REDUCINGQUICKSILVERO R E WITH CHARCOAL AND “AGRICOWDE: RE R/IETALLICA,” BOOKIx,
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FUEL (FROM 427)
300 Years of American Fuels A. C. FIELDNER U. S. Bureau of Mines, Washington, D. C.
T
The first mine in the Pittsburgh district was opened in 1760; bituminous coal was discovered in western Maryland in 1804 and in central Pennsylvania in 1806. Graphitic anthracite was discovered in Rhode Island in 1760, and true anthracite in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania near Kilkes-Barre in 1762, and in the Schuylkill Valley in 1770. The Wyoming anthracite was first used by local blacksmiths in 1768. The earliest mention of petroleum in America is the account of the Franciscan Missionary, Joseph de la Roche d’Allion, whose letter describing the well-known oil spring near Cuba, N. Y., was published in 1632 (90). Natural gas, mentioned as early as 1775, was first used as a fuel in-Fredonia, N. Y., in i821; it Gas transported through 0.76-inch lead pipe from four wells 70 feet deep.
HE American colonists 300 years ago had n o need for
the rich deposits of coal, petroleum, and natural gas which nature lavished on the continent of North America. Dense forests which had to be cleared furnished them plenty of wood for cooking, heating, and the limited industries of the time. Probably the first industrial use of fuel in America was in the making of glass near Jamestown, Va., in 1608 or 1609 by Captain John Smith who needed glass beads for trade with the Indians ( I O ) . I n 163!) the first glassworks in New England was built a t Salem, Mass., and the first charcoal blast furnace for the production of iron was erected a t the instance of John Winthrop, Jr., a t Lynn, Mass., in 1645.
Discovery of Mineral Fuels The first discovery of coal in North America on Cape Breton Island, Xova Scotia, was described in 1672 (9); and the earliest recorded within the present territory of the United States was made in 1673 by Louis Joliet and Father Marquette on the Illinois River between the present sites of Utica and Ottawa, Ill. (19). The first mine to be opened in the United States was the “Midlothian” near Richmond, Va., about 1730. B y 1750 the mines in the Richmond basin started commercial operation and by 1789 shipments were being made to Rhiladelphia, New York, and Boston, where coal imported from Scotland, England, and Nova Scotia had been used to some extent as early as 1738.
Early Development of Fuel Industry; the Mechanical Revolution The early development of the coal industry in the United States was accelerated b y the great mechanical revolution which was beginning in Europe a t the time our nation was born. Figure 1 shows the production of anthracite, bituminous coal, and firewood in the United States from 1820 to 1835. Most of the bituminous coal during this period came from Richmond; this basin also supplied the manufactured-gas industry, which started in Bal983
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use for anthracite that persisted for over half a century. Figure 1 shows that in 1835 wood was still the dominant American fuel, but the use of anthracite was increasing rapidly in comparison with that of bituminous coal. Petroleum and natural gas were known, but were of no significance as fuels. 700
The Last 100 Years of American Fuels
600 Lehigh Canal completed; anthracite first used for generating steam
YEARS
FIGURE1. FUELPHODUCTION (NET TONS) TO 1835
FRO31
1820
(Anthracite data from shipment records, bituminoua coal and wood production estimated)
timore in 1816. However, Pittsburgh was beginning t o shorn signs of its future industrial activity. It was using the locally mined bituminous coal for generating steam for its first steam engine in 1794, in the early manufacture of salt and glass, and in the working of iron. By 1825 about 3500 tons of bituminous coal were used annually in the vicinity of Pittsburgh. The introduction of anthracite was slow because of the lack of knowledge of proper methods of burning it and hazardous river transportation. It was not until 1808 that Judge Jesse Fells gave public demonstrations of burning anthracite in the grate of his hotel in Wilkes-Barre (Figure 2). Anthracite was first used for iron working in 1812 and for steam generation in 1825. I n 1820 the Lehigh Coal Company, the oldest of the present companies, delivered and sold 365 tons of anthracite in Philadelphia. The opening of the Schuylkill Canal in 1825, followed by others leading to Philadelphia and New York, combined with the knowledge of how to burn anthracite in properly designed equipment, caused consumption to rise rapidly in the period b e g i n n i n g with 1828. I n 1830 the first American-built locomotive used a n t h r a c i t e for fuel; and in 1835 anthracite was burned with the help of forced draft on the steamer Portland, built by Fulton in 1816. In 1839 the application of hot blast a t Mauch Chunk and Pottsville blast furnaces started an important industrial
'
The real developments in American fuels have taken place in the last 100 years; the basic inventions were made in the first half of the period, as shown in Figure 3, and the resulting industrial and social changes have become increasingly evident in the last 50 years (Figure 4). The consumption of wood continued to increase during most of the first half of the century and was not overtaken by bituminous coal until 1896.l The census of 1880 indicates that 65 per cent of the population depended on wood for fuel; the Forest Service estimates that, in 1930,15per cent used wood as their main fuel. The development of steam transportation by water and rail (the outstanding feature of the first half of the nineteenth century) produced in 1840 the first acceleration in the curves of coal production as shown in Figure 3. The second acceleration in bituminous coal production (1861) coincided with the outbreak of the Civil War and was helped along by the growth of the steel industry resulting from the epoch-making inventions of the Bessemer process and the Siemens regenerative furnace in 1856. The third acceleration, in 1879, resulted from the settlement of the West and the h e a w industries set in motion by the railroad and town-building program. COALAND TEE IRON INDUSTRY. The iron and steel industry as we know it today could not have reached its present size without an abundant supply of cheap coal and coke. The first two beehive coke ovens in the Connellsville district were completed in 1841 and shipped their product down the river t o Cincinnati foundries. The number of coking establishments, mostly in Pennsylvania, grew from 4 in 1850 t o 186 in 1880. I n 1860 the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was completed from Connellsville to Pittsburgh, and Connellsville coke was used in the Clinton furnace a t Pittsburgh. Its use increased 1 The figures for mineral fuels are from Geological Survey and Bureau of Mines reports; those for firewood are the estimates of R. V. Reynolds of the Forest Service [ A m . Forests, 39, 3 9 9 4 0 0 (1933)] and are based on population and estimated per capita consumptions of 5 cords in 1800, 2.9 cords in 1880, and 0.5 cord in 1930.
FIGURE 2. ROOMAND GRATEIN FELLSHOUSEWHERE ANTHRACITE Was FIRSTBURNED Courtesy, Anthracite Institute Laboratories
SEPTEMBER, 1935
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YEARS
FIGURE 3.
FUEL PRODUCTION (NET TONS) FROM 1832
TO
1892
985
FIGURE 4. FUELPRODUCTION (NET TONS)FROhl 1882 TO 1934 One ton coal = 1.25 cords wood = 4.2 barrels oil = 26,000 cubic feet gas.
200 produced 15 barrels of petrobecause of the rising price of leum per day from a depth of charcoal and the diminishing 150 66 feet. Other wells followed, availability of anthracite. and drilling spread to other Beginning about 1845, free100 districts in P e n n s y l v a n i a , burning splint and block biso West V i r g i n i a , and Ohio, t u m i n o u s coals were used wherever oil seepages or oil in directly in a few w e s t e r n 0 salt brines had been noticed. Pennsylvania and Ohio furThe estimated annual pronaces. In 1880 the amounts d u c t i o n of p e t r o l e u m inof pig iron produced by the creased from 2000 barrels i n different fuels in the United States were reported as char1839 to 4,000,000 in 1869, coal, 500,000tons; anthracite, 20,000,000 in 1879, and 36,1,800,000 tons; and coke and 000,000 in 1889. b i t u m i n o u s coal, 2,000,000 Kerosene from petroleum tons. soon became the dominant COAL c.4R B 0 N I Z A T 1 0 N . illuminant f o r t h e h o m e . The gas made by the public ’ Gasoline was worthless and FIGURE 5 . TRENDSIN FUELEFFICIENCY, utilitiesfor the first fifty years, 1917 TO 1933 (5) a dangerous contaminant of beginning with the pioneer both kerosene and the heavier plant in Baltimore, was used fractions which found an outlet as fuel oil. principally for lighting. It was manufactured froin bituminous coal in horizontal retorts. Otto invented the gas engine in 1867. Daiinler modified it With the drilling of Drake’s oil well in 1859 and the use of the for gasoline in 1883 and built the first successful motor car in kerosene lamp, coal gas became the inferior and more expen1887, ushering in the third phase of the mechanical revolusive illuminant (14). Fortunately the introduction of cartion. The first phase was initiated by Watt’s steam engine bureted water gas, for which the first plant was erected in in 1769, and the second by the practical application of electriPhoenixville, Pa., by T. S. c. Lowe in 1873, provided cheaper cal science to lighting and the transmission of power by Ediand more flexible equipment which utilized the newly availson in 1879; the latter, in turn, was founded on Faraday’s able petroleum in producing rich gas of higher illuminating discovery of the principles of the electric motor in 1821 and of the dynamo in 1831. value than was obtainable by the distillation of coal. The industry grew and seemed firmly intrenched in the RISE O F FUELRESEARCH AKD IRIPROVEMENTS I N COAL field of artificial lighting, when in 1879 Edison invented the COMBUSTION.The horsepower capacity of central electric first practicable electric lamp. Thenext year in Austria, Auer stations grew from 120,000 in 1889 to 15,000,000 in 1923. Centralizing the production of power in large units naturally von Welsbach ( 2 ) promptly matched and even exceeded the brilliance of the early incandescent electric light by using a emphasized the commercial value of fuel economy and the mantle of rare earth oxides heated to incandescence with a nondesirability of chemical and physical research in solving t h e luminous gas flame. The blue-flame burner which Welsbach problems of power generation. used was invented by another chemist, Robert Wilhelm von The first scientific study of American coals for steam genBunsen of Heidelburg, Germany, in 1855. eration was conducted in 1844 for the u. s. Xavy by Walter THE INFANT PETROLEUN IXDUSTRY. America’s first oil R. Johnson, pFofessor of chemistry and natural philosophy a t Pennsylvania College (18). Johnson was handicapped by well, completed by E. L. Drake near Titusville, Pa., in 1859,
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surplus gas) from a ton of coal was 44 per cent of the value of the total products produced, whereas in 1913 this value was only 27 per cent. Gas-house coke Figure 8 shows important shifts in income from the different by-products. Ammonia, the source of greatest income in 1913, started to decline after 1923 owing to the growth of the Wlr 1 synthetic nitrogen industry. I n 1920 the returns for surplus gas began to iIicrease because of the adoption of the byproduct coke oven for supplying base-load gas in a number of the larger American cities. With these n e x coke-oven plants producing increased amounts of by-product coke, the industry undertook an energetic campaign to sell it for domestic fuel. As a result the domestic consumption increased steadily from 2,300,000 tons in 1921 to 12,000,000 in 1933 (Figure 9). LOW-TEMPERATURE CARBONIZATION. The production of an easily ignitible coke by lorn-temperature carbonization of coal was proposed in 1906 by Parker in England and Parr in the United States. Since that date many processes h a v e b e e n t r i e d , and much money has been FIGURE 6. COKEPRODUCTION, 1900 TO 1928 e x p e n d e d prematurely on c o m m e r c i a l - s c a l e plants before the technot being able to determine the heat of comnical problems were bustion of coal, and therefore he could only solved. Most of these compare their evaporating powers. The bomb plants failed, but a few calorimeter of Berthelot did not appear until processes have weathered 1885 (1). It was modified for coal calorimetry the period of experimenby Mahler (12) in 1892 and was first used in tation and may be on the this country a t Ohio State University by Lord v e r g e of c o m m e r c i a l and Haas who determined and published, in success. 1897, calorific values of American coals (11). DECLINEOF COALASD Following this work, the AMERICAN CHEhfIcAL R I S E OF P E T R O L E U M . SOCIETY,recognizing the empirical nature of From 1897 to 1918 coal coal analysis, appointed a committee headed FIGURE7. AVERAGE YIELD OF PRINCIPAL BY- was the leader Of the by W. A. Noyes who published, in 1898, the PRODUCTS PER NET TONOF C o . 4 ~CARBONIZED group. F r o m a maxifirst authoritative methods for the proximate IY BY-PRODUCT COKE OVENS,1913 TO 1933 (8) muln of 570,000,000 tons analysis of coal (16). Figures for light oil represent t h e average a t plants rein 1918 the production The establishment of the Coal Testing Plant covering light oil. w a v e r e d with the ups of the U. S. Geological Survey at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904 niarks the beginning of organized fuel research on a national scale (17). This testing work continued after the World's Fair and in 1910 developed into the pioneering fuel research program of the newly established Bureau of Mines. From this beginning grew the widespread interest in fuel efficiency that has been so dominant in the past two decades. Large users of fuel were shown that increase in fuel efficiency paid dividends. The trend in four important industries in the United States is shown in Figure 5, Since 1917 the coal consumed per 1000 gross ton-miles hauled by railroads decreased 31 per cent; the coal required to generate a kilowatt-hour in central stations decreased 58 per cent; the coking coal consumed per gross ton of pig iron produced in blast furnaces decreased 19 per cent. Similar improvement has been made in other fuel1934 I 1.46 using industries. 19251 1.54 K:
