Abstract
THE extent to which the gas industry is trustee for JL the efficient utilisation of the nation's coal resources will be realised when it is remembered that one of the London gas companies, with a production representing about 15 per cent, of the total output of towns' gas in Great Britain, distributes annually approximately as much energy as the whole of the electrical undertakings in the country. The industry has reason to be proud of its stewardship, for the thermal efficiency of the process of carbonisation of coal as practised day in, day out, is from 70 to 80 per cent. Thermal losses are inevitable in any actual thermal process, and the operations of the gas industry are not outside the ambit of the second law of thermodynamics, high though the efficiency of the carbonising process may be. Increasing attention has in recent years been paid to potential sources of loss of thermal energy in gas-making processes in general, and the results of investigations, more especially concerned with methods of manufacture of water-gas, are embodied in some of the Reports issued by the Joint Gas Investigation Committee of the Institution of Gas Engineers and the University of Leeds, and by the Fuel Research Board.
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THOMAS, J. The Gas Industry. Nature 113, 622 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/113622a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/113622a0