ILLIMITABLE FUEL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3777, 12 March 1913, Page 7

ILLIMITABLE FUEL.

ALCOHOL MAY MAKE SUN’S ENERGY AVAILABLE FOR POWER.

When in the near future we found ourselves face to face with the problem of what fuel to adopt we should find that there is only one illimitable fuel, and that comes from the sun’s energy, said Professor Vivian B. Lewes, lecturing on “Liquid Fuel” at the Royal Society of Arts, Adelphi. There was only one way to regenerate the sun’s energy to make it available for power, and that was bv alcohol. In vegetation we could find the energy absorbed by the plant from the sun. That energy could never be regenerated as coal or oil, but as alcohol. At present this was practically out of the question. Within the last few years petrol products, it had been shown, were an absolute necessity to modern civilisation. The day would undoubtedly come when the supply would give out but it was not yet.

As to the origin of petrol, Professor Bewes said that, in his opinion this was nminly from deposits of marine vegetation. The distribution of petroleum was far wider than at first imagined. 1 races of it had been found even at Willesden, while the old oilfields were becoming exhausted. If geologists would only trace out where were once .the shores of the big oceans they would find areas which would probably promise best for the • finding or crude oil.