ALTERNATIVES TO COAL
By E. STANLEY TUCKER
COAL production, unless there is a miracle, will fall short of requirements for some time to come. The 1947 target output of 200,000,000 tons is admittedly quite inadequate to cover potential home and export needs ; and a return even to the 1938 level of 227,000,000 tons would not solve the coal problem, for requirements have in- creased in the interim and cannot be expected to remain stationary in future. Given our wasteful habits in the matter of coal consumption, the gap can be closed only by curbing demand—which is unpleasant, to say the least—or by finding alternative sources of heat, light and power. An adequate supply of other fuels would not only offer immense economic advantages ; it would also make us less dependent on what is likely to remain a difficult, dangerous and unpopular occupation. What then are the alternatives to coal?
For the immediate future there is only one alternative—oil—and the Government are pledged in the Economic White Paper to give "high priority to the conversion of engines and plant to oil-burning." Until last summer, when Mr. Shinwell realised its potentialities, oil laboured under a fiscal handicap ; it bore an import duty of id. a gallon (roughly LI a ton) as a measure of protection for domestic coal. The effect of this duty has been offset since October 1st by the payment of a subsidy of Li a ton on gas and fuel oil, and it is to be formally removed in the forthcoming Budget. Even without the duty, however, the selling price of oil fuels ranges in most parts of the country between £6 los. and £9 a ton ; and, though these prices are not so high relatively to the solid fuel as-they might appear- for.oil has a calorific value at least 50 per cent. above that of coal—it certainly cannot be said that heavy oils are cheap. The removal of the duty has, however, done a good deal to redress the balance.
There are two main ways in which oil can replace coal. First, it may be used as an under-boiler fuel for steam-raising. Many steam- ships, for example, are oil-fuelled nowadays, and the Navy has burnt nothing else since Mr. Churchill was First Lord at the beginning of World War I. In shipping or in industry an oil-fired plant has numerous advantages---a reduction in the number of stokers by two- thirds, much more flexible control of temperature, greater cleanliness and convenience. Where these advantages have full play the saving effected by the use of oil is far larger than would be indicated by a comparison of calorific values alone ; and in such circumstances con- version to oil may be expected to be permanent. On the other hand, the use of oil in steam locomotives is a much more doubtful proposi- tion (partly because there is no economy of man-power), and only the desperate need to save coal at all costs can justify the Govern- ment's conversion plans for the railways.
More desirable for many purposes is the use of oil in an internal- combustion engine to replace a coal-fired steam plant. The reason is that an I.C. engine—and especially a diesel—is technically far more efficient than a steam-engine. Thus railway experience in the United States and on the Continent provides abundant evidence of the economy of the diesel-electric locomotive over the steam-engine. In shipping, too, the diesel continues to forge ahead, well over half the merchant tonnage now under construction in the world consisting of motor-ships. The wider use of compression-ignition engines for the generation of electricity and for industrial-power units of all kinds will help to reduce the demand for coal.
Both these main uses of oil fuel are being fostered under the Government conversion programme. Mr. Shinwell's original objec- tive, which will not now be achieved, was to save 3,000,000 tons of coal by the use of 2,000,000 tons of oil in the period to April 30th. He now aims at saving 5,000,000 tons of coal in the forthcoming coal year, and the White Paper states that " there will be sufficient supplies of fuel oil to meet the maximum practicable oil conversion pro- gramme." The main obstacle, in fact, is not a shortage of suitable oil, but the difficulty—in view of current steel and labour shortages— of producing the necessary storage-tanks, burners, engines and so on. Nor should the problem of sea-transport be ignored. The import of 3,000,000 tons of heavy oil—the approximate quantity needed to replace 5,000,000 tons of coal—would require a tanker tonnage of over 400,000 deadweight if each vessel made seven round-trips a year. This is about one-tenth of Britain's existing tanker fleet— which is already insufficient for our needs.
For these and other reasons Mr. Shinwell's programme is unlikely to be improved upon during the next coal year, though it could doubtless be stepped up afterwards. Nor can Britain turn for salva- tion to large-scale hydro-electric schemes. Our available water-power resources are far below those of many other industrialised countries, having been roughly estimated at under i,000,000 h.p., against 32,000,000 for Canada, 13,000,000 for Norway and 5,000,000 for France. The ideal conditions—mountainous regions with heavy rain- fall in fairly close proximity to industrial areas—are not common outside Scotland and Wales. Nevertheless, technical advances in the design of hydraulic turbines make it possible nowadays to utilise any head of water above ten feet, while the development of high-tension transmission enables electrical energy to be transferred over longer distances than formerly.
Some small hydro-electric projects—e.g., the Galloway scheme— are already operating in these islands, while the setting up of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board (under the Hydro-Electric Act of 1943) has paved the way for more active development north of the border. Work is now well advanced on the Loch Sloy, Tummel-Garry and Gairloch projects. That at Loch Slay (with a capacity of 530,000 kilowatt-hours) should be finished by the end of next year and the others by 1953. Moreover a new scheme, to utilise the water-power of a large area around Glen Affric and Glen Cannich in Inverness-shire, which was announced last year and approved by Parliament last month, is to go ahead at once. It has been announced this week that the first contract has been placed. These power-plants will eventually yield over 6,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours a year—a good deal of which will be available for export to the grid—representing an annual saving of up to 2,000,000 tons of coal. This is welcome, especi- ally in view of the approaching exhaustion of the Lanarkshire coalfield, but it looks very modest against the background of the coal shortage. As for the much-discussed Severn Barrage scheme, which would give an average annual output of over 2,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours, this is making no visible progress at present. It would in any case take about eight years to complete, and would therefore have no relevance to the pressing problems of the immediate future. Inevitably we ask : What of atomic energy? According to the Baruch Report to the U.N. Atomic Commission, nuclear power is
likely to find favourable industrial application if no obstacles are placed in the way of its development. If certain technical problems can be solved, a large electricity-generating station running on atomic energy could be built in the eastern United States for about $25,000,000. Its running costs, if one assumes interest at 3 per cent., would be o.8 cent. per kilowatt-hour, against o.65 cent. for a comparable plant using coal. Equality of operating costs would be reached if coal rose in price from a present level of $7 to Uri a ton. This would correspond to a British coal price of £2 los. a ton—not much above that now paid by the Central Electricity Board—though an atomic plant might cost rather more to build and operate here than in the United States.
It would thus seem reasonable to accept Professor P. M. S. Blackett's suggestion that the first experimental power-plant using atomic energy may be working in the U.S.A. within two years ; and that within five years we should be able to design reliable units for large power- stations and get a better estimate of the economics of atomic-power production. He also foresees the day when large ships will be driven by atomic plants, and believes that by 197o an important fraction of the world's power will be derived from nuclear fission. There is, indeed, general agreement that, if the labours of our atomic physicists could be devoted entirely to peaceful ends, power could be provided in such abundance that human life might be completely transformed. In our present cheerless circumstances, this is a very attractive pros- pect. But its realisation will, unfortunately, take time ; meanwhile, Britain must continue to depend for an overwhelming proportion of her fuel and power upon her domestic coal resources.
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