soon it will be necessary to forbid by law the burning of crude oil for fuel, and that it. will have to be conserved con-served solely for lubricating pur poses. This restriction in itself will be an extremely serious matter, as of late years coal consumption has given . way to a large extent to fuel oil boilers and 'engines m commerce:. All the latest battleships of the United States have been equipped to burn fuel oil. In its saving of stowage stow-age space, its case and cleanliness of manipulation and its delivery of heat and power, it has proved of far greater efficiency than coal. The present British navy uses fuel oil almost entirely. It can be readily understood that the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in-vested in naval protection cannot be easily thrown away. The first prohibition pro-hibition of the use of oil as fuel will, perlii ps, relieve the threatening situation, situ-ation, and it is certain that the navies of the world will be given the very last of the available supply before, it is ordered conserved entirely for lubricating purposes.