Petroleum and its Prospects
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MANY apparently wild statements and claims ate being made concerning the employment of atomic energy for various 'purposes, including the driving of railway locomotives and motor vehicles. Last week there were reports in some of the newspapers that one technician was so optimistic as to believe that, employing mercury as the source of the atomic energy and using this in a special form of turbine, he Would be able to get matters going in the course of something like a year. Presumably, this source of power is not expected to have such a violent action as that which occurs when uranium is used.
Whether his scheme be practicable or not, we do not believe that the producers and purveyors of petroleum supplies are likely to begin to worry greatly for a considerable period regarding such activities. There is also the point that efforts in this direction may be placed under some strict form of supervisory control—and very rightly, too. We do not relish •the idea of all sorts of experimenters risking the blowing up of the world or parts of it.
Apart from any effect upon the petroleum industry, consideration must also be 'given to the position of coal. It would be what we may term humor , ously tragic if the coal mines were to be nationalized, and then coal became unnecessary as a source of heat and power, remaining useful only by reason of its numerous by-products. This would solve with a vengeance the problem of employment in the mines, although not in a manner which the miners or the Nation might appreciate.
Great" Progress With High Octane ln the meantime, considerable progress appears to be occurring with the production and use of petroleum. Huge plants and great storage capacity for oil have been erected in Britain, mainly in connection with the processing of petroleum products in the course of the manufacture of highoctane fuels for aircraft, although some of such fuel is obtained from benzole, which is derived from coal. Fuels with an octane number considerably over 100 have been made possible, but it is extremely doubtful if these, or even the 100 octane, oold ever he employed -in the -engines Of commercial vehicles. America has gone rather to the other extreme, and at least for some time to come fuels of • any Years comparatively low octane number are the only qualities likely to be obtainable in large quantities, at reasonable prices for road-transport purposes, Some little time agoit seemed possible that the designers of our commercial-vehicle power units might have been faced with the competition of super-power engines and therefore, with the need -for extensive modification 411 design, but the news which we gave recently, that the U.S.A. had virtually ceased research in connection with the petrol engine, has, for the present, rendered such work almost unnecessary.
Many Years Before Supply Fails All the old ideas regarding the fairly rapid exhaustion of the world's oil supplies have been virtually dissipated. It would seem that for many years the supply will considerably exceed the demand, even if the latter increases greatly, as would appear possible—in fact, almost certain.
Oil in fair quantities has already been tapped in Britain, and there may be further possibilities in connection with our home sources of supply. Reserves in the U.S.A. have, according to recent figures, been augmented instead of reduced, and . there was a gain of 389,000,000 barrels last year. During that year, also, the-production figure was, roughly, 1,680,000,000 barrels, whilst the total available there • was estimated to be over 20,000,000,000 barrels.
At the moment the U.S.A. is supplying some 65 per cent, of the world's requirements, but other countries are coming more prominently into the picture. Columbia, for example, had a monthly production early this year of over 1,750,000 barrels, and of 1,492 wells drilled since 1907, no fewer than 1,314 were fruitful. In one field alone, 25 wells out of the 26 drilled gave golbd results. Drilling is now going far deeper. This factor alone' may exercise an important influence upon supplies. The latest well in Texas has beaten oy 400 ft. the previous record depth of 16,246 ft. ' When one 'considers that this is over three • miles, th e acliievernentappears •evenmore remarkable -The-drill pipe alone weighed over 45 tons. In conclusion, we have little doubt that oil will, for many years, remain, in its many' forms, the staple fuel for motor vehicles, although it is consoling to be able to visualize that when, eventually, its sources dry up, another form of power may have progressed sufficiently to take its place. As we and others have pointed out recently, there may be interesting developments in other directions, such as in the field of electrical power, but they would probably be gradual.
Possibilities of High-frequency Heating THE potentialities of high-frequency current as an industrial tool have been known for many years. The heating effects which may be transmitted through space by such currents at periodicities between 400 and 1,000,000 cycles per second were first demonstrated by Tesla within the first decade of this century. By about 1925, highfrequency furnaces ror the melting of metal were in fairly common use,' and some idea had, been gained of the methods by which such appliances could be controlled. It is not our intention, here,' to enter deeply into the theory of this technique, but, fully to appreciate its possibilities to-day, it is necessary to understand that, amongst factors of prime importanee are, first of all, the relationship between the applied frequency and the distance through which the field produced may profitably be utilized, -and, secondly, the reaction of true electrical conductors and virtual non-conductors when placed in this field. Metals and semi-conductors may be heated to extraordinarily high temperatures and with astonishing rapidity, the heating effects being due te what may be termed the ,short-circuit effect of eddy currents. According to the frequency of the applied field, so will these currents fend to be located at a greater or less distance from the outside of the mass being heated; the higher the frequency the more pronounced will be the skin effect, so we find that one of the more recent applications of high-frequency heating in the sphere of commercial-motor-engine construction is in connection with the surface hardening of gears and other parts subjected to abrasive stresses. This application is some 10 years old now, but the public has had little chance of seeing the theory put into practice until this week, at an exhibition staged by a concern specializing in this branch of technology, when an opportunity is presented for seeing how exactly it all works. The use of high frequency for the curing of rubber and plastics employs a somewhat different quality, the heating effects being produced in this case not so much by the generation of eddy currents, but rather through the medium of powerfactor disturbances, which occur when virtual nonconductors are interposed between the opposing electrodes of a high-frequency source. In general, extremely high periodicities are required to effect the necessary temperature rise. The lower the dielectric losses in the mass being treated, the higher, in general, must be the applied frequency and, as a result of this, the more limited in space its influence. It is in this field that the greatest advances have been made in recent years. , Again, for the first time, at the exhibition to which we have referred, plant may be seen in operation, carrying out curing and welding processes on plastics on a commercial scale. From the economic standpoint, rapidity otheating and the ability to pin-point the spot where heating is required are prime advantages of this system, for, assessed on the basis of pure thermal efficiency, high-frequency heating would, at first sight, seem to be quite uneconomic in operation and to demand relatively expensive equipment. But, as so often proves the case in these days of -high production, time saved is money saved. The curing of tyres, the forging and heat treatment of resistant steels for valves, and the form-s ing of plastic laminates for bodywork, these represent but a few of the applications of modern highfrequency technique which, in the very near future, are likely to prove of great benefit both to the motor manufacturer and to the user,