Petrol from Coal From the national standpoint there is much
to be Said for developing the hydrogenation process by which petrol can be obtained from coal. It would give work to unemployed miners and render us. less dependent na foreign oilfields. The process has been worked on a commercial scale in Germany to yield 100,000 tons a year from lignite, and it has been tested experimentally on a large scale in this country by Imperial Chemical Industries. But there must be no illusions about the cost. Mr. Tizard, the Rector of the Imperial College of Science, stated in last Saturday's Times that, with a plant capable of producing 200,000 tons of petrol a year for ten years, and erected at a capital cost of less than £7,000,000, as production cost of petrol would be 9d. a gallon, its compared with the present wholesale price of less than 5d. for imported petrol. Such a plant would consume 800,000 tons of coal and employ, directly or indirectly, 5,000 men. It would require a subsidy of £1.000,000 a year if its product were to compete with the foreign -petrol. The builders of the plant and the miners, and labourers would find work ; . and the saving on their unemployment. grants could be set against the subsidy. But the purely financial aspect of the scheme is so far hardly encouraging--though at any moment some new method may make all existing costings irrelevant.
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