Producer gas

“ The fuels for gas-lighting are natural gas, carbureted water-gas, and coal-gas obtained by distilling coal, but there are different methods of producing the artificial gases. Coal-gas is produced analytically by distilling certain kinds of coal, but water-gas and producer-gas are made synthetically by the action of several constituents upon one another. Carbureted water-gas is made from fixed carbon, steam, and oil and also from steam and oil. Producer-gas is made by the action of steam or air or both upon fixed carbon. ”

“ Many of those present know that I am as ready to totally condemn gaseous fuel where it does not pay as to advise its use where some advantage is to be gained. You will understand that my remarks apply to coal gas only. As to producer or furnace gases, I know practically nothing, except that sometimes it pays better to burn your candle as a candle than make it into gas, and burn it as a gas afterward. The use of producer gas no doubt pays on a large scale; and things on a large scale, so far as gas is concerned, are not matters with which I have time to concern myself. ”

“ Practically every shipment out of several hundred tested in the gas producers, including coals as high in ash content as 45%, and lignites and peats high in moisture, has been successfully converted into producer gas which has been used in operating gas engines. ”

“ Mixed gas is generated in apparatus arranged so that the retort is kept at a high temperature, thereby producing a gas richer in hydrogen than that made by producers. It should be observed that in practice the generators at present used yield a producer-gas, the calorific value of which fluctuates between 1,000 and 1,400 calories per cubic meter (3,968 to 5,158 B.T.U. per 35.31 cubic feet) ; and the composition varies accordingly, in the manner that has already been indicated in the tables for producer-gas and mixed gas. ”

“ In producing the gas and steam for these engines only twenty-two tons of coal per hour are consumed, which speaks well for the efficiency of the engines. In addition to the steam, the daily consumption of producer gas for power purpose only is 28,512,000 cubic feet. Added to this figure for power gas, is another item of gas used in the factory for various purposes, which averages nearly 1,000,000 cubic feet per day, bringing the per diem consumption of gas by the company up to 29,512,000 cubic feet. ”

“ At this point let us note how a gas, suitable for an engine, is manufactured at least cost, the outlay being much less than in the case of illuminating gas which represents but one third of the coal placed in the distilling retorts. Instead of this process of distillation, “producer” gas is due to a modified combustion which gasifies all the fuel. In a producer of standard type, atmospheric oxygen comes into contact with the glowing carbon of the coal or wood, forming carbon dioxide, CO2. The heat generated by this union is taken up by the carbon dioxide and the nitrogen of the supplied air. ”

“ Native coals in all probability will be sufficiently good to make gas of. One portion of the plant will be devoted to the dynamos and engines for furnishing the electric light. Where the coal gas benches now are will be boilers, or perhaps even these will be unnecessary if gas engines be used. If steam boilers be used, they will be fired with producer gas, and the holders will become simply pressure regulators. The revenues of gas companies will be increased fivefold, if not more; the consumer will get cheaper fuel, cheaper power, and cheaper light. ”

“ One estimable feature in this system of gas-producing is that the production can be arrested for half a day without deranging the producer, the fuel and brickwork being sufficiently bulky to maintain a dull red heat for that period. Air cannot enter the grate unless the gases given off in the producer are withdrawn to the furnace; and when the gas valve of the furnace is reopened, the production of the gases is once more continued. ”

“ Gas for Fuel and Power—The first gas-producers, which were built by Faber du Faur at Wasseralfingen in 1836 and by C. G. C. Bischof at Mägdesprung (both in Germany) , consisted of simple perpendicular shafts of masonry contracted at the top and the bottom, with or without a grate for the coal. Such producers, frequently strengthened by a wrought iron casing, are even now used to a great extent. Sometimes the purpose of a gas-producer is attained in a very simple manner by lowering the grate of an ordinary fireplace so much that a layer of coal 4 or 5 ft. deep is maintained in the fire. ”

“ Petroleum as a Fuel and Gas-Producer.—The use of gasolene in gas-machines is well known, and sometimes naphtha has been used to enrich coal-gas, by decomposing its vapor at a cherry-red heat, so as to produce a gas rich in heavy hydrocarbons, which is mixed with the coal-gas. Crude petroleum has also been conducted continuously into red-hot cast-iron retorts, whereby it is decomposed and rich gas formed. ”

“ But in an ordinary gas retort the heat required to distill the gas is furnished by an outside fire; this is only necessary when you require lighting gas, with no admixture of carbonic acid and as little carbonic oxide as possible. If you wish for heating gas, you need no outside fire; a small fire at the bottom of a mass of coal will serve to distill it, and you will have most of the carbon also converted into gas. Here, for instance, is Siemens' gas producer. The mass of coal is burning at the bottom, with a very limited supply of air. ”

“ The content of gasoline in wet gas varies from one-half gallon to six gallons a thousand cubic feet of gas produced, depending upon its richness. Respondent's contracts provided, generally, that it should install and maintain the necessary pipe lines and connections from casing-heads or traps at the mouth of the well to its plant, through which the producer agreed to deliver the natural gas produced at the well and that respondent should extract the gasoline therefrom, respondent to pay the producer 33 1/3 per cent. ”

“ Great, however, as the economic results of the gas-producer have been, its inventor looked forward to still more remarkable applications of it. In 1882 he told the British Association, in his presidential address, that he thought103 “the time is not far distant when both rich and poor will largely resort to gas as the most convenient, the cleanest, and the cheapest of heating agents, and when raw coal will be seen only at the colliery or the gas-works. ”

“ It is not as oil and candle are, a benefit which every one may obtain who is in need of it, and in such quantities as may best suit his means and convenience. One of the capital advantages, of the gas metre, however, is, that it makes gas a substitute for oil and candles, applicable under all circumstances, and that it enables the manufacturer without the least prejudice or chance of prejudice to his interest, to supply gas [212] in whatever quantities it may be demanded, and at a fair proportioned price. ”

“ In short, the advantages of natural gas as a fuel are so obvious to those who have given it a trial, that the prediction is made that, should the supply fail, many who are now using it will never return to the consumption of crude coal in factories, but, if necessary, convert it or petroleum into gas at their own works. ”

“ But as the gas is at present supposed to be the only object in view, for the sake of the light which it yields, the other products being only accidentally connected with its extraction, let us leave the idea of profit on them out of the question, and with the utmost latitude of concession, require them only to stand as in part for a portion of the coal employed in the process, we have still the gas, an article which performs the functions of the oil, the tallow, or the wax for which it is substituted ”

“ Either petroleum or some of the products of its distillation at a low temperature, as naphtha, rhigolene, gasolene, etc., may be used in the manufacture of gas. These products are of little commercial value as compared with those, like kerosene, which are produced at a higher temperature, but for this reason they are of especial value for the manufacture of gas. The principles on which the manufacture of petroleum-gas depends do not differ much from those involved in the making of coal-gas. ”

“ When we consider the before mentioned varieties of coal in an economical point of view, as fuel to be used in the gas-light process, for heating the retorts, it appears from a series of experiments that have been made under my direction, that the second class of coal comprehending those varieties which contain a larger quantity of carbon than bitumen (p. 45,) afford the most economical fuel, they act less on the grate bars, and fire bricks of the furnace than those varieties which take fire easily and burn briskly with a strong blaze. ”

“ A greater number of retorts and more workmen must likewise be employed, in order to produce the requisite quantity of gas daily, which the manufacturer is called upon to supply; more space of ground is required, and more dead capital must be sunk in the establishment. The more frequent and sudden alterations of temperature which the retorts necessarily suffer, by the more frequent introduction of cold coal, renders them extremely liable to become injured ”

“ Gas, the staple product from the distillation of coal three-quarters of a century ago, now, to all intents and purposes, is the by-product. The world could roll along very comfortably without it. Indeed, we may have to do so in the near future when the gas is stripped of every other marketable constituent, leaving only a mixture of methane and hydrogen gases to be burned under boilers to raise steam for the generation of electricity in enormous bulk. ”

“ But the wealth of Midas and the wit of man cannot produce or reproduce a natural gas field. We cannot even reproduce the gas, for our manufactured product has only about half the heating value per unit of nature's own. [38]
Natural gas in some quantity is produced in twenty-four states. It is consumed in only thirty-five states, and is available only to about 7,600,000 consumers. [39] Its availability has been more localized than that of any other utility service because it has depended more on the caprice of nature. ”

“ Yet such heating of one’s gas is too tempting an idea to be abandoned, especially in these days of perfected petroleum fuel. With one kilogramme of petroleum I am promised by the manufacturers of my boilers and condensers that I can vaporise twenty kilogrammes of water. If I can devise a practical means for catching this water again as it ceases to be steam, the oft-studied problem will be solved. Imagine the balloon to be coming down—the result of gas condensation. Instead of lightening it by throwing out twenty kilogrammes of sand, I will have but to burn one kilogramme of petroleum! ”

“ When the charge of keeping the agitating shaft of the lime machine in action, is intrusted to a workman, there is no positive security against his occasionally neglecting his duty, whereas by applying the gas metre to that purpose, the manufacturer is assured beyond the possibility of deception, that when gas is produced, that gas is as certainly purified, and a saving is effected in point of labour of the expence of two men, one during the day, and one during the night. ”

“ The great economic question, however, connected with the use of natural gas is, How will it affect the industrial interests of the country? There are grounds for the belief that a sufficient supply of natural gas may be found in the vicinity of Pittsburg to reduce the cost of fuel to such a degree as to make competition in the manufacture of iron, steel, and glass, in any part of the country where coal must be used, out of the question. ”

“ And so true is this, that if a main were to descend 100 feet below the base of the gas holder, and if the pressure of the gas in the main was only equal to sustain a column of water half an inch in height, the gas lamps could not be lighted at all, at a point so low, because the pressure of the gas is then in an equilibrium with the pressure of the atmosphere. Hence in lighting a town or district with coal gas, the best situation for the gas apparatus, as far at least as it regards the economy of the mains for distributing the gas, is the lowest part of the town or district. ”

“ The proper mode of constructing the retorts in which the coal is distilled, and the art of applying them form an object of primary importance in every gas-light establishment. According as the manufacture is conducted in these respects with a due regard to physical principles, depends the quantity of gas which can be obtained in any given time, from any given quantity of coal, the consumption of fuel requisite for the production of that quantity of gas, the degree of deterioration to which the distillatory vessel is subjected, the quality in some measure, of the gas itself ”

“ The loss occasioned by this rapid diminution of the means employed, is serious in every point of view, in regard as well to the quantity of fuel used and time wasted, but it is unavoidable in the operation of decomposing coal in masses or layers from 5 to 10 inches in thickness, and must be a great drawback on the value of the gas-light discovery. ”

“ CHAPTER VI. HOW GAS IS MADE—ILLUMINATING OILS AND BYE-PRODUCTS. Accustomed as we are at the present day to see street after street of well-lighted thoroughfares, brilliantly illuminated by gas-lamps maintained by public authority, we can scarcely appreciate the fact that the use of gas is, comparatively speaking, of but recent growth, and that, like the use of coal itself, it has not yet existed a century in public favour. Valuable as coal is in very many different ways, perhaps next in value to its actual use as fuel, ranks the use of the immediate product of its distillation—viz., gas ”