property value for equipment that is actually used only a very short period out of each year. Every natural gas company must have considerable equipment that will be used not over four hours daily during say 30 of the coldest days of a year of normal temperature. The smallness of this is evident from the following: Total number hours in the year‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒ 24 × 365 8,760 = 100 per cent. Hours peak load equipment is actually

=

120 = 1.4 per cent.

200

190

180

CHARLESTON, WEST VA.

170

160

150

140

130

120

100

NATURAL GAS CONSUMED PER DOMESTIC CONSUMER PER ANNUM IN MCU.FT.

FIG. 13.-ANNUAL AVERAGE NATURAL GAS CONSUMPTION PER DOMESTIC CONSUMER.

Industrial loads ordinarily are very much more uniform than domestic loads. This is especially true of the carbon black industry in the field, where the load can be made uniform every day of the year. The relationship between maximum, minimum, and average load conditions is shown on page 37.

PEAK LOADS INCREASE COST OF SERVICE.

An increase of volume of business can decrease the cost of production only when the increment of increase is distributed so as to make

possible the more efficient use of existing equipment. When the increment of increase is concentrated so as to require more equipment, as is the case in all peak loads, the cost of production to the unit of service is increased. Therefore, the cost of peak load natural gas service is greater than the cost of normal service. A rate schedule, to be equitable to all consumers of natural gas, must make the consumers who need and create the peak load service, pay a price that will be commensurate with the extra cost of the service they are receiving.

House heating furnace services not only produce marked peaks each day, but the consumption is limited to relatively a short period out of each year. For this reason house heating furnace service costs more than ordinary gas service. This emphasizes the desirability of the use of auxiliary heating equipment, as outlined on page 38.

FIG. 14. RELATION OF MAXIMUM, AVERAGE, AND MINIMUM HOURLY NATURAL GAS LOADS.

These have been inadequate domestic price and policy of Government in fostering competition in the gas field.

During the domestic off-peak period-usually nine months of the year-about 60 per cent of the equipment of a gas company is not needed for domestic natural gas service. Under competitive conditions in the field the gas can not be conserved for future use, except by unity of action of all producing companies. As the Government has always fostered competition, and therefore waste, the inevitable result has been to stimulate low-priced industrial gas sales, because: 1. The companies needed the revenue to make up the deficit from their too low priced domestic gas service.

2. As no one company could save its gas, except by the prohibitive unity of action of all producers," each took all the gas it could get, as fast as it could get it out, thereby greatly depleting the supply for future service.

At the present time of all the gas produced in the United States, practically two-thirds is used in industrial service. The percentage of total State consumption that is used for industrial service, for several States, is shown on page 39.

FIG. 15.-TYPICAL HOURLY NATURAL GAS LOAD IN WINTER.

The pooling operating conditions referred to on pages 62 and 63 would greatly curtail this misuse of gas for industrial purposes.

PEAK LOAD CONDITIONS ANALOGOUS TO STRAP HANGER PROBLEM.

While it would be possible for a street car company to install and operate enough cars during the peak-load period to give everyone

a seat, yet the cost of so doing would make the general service cost much more than the additional advantages would be worth. Since the demand for seats may be four or five times as great during the rush hours as it is in the middle of the day, the only feasible way to deal with this situation is to admit the necessity of a different standard of service for rush and nonrush periods. Since the fare remains constant, it becomes necessary to provide relatively fewer cars, and therefore fewer available seats, for the rush period than for the nonrush travel.

INDUSTR

GAS
50%

INDUSTRIAL
GAS
72%

DOMESTIC GAS

DOMESTIC GAS

SEVENTEEN

OTHER STATES

100

-NEW YORK

INDIANA
KENTUCKY

70

60

-OHIO

--PENNSYLVANIA

T

59

TOTAL CONSUMPTION IN UNITED STATES = 100%

50

40

30

20

same fare, expect to have to put up with a somewhat less comfortable ride at that time. There is certainly little economic ground for an especially reduced fare for this service.1 This is precisely the situation with regard to natural gas pressures during the peak load period, with this further feature, that the natural gas peak load periods cover relatively only a few days of the year, as against the everyday situation on street car traffic. As long as natural gas prices for the higher costing peak load service remain the same, the consumer must therefore expect a lower standard of service during that period.

USE OF AUXILIARY HEATING APPLIANCES.

It is desirable in all cases where possible to have auxiliary heating equipment available for supplementing or entirely replacing for a short period natural gas for house-heating service, during the peak period of the load. Where gas furnaces are used, auxiliary oil burners can be installed in such fire pots, or auxiliary coal furnaces can be installed alongside the gas furnaces, where the coal furnace would discharge its heated air into the gas furnace shell.

FEW IMPROVEMENTS IN ART OF USING NATURAL GAS.

On account of the low prices that have prevailed, gas-appliance manufacturers have not been stimulated to the development of efficient gas-using equipment. There have been few improvements resulting in increased efficiency in the last 15 years. In testing househeating furnaces it has been found that:

1. The use of natural gas in the fire pot of a coal furnace gives an efficiency of about 25 per cent.

2. The use of natural gas in the ordinary gas furnace gives an efficiency of about 35 per cent.

3. The use of natural gas in a correctly designed and built gas furnace, where the construction conditions permit the fullest utilization of the heat in the gas, gives an efficiency of about 75 per cent.

In tests made by the Bureau of Standards, it was found that the ordinary incandescent mantle lamp where used with natural gas wasted nearly half of the possible heat that could be used if such lamps were designed for as efficient operation on the high heating value natural gas as they give on the low heating value manufactured gas.

In tests made by the department of home economics, Ohio State University, the efficiencies of a natural gas range varied from 37 per cent with 0.2 of an ounce pressure down to 13 per cent at 4-ounce pressure,1 while with a manufactured gas range, using natural gas, the efficiencies varied from 43 per cent at 0.2 ounce pressure to 23 per cent at one-ounce pressure.

COOKING AND HEATING DISTINGUISHED.

In a heating operation it is merely necessary to secure perfect combustion in the heating device, because in so doing all of the available heat in the gas can be utilized. In cooking it is not only desirable to secure a perfect combustion, but absolutely necessary to direct the heat to a particular place, in a particular manner, and sometimes at a particular time. It is for this reason that gas-cooking operations are

1 Ohio State University Bulletin, vol. 22, No. 28, May, 1918: Effect of Gas Pressure on Natural Gas Cooking Operations in the Home.