NOTES ON FUEL AND POWER SOURCES

The physicists have shown that heat can be converted into work, or heating power to mechanical power, so here both these manifestations of power are treated together.

The main sources of power in use today are coal and oil. They are removed from the bowels of the earth, refined somewhat and then transported to the engines that they are to hive. They suit the needs of a trading world cry adequately for they can be used in any size of engine, from the small internal combustion types in motor cars to the turbines used in large powered plants, and even more important, these machines can run for 24 hours each day if necessary.

To these the possibility of atomic or nuclear power has now been added. A superficial analysis indicates that this is an entirely new eyre of power source, and so some people have rashly called the use of atomic power another industrial revolution. But this is a fallacious ie -. The source of the energy is the transmutation of the atoms of the substance. In burning coal or oil the atomic structure is unaltered, while the atoms are rearranged and the molecular structure is changed. But it is not the physical nature of the energy that causes industrial revolutions—it is the human uses of the energy or power that is important. The atoms of uranium to be transmuted must be mined, refined somewhat, and then transported to the power house (in this case an atomic pile). The atomic energy released can be transformed into electricity or heat, or even “canned " into an atom bomb, as oil can be " canned " into an oil bomb.

Thus we see that the human uses of atomic power, are as yet, no different from those of molecular power. In fact the basic power source of capitalism must be mineral, for only a that way will the " Iron Master " obtain an obedient slave. Even vegetables have their seasons.

POTENTIALITIES OF FUELS—

Oil is mined bv machinery at the moment.

and any changes in these methods in the future will be refinements, not fundamental changes in the method of production.

Coal is at present mined in three main ways. In the crude direct method a human being works at the coal face with a tool (in this case a pick) and animals (in England pit ponies) carry or pull the coal to the surface, or, in the case of a surface working, to the washery. Usually, in a mechanised mine the collier uses a machine to cut the coal, and haulers, trains and pit cages carry it to the washery. An interesting hydro-mechanical method was tried out in 1937 at Sverdlovsk (U.S.S.R.). In this method the coal is smashed up and carried away by high-pressure jets of water directed at the coal-face. The water not only wins the coal, but also transports it in troughs and the smaller particles are even pumped to the surface in the water. It was estimated that the method increased the productivity of labour three-fold and cut the production costs by a half. By 1940 it was being applied in several other mines. The underground gasification method is a completely automatic method of mining coal. Lil-iey describes it as follows:

" It eliminates mining altogether and turns the coal seam into an underground gasworks. Air or steam or a combination or alternation of the two is pumped down one shaft to the burning coal seam and up another comes the gas, which can be varied in composition at will. . . . The method shows several advantages over mining, at least for some types of seams. It abolishes the dangers of underground work. It extracts 80-90 per cent of the coal, as against 60 per cent by mining methods. It makes economical the exploitation of seams which are too thin and of too low quality for ordinary methods. Although the method is still in its infancy, it is claimed that it has already reduced the cost of power production from coal to one-third of the usual. The gas which emerges is used for electric power generation

and as the basis for synthetic chemical industries, besides being distributed to consumers in the same way as ordinary town gas."

—P. 154, " Men, Machines and History." Cobbett Press (1948) In 1949 the Ministry of Fuel and Power began large-scale trials on the underground gasification method at Newman Spinney near Chesterfield, and followed this up by starting further trials at Bayton in Worcestershire last year. Here shallow coal seams are utilised and the gas is used to drive electric power-producing turbines at the pithead. It has also been suggested that coal could be turned directly into electric power underground, by constructing a Coal-Cell in the seam. The coal would then produce an electric current, just as a simple dry battery used in pocket torches does, and this current would be brought to the surface by a cable. In principle, at any rate, this is simplicity itself.

Atomic power, in contrast to the other two, is as yet primarily a war weapon. Besides the uranium and plutonium bombs of the last war, we are told that Hell bombs, atomic artillery, submarines and rockets are being developed. Incidently, some heat is being produced in the atomic piles in use today, and this could be used for central heating, or converted into electric power. However, as far as simple, useful power is concerned Sir John Cockcroft, the director of the atomic research establishment at Harwell, has stated that:

" We can be fairly certain that there will be no large-scale development in the next decade, and it is unlikely that any appreciable part of world power will come from nuclear sources in the following decade, though there may well be special applications of importance." —P. 95, " Atomic Energy " (Penguin Books).

1950 ROBERTUS.