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.