From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Article discussing the fuel problem, including the potential of synthetic petrol and the changing nature of fuel supply and quality.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 32\1\ Scan016 | |
| Date | 8th March 1913 | |
| THE AUTO, MOTOR JOURNAL. SYNTHETIC PETROL. THE SOLUTION OF THE FUEL PROBLEM.—I. SYNTHETIC petrol, like synthetic rubber, is already an accomplished fact, and, under the stimulus of the present high price of the natural spirit, it seems an intelligent anticipation to expect the exploitation of schemes for the manufacture of the synthetic product on a commercial scale. It does not follow, however, that synthetic petrol will afford the solution to the fuel problem that motorists want who expect to find some substitute at a reduced price, for the synthesis of spirit from, say, fuel oil naturally represents a surcharge on the raw material, which ordinarily would already have borne the expense of distillation. Nevertheless, the possibility of improving upon nature's supply of the lighter hydrocarbons is unquestionably interesting to those who use them, and it is perhaps the only phase of the subject that has not already been discussed at great length by everyone. As to the primary question of natural petrol itself being reduced in price, frankly we regard the probabilities as all the other way. The fuel question is, we believe, far more serious than many people seem to think, and is not to be dismissed by general references to rings and combines. True, the world produces nearly 50 million tons of crude oil per annum, which in one form or another is distributed to every part of the globe; but there are signs that, great as is this output, the demand, at least for some fractions of it, is greater still. A quantity so large and an area so vast it is not within the means of any one man to bring succinctly under review, nor does it do otherwise than warp the imagination to regard the position solely from the standpoint of any one class of consumer, to wit the motorist, in any one part of the world—say England. Naturally, it is the English motorist who now makes outcry against the advance in price, for something that touches the pocket is ever a stimulus to which the public may be relied upon to respond. It is, however, of small purpose to talk wildly of a combine between the interests that control “Shell” and “Pratt's” when the former are actually “carrying coals to Newcastle” by bringing oil from the East into California against the home supplies of the now dissolved Standard Oil group. Also, it is equally far from the point to cry out to the Government to cut the profits of the producers when the user alone is responsible for the situation, inasmuch as two people are now after the same can of petrol. Certainly the supply companies make a profit, and a very handsome one too. But, so far from regarding this as a source of annoyance, we believe that it will be one of the most fruitful causes of that increase in the yield of fuels for internal-combustion engines whereby alone they will be enabled to multiply in numbers at their present rate. With motor spirit at 2s. a gallon, or thereabouts, there will be a sufficient margin of profit to tempt many enterprises that would see little encouragement in the sale of spirit at half that price. We are reaching a time when any and every source of supply will find a ready market, and out of those many different sources it is reasonable to hope that we may benefit at least to the extent of preventing a period of famine. The recent railway strike was a sufficient indication of what might be expected under such circumstances. Other fuels have been suggested as substitutes for petrol, notably benzol and alcohol, and, undoubtedly, both are worthy of the interest of motorists. Neither the one nor the other, however, offers an immediate solution of the fuel problem in the sense that a solution implies a reduction in the current price. Individuals who happen to be in the position of being able-to purchase private supplies of benzol at a price below the market-price of petrol are, of course, well advised to study their own pockets by securing it, if it serves their purpose equally well. We have suggested that the demand for petrol already exceeds the world's supply, and in a sense this has been true for a long time, for petrol itself is no longer the light '68 spirit that it used to be in the very early days of motoring. Those of our readers who remember the care with which they used to test their supplies with the densimeter should have small difficulty in imagining the mental shock they would have experienced had they been supplied in those days with a can of what now serves the purpose of motor spirit. As the demand increased beyond the natural supply of those very light hydrocarbons, so did the refiners gradually allow to distil over into the petrol can the lighter fractions of what formerly had been kept back among the kerosene burning oils. Petrol was thereby increased in density, and so, for that matter, was the illuminating oil itself. If the crude oil as it comes from the earth be represented diagrammatically by a scale of densities, it is apparent that an increase in the density of any one group must of necessity result in an increase in the density of the group immediately below it. From the motorist's standpoint, petrol may be regarded as the lightest of the petroleum products, and it includes all those fractions that can be distilled over without increasing the mean density of the mixture above the recognised standard prevailing for the time being. We have explained that this standard is gradually becoming heavier, the latest advance in the form of “Shell II,” has placed the density of petrol for pleasure car use at '76, which means to say that it now contains more of the fractions formerly belonging to the kerosene group. Now, this mode of advance implies a corresponding improvement in carburettors, which must be capable of satisfactorily handling a heavier spirit than formerly. To this extent the development is progressive and useful; also it quite evidently represents the normal and proper line of advance. But the rate at which the demand for light liquid fuel is increasing renders it quite an open question whether the development in carburettors will be able to keep pace with the increase in density. Of course, we are fully aware of the excellent results that have been demonstrated by special devices for carburating kerosene itself, but we are concerned for the moment more with the gradual evolution of the petrol car, in which all motorists must participate, and not to the possibilities within reach of the few who are by nature pioneers. If, as appears to us to be the case, the present output of high grade petroleum practically amounts to a world-wide shortage of light fractions, then the primary and basic need is for the discovery and development of new oilfields. A mistaken impression as to the increase in the sources of supply sometimes arises through the acquisition of an existing oilfield by one of the big companies like “Shell.” While such a purchase may be beneficial to customers of the company in question, inasmuch as it assures them of their supply, it does not do one whit towards ameliorating the seriousness of the world's fuel problem, which alone can be solved by an increase in nature's output. 282 | ||