(2) Coal is transported far more than is necessary. In most parts of the United States and other progressive countries nothing else passes over the railways so regularly in carload :lots and full train loads. The mere hauling of this coal probably consumes forty or fifty million tons of coal each year. Much of this is unnecessary. Often the coal from one field is carried almost to another, making its journey twice as long as would be necessary if the country were divided into zones and each were supplied from the nearest field. During the Great War the United States Fuel Administration saved 160,000,000 car-miles a year by a proper zoning system.
(3) Coal is used most wastefully. For example, nearly 60,000,000 tons of coke are produced in the United States each year. In 1917 about 1 half of this was prepared in old-fashioned beehive ovens which waste the by-products. How great this waste is may be judged from the fact that one ton of bituminous coal produces only 1440 pounds of coke, the remaining weight consisting of 10,000 cubic feet of gas, 22 pounds of ammonium sulphate, 21 gallons of crude benzol, and 9 gallons of tar. These are worth $14 for every dollar of value of the original coal at the mine, but are wasted because retort ovens are expensive and the demand for the by-products scarcely pays for the installation of retorts in place of the beehive type. If the by-products were used and if the solid part of the coal were made into artificial anthracite, which is technically possible although not yet done commercially, there would be not only a great saving in coal, but the soot and dust of our trains and cities would be greatly diminished.
A still greater waste of coal arises from the inefficiency of our steam engines. When ordinary coal is burned it gives up 70 to 80 per cent of energy to the steam in the boiler. With powdered coal or oil this re rises to 75-85. But the efficiency of the steam engine is so low at the work which it does amounts to only 5 per cent of the original ergy of the coal in many cases and only 15 or possibly 20 per cent under e very best circumstances.
Iri domestic use there is likewise an enormous waste of coal. Many people light their furnace fires when they need heat only an hour or two each day, and keep them going late in the spring. If they had artificial heat only when it is really needed, their health would be improved and millions of tons of coal would be saved. Again, every industrial plant uses large amounts of coal to keep up its fires nights and Sundays, even though no work is done. This seems unavoidable under our present system, but it helps to explain why so much coal is consumed with no adequate return in the form of power.
The waste of coal is so enormous that where one horse-power or its equivalent in heat is actually used, the consumption or waste of coal underground, on the railroads, and in the furnaces is estimated as enough to furnish at least twenty horse-power, and perhaps more.
Part of this waste is inevitable, although it may be much diminished when some method is devised whereby coal can be made to explode instead of burn with the consequent necessity of making steam and wasting much heat up the chimney. Nevertheless, it seems quite certain that careful methods of mining and transportation might cut the waste of coal in half. It would help toward this end if the coal business should cease to be competitive, and should be regulated for the purpose of wasting as little as possible and giving the best service to the public as well as a liberal return to investors.
Another highly important means of saving coal, and incidentally of making life cleaner and pleasanter, is by substituting a few great central power stations for the millions of little steam plants, locomo tives, and furnaces which now waste so much coal. Suppose there were a few great plants scattered at intervals of a hundred miles more or less along the Atlantic Coast from Portland to Baltimore and through the manufacturing districts of the interior in positions where the cost of transportation would be a minimum. ' Such plants would generate electricity with far less waste than at present. They could have inter locking circuits so that if one were temporarily out of commission the others could help it. They could be supplemented by water power so that all the available energy would be used at all times. Their loads could be foretold with almost absolute accuracy at any given hour so that they could always be fed just the right amount of coal. They would be subject to no violent fluctuations such as those which cause the furnaces of an ordinary factory to be supplying almost the mum amount of power at one moment and none at all a few minutes later after the closing whistle. Of course when work stops in the after noon, there must be a sudden drop in the demand for power in factories, but at that very hour the trolley lines and suburban railways require a maximum; a little later the demand for light requires much power; then the many freight trains which run at night make a considerable demand, while the charging of storage batteries for all sorts of pur poses, especially if it could be cheapened, would probably become much more frequent than at present, thus saving surplus power on a large scale. Just how much coal could be saved in this way cannot yet b© determined, but that the saving would be enormous, especially if the most, improved methods of consumption were utilized, cannot be doubt ed.