Checking the Waste: A Study in Conservation

by Mary Huston Gregory

Peat is being used in many ways. (1) Air-dried peat is used for fuel only. (2) Dry peat without a binder, or mixed with coal dust and tar or pitch is used for the same purpose. (3) Machine peat is used for many purposes, among them making into briquettes, peat charcoal, and peat coke.

It has been found practical to make illuminating gas of peat, but a far more general use is for running gas-engines and producer-gas furnaces. This is a practical use for it, since it will conserve the coal now used for that purpose, furnish satisfactory power without smoke or dirt, provide cheap power in regions that have no coal mines, and lastly may be made to yield valuable by-products: ammonia, acetic acid, paraffin, tar, creosote, and wood-alcohol. If all the peat in the United States could be used in producer-gas engines the ammonia yielded would alone have a value of $36,000,000,000.

Peat is also used for packing material, as a fertilizer, for manufacturing paper, for coarse cloth and mattress filling. By mixing wet machine peat with cement it may be made into blocks for paving and other construction work. The most promising uses are for fuel, as bedding for stock, as a disinfectant, in briquettes for burning lime, brick, and pottery, in which it is finding a large use, and for which it is said to be particularly well fitted; and most satisfactory of all, its use in gas-producer engines. In Florida an immense plant is being built to manufacture electric power, using air-dried peat as fuel, the power to be transmitted to Jacksonville.

Machine peat is supposed to have sixty-five per cent. the value of the same weight of Pocahontas coal, but on account of the lack of waste in peat its real value is higher than would appear from the comparison. From two to two and a half pounds will produce one horse-power per hour in gas-producer engines. By this estimate, we can see that the peat beds of this country, if properly used, may be largely employed, either now or in the future, as a substitute for the vanishing coal.

NATURAL GAS

Of all the fuels, natural gas may be said to be the ideal one. Coming from the ground, it is piped a greater or less distance and distributed to the home or factory for light, heat, or power; for all of which it is equally desirable. It is ready for our use at the turn of a key, is absolutely clean, having neither dust, ash, nor unconsumed portions. It requires no kindling other than a lighted match.

Natural gas is found over an area which, if combined, would cover almost 10,000 square miles. It exists in twenty-two states—Alabama, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New York, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming. In some of them the area has been large and the production very heavy, in others the field is small and unproductive. Until the last two or three years there have been no statistics as to the quantity of gas piped, but an account of its value has been kept for many years. For the twenty years beginning with 1888 the value is given at nearly $500,000,000.

It must be remembered that much of this represents extremely low prices, only the amount actually paid for its use. When gas is newly discovered in a region it is not considered an opportunity for the residents of the community to have cheap light, power and fuel for themselves, but instead as an opportunity to develop the country, to increase the population and attract new factories. In order to advertise and boom their communities free gas is usually offered to factories. So in dozens of instances large factories have been operated for years without a cent having been paid for fuel. For this reason no proper estimate can be made of the quantity of gas consumed, nor of its value even at a nominal price. In 1907, (the last year for which complete returns have been published in government reports) the amount of gas consumed was given at 404,000,000 cubic feet, which at present prices is valued at $63,000,000.

It is impossible to determine in any way the future production of natural gas, or to guess at the quantity remaining in the earth. It may be much less or much more than present conditions would indicate; but the present known fields are limited, and the pressure is growing steadily less in all of them.

The Conservation Commission reports, "It is safe to predict that the known fields will be exhausted in twenty-five years." The decrease of natural gas is strikingly illustrated in Indiana. This state, perhaps more than any other, profited directly by the discovery of its natural gas about twenty years ago. Here, the mineral maps show, is by far the greatest natural gas region in the United States. With the discovery of natural gas, established towns grew to ten times their former size and new ones sprang up everywhere. Indiana, which had been chiefly an agricultural state, bade fair to become one of the foremost manufacturing states on account of its cheap and abundant fuel. In 1902 Indiana produced nearly $8,000,000 worth of natural gas, but for 1908 the State Geologist's report contained no figures for this product. It had ceased to be a prominent factor in the wealth of the state! There is no resource that has been so shamefully, so hopelessly wasted as our natural gas.