TRANSACTIONS OF THE

Warren Academy of Sciences

1911-1912

Volume II-Part One

EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING

The eighth annual meeting of the Academy was held in the Science Lecture Hall of the High School Building at p. m. Friday, October 20, 1911. Announcement of the election of officers was made and in the absence of the newly elected President, C. S. Knapp, Mr. Langworthy was called to the Chair. The retiring President, W. Leroy MacGowan, then read his address on "Sources of Energy."

Sources of Energy.

By W. LeRoy MacGowan

Address of the President of the Warren Academy of Sciences at the Eighth Annual Meeting, October 20, 1911.

In my paper tonight I shall first touch upon a few notions of modern scientists regarding the now available sources of energy, some of which are eternal in their potency; others doomed in time to pass away and become a matter of ancient history. In a paper of this nature I cannot treat the matter exhaustively,-nay, I am not capable, if I chose, to do so. I shall merely try to indicate in a general way the trend of science in its search for cheap, economical sources of power, and point out some of the means which science will in future be forced to utilize as sources of energy-forced to use them for at least two reasons: first, because they will prove more efficient and economical, producing higher per cent of work from the total energy applied, second because the world's failing supply of fuel will render such economy an absolute necessity.

That the resources of the earth are limited is well understood. We derive all our energy directly or indirectly from the sun, whether by using wood, coal, oil, gas, or energy generated by water power.

Let us consider these for a moment. The use of wood as a fuel is, of course, a limited matter and as civilization advances and its vanguard destroys the forests, the available wood is rapidly consumed. What is left must be carefully conserved and husbanded for future lumber. The use of wood as fuel, then, must largely cease in future.

The same with oil and gas. In Warren we can well understand the case. The supply of oil and gas is not indefinite nor infinite, and, so far as we know, is not recuperating in quantity in any way, to replace what is used. New fields and large ones may be discovered but the time will ultimately come when there will be no oil, no gas.

Coal tells the same tale. Take England's supply, for example, which has been more definitely measured than our own. If the use of coal continues to increase as it is doing England's coal will be entirely gone within three generations from the present time. This is a sorry outlook. We in America are confronted by the same problem, although our coal famine is more distant. Ultimately, however, we, and in time, the entire world, will be in the same boat. Well, then what? Are we to cut down on the output of the mines? No. That would mean cutting down our commerce, our industries, our national welfare. That's what it would mean to the world's prosperity. The progress of civilization would be paralyzed. We can't go backward. Coal, then, is going to be used more and more, in greater quantities each year, until there isn't any more. Then we'll all have to revert to a more primitive state unless some bright mind suggests a way out of the difficulty. We will have to have something more than we have now, because at our present stage of development we can't do without coal. No other source of energy is common and cheap enough to supply even a small fraction of the power we need.

Thus we forsee a future shortage in the world's supply of fuel. All sources so far enumerated,-wood, oil, gas, coal and the like,all these are but temporary in their application to power-production. The power of the future, then, must be derived without fuel, because unless some method is devised to produce energy without the use of fuel, the supply of fuel will be exhausted, and then, of course, the world's activities will be tied up.

This brings me to the second part of my discourse. If we don't use fuel, what are we going to use? Well, nobody knows yet. The methods now in use to produce energy without the use of fuel are not

efficient enough to yield all the energy that will be necessary. Either they must be improved, or some new source of energy must be made available. Great men of science are working on both problems, and, we are certain, will ultimately succeed in their endeavors. For we must advance. The human race has done nothing else since history began and it will continue to advance, in spite of such small matters as a shortage of coal, or the low pressure of gas, or the high price of oil, or the devastation of the forests. Some one will find the way out.

All progress, as Sir Wm. Ramsay points out, is due to the discovery of some new way of concentrating energy, or of transforming one form of energy into another. An animal strikes with its paw; man made an advance upon this when he concentrated his small amount of energy in the blow of a club. Later, the spear-head, the arrow, the cross-bow, all these denote further advances in concentration of energy, and economy in its expenditure. Later still, the bullet, first projected by black powder, then by high explosives marked a further advance, for here we have one form of energy converted into another form, resulting in a greater amount of kinetic energy for a smaller expenditure of energy.

Likewise in the production of mechanical energy. Man and horse labor has been replaced by the engine of one form and another. But now we involve another factor. With the engine we get a tremendous increase in power, but at the same time a great deal of energy must be wasted in order to produce that power. For example, a steam engine converts only about one-eighth of the potential energy in the fuel into useful work, seven-eighths is wasted as useless heat and friction. A gas engine will convert maybe one-third of the energy of the fuel into useful work, two-thirds are wasted. Always we have from the total fuel energy two products,-useful work and wasted energy. It is the problem of mechanics to reduce the proportion of the waste as much as possible. So, as science advances, better forms of engines will be produced. That will tend to reduce the rate of consumption of fuel. If, coupled with this, new sources of energy are brought forward, the use of fuel will doubtless be cut down so as to render a shortage a very remote contingency.

Now what may some of these new sources of energy be?

Well, first are those sources of energy which are made use of by harnessing the forces of nature,-the waves, the tide, water falls; the wind and the sun,-these are eternally available, so long as the human race shall have use for them. All these can, in one way or another, be utilized, and one or more of them must be developed in order to conserve our fuel supply, unless other sources of energy shall be discovered.

Besides the so-called natural sources, is one, newly found and not yet available, but one fraught with great possibilities,-radiant energy.

Let me briefly run over a few things that have been done, and tell you of the shrewd guesses of scientists about what can be done. As to the power derived from waterfalls, I need say but little. I will say Niagara and you know all about it. However, there are few Niagaras in the world, and it is a question whether the electrical energy, tremendous though it be, which can be generated from falling water would ever supply an appreciable per cent. of the world's need. There is no question however that this source of energy will be much more fully developed.

The like may be said of wave and tide power. Mechanical, and secondarily, electrical power is derived from both, at the present day, and the methods in use can be greatly improved and extended. There is a successful machine which utilizes the energy from the motion of the waves and several devices have been invented, some more or less successful, to utilize the tidal power. If the force which is to be observed in the Bay of Funday, for instance, could be harnessed we would have a source of power rivaling Niagara.

But, as I have said, the power derived from tides, wind, and water power is not sufficient for the world's supply of energy, and probably never will be.

The use of the internal heat of the earth by means of bore holes is another scheme which has been attempted, but without any success. Equally unpractical appears to be the great mechanical power of the earth in its rotation on its axis, and its revolution around the sun. This tremendous power seems to be entirely beyond man's ability to utilize.

When we approach the topic of solar power, the outlook brightens. The sun sheds its energy most prodigally upon us, giving us freely many times as much energy as we need. But the great difficulty is how to make it ours-to harness it and convert it into other forms of power. Scheme after scheme has been tried, and has failed. For centuries attempts have been made by the use of lenses and mirrors to concentrate the sun's heat; fluids of low boiling point have been used to render a production of vapor under pressure an easier matter. But where lenses or mirrors were used it was necessary to have such expensive apparatus to turn them continually toward the sun that the cost made it impractical, and where liquids of low boiling point were used no engine was to be had adapted to their use. In spite of these difficulties a cheap, serviceable plant has lately been devised on a commercial scale, and set up near Philadelphia for trial. The