[Footnote: Read June 20, 1885.]
By JAMES BEATTY, JR., Member of the Club.
During the past twenty-five years there have been numerous efforts to
introduce fluid fuels as substitutes for coal, for the evaporation of
water in boilers, metallurgical operations, and, on a small scale, for
domestic purposes.
The advantages claimed for these fuels are: Reduction in the number of
stokers, one man being able to do the work of four using solid fuel.
Reduction in weight, amounting to one-half with the better classes.
Reduction in bulk; for petroleum amounting to about thirty-six per
cent., and with the gases, depending on the amount of compression. Ease
of kindling and extinguishing fires, and of regulation of temperature.
Almost perfect combustion and cleanliness.
Siemens used gas, distilled from coal and burnt in his well known
regenerative furnace.
Deville experimented with petroleum on two locomotives running on the
Paris and Strassburg Railroad.
Selwyn experimented with creosote in a small steam yacht, and under the
boilers of steamship Oberlin.
Holland experimented with water-gas in the furnace of a locomotive
running on the Long Island Railroad.
Isherwood experimented with petroleum under the boilers of United States
steamers.
Three railroads in Russia are using naphtha in their locomotives, and
steamers on the Volga are using the same fuel.
Wurtz experimented with crude petroleum in a reheating furnace at Jersey
City.
Dowson, Strong, Lowe, and others have devised systems for the production
of water gas.
These experiments, in general, have produced excellent results when
considered merely in the light of heat production, but, in advocating
their systems, the inventors seem to have overlooked the all-important
item of cost.
It is the object of this paper to show the impracticability of such
systems when considered from a commercial standpoint, so long as the
supply of coal lasts, and prices keep within reasonable limits.
In many cases, authors on the subject have given purely theoretical
results, without allowing for losses in the furnace.
The fuels to be considered are anthracite and bituminous coals, crude
petroleum, and coal, generator and water gases.
The average compositions of these fuels (considering only the heating
agents), as deduced from the analysis of eminent chemists, are: