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Show LIQUID FUEL TO BE SUBSTITUTE FOR GAS This Amount Is Sufficient to Keep . 1,200,000 Automobiles Running for One Year. While engineers, chemists and automobile auto-mobile men throughout the country have been bending their best efforts toward developing some liquid fuel as a substitute for gasoline to 'meet the ever increasing demands of the fast growing automotive Industry, the United States Bureau of Mines comes forward with the declaration that the entirely preventive losses in the evaporation evap-oration of gasoline from crude petroleum petro-leum from the time the petroleum leaves the wells until it arrives at the refineries reaches a total of more than 300,000,000 gallons each year, or sufficient to keep 1,200,000 automobiles automo-biles in commission for a year if each car uses 250 gallons of gasoline. These, according to the Bureau of Mines, are merely the preventive losses from evaporation alone and do not take into consideration other losses, many of which in part may be avoided. The total loss from evaporation evapora-tion amounts to more than 600,000,000 gallons of gasoline for the country, according ac-cording to the investigations of the bureau, which has calculated that one-half one-half of this, or 300,000,000 gallons of gasoline, may be saved. The worst feature to thi3 is the fact tV.r.t f'.o r',"oline wasted is the most volatile and consequently the best quality of gasoline obtainable. It follows fol-lows that the prevention of this loss, which is economically possible, would not only increase the gasoline supply materially but would also increase the general standard of the gasoline. The bureau will issue, shortly, careful care-ful directions to the oil men as to how this deplorable situation may be remedied. reme-died. It is estimated by the bureau that the 600,000,000 gallons of gasoline gaso-line lost through evaporation each year is worth as a national asset about $150,000,000. J. O. Lewis, petroleum technologist of the bureau, in his statement on these losses, says: "At a time when there exists so much apprehension in regard to the gasoline situation, it is comforting to learn of any ways in which the supply may he increased. In an intensive effort to find ways of increasing and improving the quality of gasoline, the Bureau of Mines has made an investigation of the losses of gasoline by evaporation from the crude oil in the field. Extensive experiments ex-periments and investigations in the principal fields have disclosed that a great quantity of the gasoline now escapes into the air. This can tfr conservatively estimated at about 2" per cent of the gasoline in the erud oil. Furthermore, probably half of this, at least, can be economically recovered, and this quantity will not only increase our supply but improve its quality somewhat. "From thq time that the crude oil reaches the surface of the ground at the' well, the oil passes through a series of tanks and pipe lines until it reaches the refinery, sometimes thousands thou-sands of miles away. In the course of its journey the oil Is exposed to can and air, and the gasoline, being very volatile, vaporizes and escapes into the atmosphere. Although it hai been generally known that such losses occur, no one, up to the pres ent time has called attention to their magnitude. The methods of handling crude oil in the field have grown up from the time when gasoline was a drug on the market, and there was consequently no incentive for conserving con-serving it. Until recently no one stopped to consider whether the methods devised for conditions twenty and thirty years ago Were still satisfactory satis-factory for today. "With the co-operation of thp Bureau of Mjnes in placing information informa-tion at their disposal, the oil companies com-panies are awakening to the losses of gasoline which have occurred, and are taking active steps to save the gasoline gaso-line which formerly escaped into the air and benefited no one." |
