Utah. Numerous companies have been incorporated and some reliminary plants have started building. The whole matter, hower, has been retarded by the uncertain status of the land laws, as well by a general feeling of uneasiness as to the attitude of the current blic-land policy toward any but a meager-scale type of developent. It is evident, however, on the basis of geological occurrence experience abroad that a shale-oil industry can come into effec reaction only as a large-scale engineering procedure, accumulating profit from a narrow margin made significant by the magnitude operations. The production of oil from shale, involving ordimining operations and a large distillation plant, partakes not of the nature of small-unit "wildcat" drilling by means of h the petroleum fields are developed.

Te may pause for a moment, by way of parenthesis, to contemplate eventual prospect of a great oil industry in the Rocky Mountains. missing two, if not more, of the four products upon which the food y of the future turns. And if we recall that northwest of the e areas lie the richest beds of phosphate rock in the world, with cer power and the acid fumes of great smelters as forces of extre

may not be altogether unreasonable to foresee a developme food-production industry occupying the great plains that stretch ward from the Rocky Mountains and energized by the applica of mechanical tillage and chemical fertilization upon a scale for the past presents no parallel. Lest such a picture be re red as too fanciful. it may be recalled that the United States Gro pal Survey has recently announced the discovery in Montana uf phatic oil shales carrying a phosphoric acid content up to 25 per It has combining in a single resource three of the four food essen s gasoline, nitrogen, and phosphorus, lacking only potassium

These are direct reasons, but more fundamental fubluiting facture gis illuster #ta e situation as explained on page 71.

heoctist shade-of industry became successful quig efter † volat Gong to a dem efficient companies. The budding industry in Colorado would we traplega 27 auitra-ly hampered, of skipping tuis inefficient stage and a tu as tow 14 over a developed technology short of its obsolescent feature, 22 part in Colorado capable of handling 1.000 tons of suc ca avut cur * 2.000.000 and $2.000.000, but a unit of this size would we want

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and even potassium is reported to be present in small amount in the Colorado shale.

While the most conspicuous oil-shale areas recorded in this country are in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, with the most immediate interest centering around those of Colorado and Utah, other oil shales are found in Nevada,1 California, Montana, Arizona, Oregon and in many of the central and eastern States-aggregating an immense area and representing a potential source of oil sufficient to supply this country hundreds of years. Of course it is evident that much of this shale has a prospective interest merely; but there are certain beds overlying shallow coal seams, which offer themselves as productive possibilities even under present conditions, as the shale is a waste product to be removed anyhow in connection with the opencut mining methods coming into vogue for close-to-the-surface coal seams. Thus, it is not impossible that coal-mining in the central and eastern part of the country, within a very few years, may support a budding shale-oil production, coming in, along with the output of the western shale-oil industry, to offset the decline in petroleum yield. Still other possibilities open up in connection with the production of oil, gas, and by-products from cannel coals; the whole matter in this wise passing over into the realm of by-product coal utilization, whose possibilities have been developed in an earlier paper of this series. It becomes apparent, then, that coal and oil are not merely rivals, but are brothers in a common purpose-the production of energy and chemical products.

The presence in this country of extensive deposits of oil shale removes the danger of early physical exhaustion in respect to oil, but it does not necessarily insure a deferment of the period of economic exhaustion which is being prematurely rushed into the present by the

1 Experimental plants are being erected in both California and Nevada.

2 The eastern shale areas are described by George H. Ashley (Oil resources of black shales of the eastern United States: Bulletin 641-L, United States Geological Survey, 1917), who provisionally estimates that southwest Indiana alone is underlain by shale sufficient to produce 100,000,000,000 barrels of oil, over fourteen times the present petroleum reserve.

Ashley estimates that under present conditions a barrel of crude oil produced from eastern shale of average quality will cost about $4.20, little more than such an oil would be worth at present, barring by-product possibilities not possessed by its rival, petroleum. This whole matter of by-product development is of profound significance to the future of the Nation, to a degree, indeed, difficult of appreciation by anyone who has not focussed on the germs contained in the prospect. The possibilities of a shale-oil industry enmeshed with coal production affords promise to the already overdue arrival of a significant output of coal-pyrite, a product wasted in coal production, but needed for the manufacture of sulphuric acid. (See J. E. Pogue, Recovery of sulphur in Illinois coals Met. and Chem. Eng., November, 1917, pp. 584-585.) That sulphuric acid is needed both in the recovery of ammonia from oil shale and in the refining of the shale oil itself is merely one example of how thoroughly by-product activities dovetail.

5 See George H. Ashley, Cannel coals of the United States, Bulletin 659, United States Geological Survey, 1918.

• Bulletin 102, part 4, Coal: The resource and its full utilization.

current wasteful use of the limited petroleum resource. For that purpose an effective and adequate development of oil shale must start somewhat in advance of the wave of need that would normally dictate the launching of this leaner resource. That wave is already definitely in sight; the question is merely whether we will wait until it breaks or now prepare for the force of the impact so as to ease it off. It need scarcely be emphasized that any action directed toward the tying up of the oil-shale reserves, pending a determination of policy regarding their disposition, would be disastrous. The American public is probably sufficiently aware of the irretrievable harm wrought by this course of action in regard to certain other less vital resources, under the influence of the wave of so-called conservation that swept over the country a decade ago, to countenance a repetition of such temporizing action.

DEVELOPMENT OF SUBSTITUTES.

Even with the most efficient use of the remaining supply of petroleum, and an appropriate development of shale oil in prospect, the petroleum situation can be additionally improved by a progressive utilization of substitutes for gasoline and fuel oil, so as to give better economic balance by relieving the products upon which fall the heaviest demands. Two substances, benzol and alcohol, are suitable for helping gasoline, and offer the advantage of a record of successful use in motor engines in Europe prior to the war, and of a marked extension of utilization there under the rigorous conditions of the present conflict, while coal and hydroelectricity may be brought to the aid of fuel oil.1

Benzol is a light liquid, somewhat similar to gasoline in character, obtained at present from the by-product coke oven. The production of benzol in the United States is at present small, owing to the fact that only about a twelfth of the bituminous coal mined is treated for the recovery of by-products. The full utilization of benzol therefore must go hand in hand with the development of methods, as outlined in a previous paper of this series,2 whereby coal will be made to yield a complete measure of usefulness; indeed, the proper utilization of coal demands a market for benzol as a motor fuel, while the proper shaping of the petroleum resource permits and needs the coming in of benzol as an alternate for gasoline. Thus once more appears an example of how closely the various elements of the fuel situation are connected.

1 Recent work on castor oil production gives some indication that this organic product may come to be a significant source of motor fuel.

Coal: The resource and its full utilization, Bulletin 102, part 4, this series. especially pp. 10-13.

See

2

The total capacity toward benzol production possessed by the coal annually produced in the United States is upward of 1,000,000,000 gallons, which in terms of gasoline represents about one-half of our annual consumption of the latter. Compared with gasoline, benzol yields better efficiency in the internal combustion engine, but presents a slight disadvantage in respect to use in cold weather. It may be used successfully in the ordinary gasoline motor by admitting a little more air than is customary for gasoline, or by mixing with gasoline. Alcohol is familiar to everyone and as a fuel offers the advantage that it can be made from organic products which reproduce themselves from year to year and include vast quantities of materials that ordinarily go to waste. Unlike the mineral fuels, therefore, it does not constitute a drain upon a reserve fixed in quantity. The difference in effectiveness for motor use between alcohol and gasoline is slight; for whereas gasoline yields a trifle more power to the gallon and is easier "starting from the cold," alcohol is safer, cleaner, and more pleasant as to exhaust odors. The capacity of this country in respect to alcohol production can not be closely stated, but if the output of alcoholic beverages is any criterion, existing distilleries upon conversion could at once produce fuel alcohol to the extent of millions of gallons, whereas the substitution of waste products for grain would effect a great economy over the cost of denatured alcohol as made at present. If, in addition, the perplexing legal difficulties that now hedge in such a development could be circumvented, the use of individual manufactories on farms could readily furnish a perpetual supply of motor fuel at little cost, where a cheap motor fuel would have its most far-reaching social effect by tending to lower the cost of food.*

Artificial gas made from coal offers a convenient substitute for gasoline in certain types of stationary internal-combustion engines, while the suction producer plant, with its adaptability to the em

1 On the basis of a yield of 2 gallons to the ton of coal.

2 Alcohol can be made from starches, sugars, wood waste, sulphite liquors from paper manufacture, peat, cornstalks, etc. Its cost in Germany several years ago was as low as 25 cents a gallon; in England, 33 cents a gallon-prices comparing favorably with the present cost of gasoline in the United States. Rittman estimates on a prewar basis that alcohol would become a commercial fuel in the United States when gasoline exceeded 35 cents a gallon. (Journ. Ind. and Eng. Chem., May, 1917, pp. 528-530.)

It is worthy of note that the consumption of alcoholic beverages and of gasoline during 1916 in the United States was approximately equal; each close to 2,000,000,000 gallons, equivalent to a per capita consumption of about 20 gallons.

Tropical countries will find fuel alcohol very economical because of the practically unlimited supply of raw material available for its manufacture and the decided advantages of its use over gasoline in very hot climates. The Tropics, with their rank growth of vegetation, offer the most available energy source in sight, after coal, water power, and oil; and hence may eventually take on a much greater importance in this respect than they new possess in all other respects. Their capacity for producing fuel alcohol and food offer an interesting prospect to resource pessimists. The extraction of castor oil from the castor bean and stalk also presents a promising prospect, as several barrels of oil can be obtained per acre and the oil can be made into motor fuel and lubricants.