The Gas Industry and Coal Conservation

Abstract

THE annual coal output of Great Britain is about 300 million tons, of which approximately 20 million tons are carbonised annually in gasworks for the production of towns' gas. The reserves of British coal within 4000 feet of the surface were estimated in 1915 at 197,000 million tons. In something like 600 years the coal measures of this country will be probably exhausted, and what then? The world's scramble for oil to-day indicates that a coal age will certainly not be succeeded by an oil age. Possibly we shall have learnt to tap atomic sources of energy, or perhaps the earth's internal heat may be available to us, after the manner suggested by Sir Charles Parsons.