In foreign countries the same principle holds true. In few other regions is there such an enormous supply of water power so easily available as among the Himalayas, while the gentle topography of England causes its water power to be very slight. Yet the Himalayas and neighboring parts of northern India have no extensive manu facturing, while England was busily harnessing its water power a thousand years ago. Again Portugal has splendid water, power and might almost rival Switzerland in its use for manufacturing. Den mark, on the contrary, has almost none. But Denmark's manufac tures now, and for decades, have far exceeded those of Portugal.
The Problems of Power.—(1) A Substitute for Petroleum.—The enormous development of manufacturing and transportation during the past century makes the problems of power peculiarly important. Four of the chief problems are (1) the production of cheap and efficient substitutes for petroleum; (2) the more effective utilization of water power; (3) the more economical utilization of coal; and (4) the dis covery of new ways of procuring power cheaply and permanently.
These are arranged in the order of their immediate urgency. All must be solved within a few generations if progress along present lines is to continue.
The petroleum problem must be solved at once or grave consequences will follow. The gravity of the situation depends on two factors: (a) the enormous increase in the use of petroleum and (b) the extreme limitation of the petroleum supply. The increased use of petroleum may be judged from the following figures showing the net increase in the number of automobiles registered in the United States. The actual number was less because some cars were registered in one state and then sold and registered in another state, while some were destroyed.
The use of petroleum in ships and airplanes and for many other purposes is also increasing rapidly. In fact the convenience of petroleum leads to inadvisable though convenient practices, such as its use for heating buildings.
The facts as to the supply of petroleum demand even more attention than those as to its use. Here is the production per decade in the United States and the percentages of increase over the preceding decade: Since 1861, which was the beginning of important production, the United States, which furnishes two-thirds of the world's supply, has produced 6,000,000,000 barrels, or about 50 per person for the prdsent population. In 1920 the geologists estimated that the known reserves of oil underground amounted to only about 80 or 90 barrels per person. Since we are now using six barrels per person each year, the visible supply will scarcely last till 1940, even though the use does not greatly increase. New discoveries may prolong this period, improved methods of pumping and handling the oil will also help, supplies can be procured from other countries, and oil shales such as those of Colorado can be worked, but even with the fullest allowance for all these factors, unless drastic measures of conservation are taken, it seems almost certain that by 1950, when many readers of this book are at the height of their careers, the world's supply of petroleum will be reduced to small pro portions. Even now the general upward trend of prices is alarmingly
rapid. In view of these facts the use of oil in ships and locomotives, for example, is a penny-wise, pound-foolish policy. It pays the oil producers; but in the long run it harms the country and does irreparable damage to future generations.
Among the common uses of petroleum there are two where substi tutes should be employed at once, (1) for automobiles and other explo sion engines, and (2) for lighting and cooking in homes. Wood alcohol serves almost as well as gasoline in explosion engines. If it were manufactured on a large scale, automobiles could easily be adjusted to use it. In fact it is actually used in France and also in Cuba where it is made chiefly from " blackstrap " molasses, an end product of sugar making. Great fortunes will probably soon be made by installing alcohol plants on so large a scale that the product can be sold every where in competition with gasoline. But the production of wood alcohol involves difficult problems of transportation, and threatens further inroads on our depleted forests. Nevertheless, alcohol can be made from many kinds of vegetation which now go to waste or are uneconomically burned,—the stalks of cotton plants, the bagasse or fiber left after sugar cane has been pressed, and especially the stems of such rapidly growing tropical plants as the banana, and certain species of Filipino bamboos which in a single season may attain a height of 60 to 80 feet. Areas of small wild bamboo with an average growth of 43 feet the first season are estimated to yield enough material to make 280 gallons of alcohol per acre. At this rate an area of about 130,000 square miles which is somewhat more than the area of the Philippines and nearly that of Montana, would yield 71 billion gallons of alcohol, the estimated equivalent of the present annual consumption of 5 billion gallons of gasoline in the United States. Perhaps one of the next great types of tropical plantations will be devoted to raising rapidly growing plants along river banks for alcohol. 1 To the dweller in the cities.of advanced countries, the use of petro leum products for lighting and cooking seems of small importance. To country people, however, and even to the city people in large parts of the world, kerosene is one of the great necessities. Five-gallon rectangular tins, packed in pairs in wooden boxes, are shipped all over the world by the Standard Oil Company and other dealers. Hundreds of thousands of empty tins, made into buckets by inserting a solid wooden handle, testify to the enormous use of kerosene. This is not, necessary, for wood alcohol might be shipped everywhere for the same purposes, and water power and coal might also be used. So long as gasoline is used for motive power, the use of kerosene for lighting is merely a means of utilizing what might otherwise be in part a waste product. But when petroleum becomes chiefly a source of lubricants, the kerosene supply will be much diminished and a substitute will be needed.