A Smokeless London

Abstract

IT is not very improbable that we shall in a few years be indebted to the electric light for our source of nightly illumination. Before such an eventuality it would be interesting to know if there are any serious objections to employing hydrogen gas as our heating agent. Smokeless and innocuous in combustion, it would relieve us from many ills under which we labour now. When it was tried—after impregnation with a hydrocarbon—as a lighting agent (at Chichester, I believe) some years ago, it was found wanting, but there was no difficulty, I think, experienced in producing it cheaply from the decomposition of water and in sending it through the mains. No notice, I believe, has been directed to this at the Smoke Abatement Exhibition. Will you kindly raise the issue, and let us know the advantage or disadvantage of the project?