§ 5.18 p.m.
§ LORD TEYNHAM asked His Majesty's Government if they can now make a statement as to the progress made by the Fuel Research Station in collaboration with the 1771 British Coal Utilisation Research Association in the design and production of a suitable gas producing plant for use with motor vehicles.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, a few weeks ago I ventured to draw the attention of your Lordships to the arrangement that has been made between the Fuel Research Station and the Coal Utilisation Research Station for the pooling of knowledge in the experimental designs of a suitable gas producing plant for use in motor vehicles. I do not propose to weary your Lordships to-day by covering the whole ground of gas producing plants again, because this matter has been frequently debated in your Lordships' House. I understand that great advances have been made in the design and production of suitable gas producers, and I trust that steps have been taken to explore the right type of fuel and the supply of that fuel and its distribution. In spite of what has been said by my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, and I think in one or two articles in the Press, it is a very major point.
§ There is one other point to which I would like to draw your Lordships' attention, and that is, what are we going to do with the petrol we shall save if we can get gas-propelled vehicles on the road? I would like to make one suggestion in regard to that, and it is that it might be used to increase the rations allowed to the distributive trades. They use a very large number of light delivery vans which are quite unsuitable to be fitted for gas producing plant and I think that they have suffered a great deal of hardship. I hope that His Majesty's Government are now in a position to make a statement in reply to the question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ 5.20 p.m.
§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL STANHOPE)My Lords, I am very much obliged to my noble friend for having put this question on the paper. He has on many occasions shown great interest in and knowledge of the subject, as is natural in one who is President of the Transport Producer Gas Association and therefore intimately connected with the subject. I am glad to say that I am in a position now to be able to make a statement on behalf of 1772 the Government which was not possible when this question was debated some six weeks ago. A considerable amount of progress has been made and perhaps we have been incited thereto all the more by the urgency of the question in view of the pressure of war conditions.
My noble friend mentioned the Fuel Research Station and the British Coal Utilisation Research Association. I should like to preface what I have to say to-day by placing on record the satisfaction of His Majesty's Government, in which I am quite sure your Lordships will wish to join, at the co-operation which has existed between these two bodies, between the Government Fuel Research Station and the research association of the coal industry, in arriving at a solution of this question. It is a very happy augury for the further development of the gas producer plant and for its much wider use in this country. But although I should like to point out how close the touch has been between these two bodies, of course they are actually dealing with the question from two rather different points of view, and that is perhaps why, coming at the question from two different sides, they have been able to make so much progress.
The Fuel Research Station is, as your Lordships no doubt know, a branch of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the Lord President of the Council is the responsible Minister who has to reply in Parliament on behalf of that Department. Therefore I have taken a very considerable interest in its work. Ever since I have had the privilege of being Lord President I have been going into this question with some thoroughness and have been anxious to be able to tell the country that we are now at a stage of having made really very satisfactory progress. The research station was, of course, set up primarily to ascertain sources and quantities of natural fuels available in this country, and also to advise industry as to their best development and employment. I think there are many members of the public and perhaps some in this House who wondered why coalowners should be told what were the various properties in the fuels which they were mining and what was the best use to which they could be put. That is I think no longer true, because certainly the coalowners and a very large part of industry has already discovered how valuable has been the 1773 knowledge which the Fuel Research Station has been able to put at their disposal, and I have not the smallest doubt that as time goes on that knowledge will get more widespread and the advantage of the station will be more and more recognised.
The investigation of methods of manufacturing suitable artificial fuels is naturally closely allied to this work of considering fuels and how they should best be used in their natural state, and that question of making artificial fuels has been for a considerable time engaging the attention of the Fuel Research Station. Indeed, I think when I was Civil Lord of the Admiralty some thirteen or fourteen years ago, I visited the station to see the developments which were then in progress in regard to low-temperature carbonisation. As part of the same inquiry into artificial fuels, we have been seeking to find means by which solid fuel—part of our own natural resources—can be substituted for petrol on motor vehicles. I well remember, I suppose some six or seven years ago, the late Lord Rutherford making a most striking speech in your Lordships' House—I think the noble Lord, Lord Snell, will remember it—in which he used the phrase "importation of power." That is a phrase that certainly struck those who heard it very much at the time; and of course, as your Lordships know, we have had a good many debates on this subject in which several members of this House have expressed concern as to how largely we were dependent on imported fuel. I am not going to say that we have found a solution to that, but at any rate we are finding it possible to take some steps to reduce our dependence on imported fuel for all the many purposes for which petrol is now used.
This work of the Fuel Research Station upon the use of solid fuel in place of petrol was greatly increased and stimulated when His Majesty's Government set up a Committee under the able guidance of Sir Harold Hartley, Chairman of the Fuel Research Board, in order to examine the scope of the use of producer gas for the propulsion of commercial vehicles in an emergency. Perhaps I may be allowed to say a few words here on the all-important question of fuel for producer gas plant, the significance of which a great many people, I think, do not realise. I have already reminded your 1774 Lordships that the primary task of the Fuel Research Station of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was to ascertain the sources and quantities of the natural fuels available in the country and to investigate methods of manufacturing suitable artificial fuels. As the work proceeded the desirability of taking a long view of the fuel question became evident, and the staff proceeded to design and to develop new types of producers specially adapted to deal with the fuels available, or likely to be available, in this country. Much of the necessary information on fuels had already been obtained by the Fuel Research Coal Survey which my Department has undertaken. Their work has been greatly assisted by the coalowners of the districts, and we are all very much indebted to these coalowners for the help they have given.
The natural fuels available are the anthracites, so that it was necessary to examine the whole of the anthracite field of South Wales. The examination of the coals in the laboratory was carried out at the local Coal Survey Laboratory, but consignments of representative samples of the whole range of anthracites have been taken to the Fuel Research Station, where trials have been carried out on the road in fully laden three-ton lorries. When I was at the Fuel Research Station recently I was shown a plan of the whole of the South Wales coal field, showing a very large number of collieries in which investigations have been made and samples taken. The matter has been fully developed both scientifically and practically in the Fuel Research Station. For effective comparison between these various fuels and the use of them in producer gas vehicles, it was necessary to adopt a certain standard of practice and each fuel was therefore tested over a distance of 100 miles on a rather hilly main road. Gas samples for analysis were collected throughout the day at the same point in each journey and the numerous measurements necessary to define the performance of the vehicle were continuously made under standardised conditions. In borderline cases longer trials, extending to 200 or even 500 miles, have been made.
From these tests it was possible to compare the results obtained from day to day not only with different fuels but with the same fuel in different producers. It was also possible to observe any deterioration 1775 in performance during one long run. As a result of this experimental work it has been shown that the greater proportion of the anthracites of South Wales are satisfactory fuel for producers, and it has been possible to indicate the sources of suitable anthracite. It will, however, be necessary to have additional sources of fuel to meet the possible demands which may be made upon them, and particular emphasis has been placed upon the production of suitable artificial fuels. The obvious method of increasing the supply is by the carbonisation of bituminous coals. Numerous kinds of low-temperature coke made from different types of coal and by various processes operating on a commercial scale have been examined. In addition, other kinds of low-temperature coke made on an experimental scale have also been tried.
It has been found that most types of coke produced by low-temperature carbonisation can be used as producer fuels. Some of these are eminently satisfactory, whilst others are not so good. To produce satisfactory fuels it has been found that suitable coals must be selected and precautions taken to reduce the tar present in the coke below a certain critical figure. It must be understood that low-temperature coke as prepared for domestic purposes is not necessarily a good fuel for producers. The limiting factor will, of course, be availability of fuel, and in this connection it is greatly to be hoped that the fuel industry will co-operate closely with the motor trade.
In order to stimulate the use of these fuels, the Government have decided that various uncertainties in the fiscal and general position should be removed, and I am in a position to give certain assurances. First, to meet fears that the Government might propose a tax on home-produced coal, coke or gas when used as a fuel for motor transport, I can assure the House that, so far as the present Government are concerned, there is no intention of proposing such taxation within the next five years. Secondly, in the case of services of national importance, the Government have no intention of rationing these alternative fuels, which I am sure will be a relief to those who are opposed to rationing of any sort or kind. Thirdly, since the weight of the auxiliary equipment is included in the 1776 unladen weght of vehicles for the purposes of taxation and of the Road Traffic Acts, the addition of this equipment will in some cases put the vehicle into a higher licence duty category and a lower speed limit category. Your Lordships will remember that lorries over two and a half tons in weight are limited to thirty miles an hour, but lorries above that weight are limited to twenty miles an hour. I think the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, who raised this question on a former occasion, complained that gas-producer vehicles were not treated fairly as compared with electrically-driven vehicles, because the electrically-driven vehicles were allowed to take off their batteries before they were weighed and therefore came into a lower weight category, whereas the gas-producer equipment was considered part of the equipment of the car and its weight was included for taxation purposes. The Government have decided to make concessions on these points, and my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport is taking the necessary steps, in consultation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to give effect to these decisions.
Another difficulty which arose and which my right honourable friend has taken into consideration was that the length of a petrol-driven vehicle is limited, I think, to twenty-six feet—it may be thirty-six feet. At any rate, with a trailer behind it, that might take the length of the vehicle outside the amount allowed in one vehicle. That was particularly the case in regard to motor 'buses used by the public on the roads. Already the Minister of Transport has made that concession to motor 'buses: that they can have a trailer behind them with a producer apparatus on it; and he is going further into that question in regard to lorries and other types of vehicles.
Sir Harold Hartley's Committee, to which I referred, and which includes representatives of the Department of Mines, the Ministry of Transport and several important road transport operating companies, as well as the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, decided as a result of the road trials which I have mentioned to your Lordships that it was desirable to design a producer for the conversion of existing motor vehicles and capable of rapid mass production. Experience gained in the early work of the Fuel Research Station has provided data 1777 upon which to base the design of a producer which could be put into manufacture on a large scale. The Committee do not claim any particular originality for the design, and they acknowledge their indebtedness to the experience gained in operating all the commercial types of vehicle available in this country. Special attention was paid to the need for confining the design to those materials which are not only inexpensive and easily obtained, but which also lend themselves to mass production by the type of plant and labour likely to be available in time of war. I am glad to be able to tell your Lordships that a practical design has been evolved, and it is proposed to make the design available to firms able and willing to undertake manufacture.
Most of your Lordships probably know already what producer gas is, but to give a very brief description in non-technical language I may say that it is obtained from solid fuel in place of petrol, which involves the use of the so-called producer, in which gas is obtained by partial combustion from solid fuel, whether anthracite, coke or other similar fuel. The producer must be built into the vehicle or towed behind it on a trailer. The gas is drawn from the producer through the induction pipe of the ordinary petrol engine, whence it passes into the cylinders and is fired in the normal manner, and so provides motive power in the same way as the gas produced from liquid fuel. One of the questions to which a completely satisfactory answer has still to be found is that of production of a thoroughly efficient filter, in order that gas may be cleansed of all abrasive and corrosive constituents before entering the engine. Your Lordships will realise that gas produced from anthracite, coal or coke naturally has a certain amount of ash in it, and if that gets through into the cylinder of a motor car, of course it may very speedily wear out the cylinder unless the gas is filtered before it gets there. That has really been the main difficulty with which they have had to deal at the Research Station—that of getting a filter which is really efficient for the different types of fuel. Experience has shown that the present design is satisfactory for a certain range of fuels, but, as already said, we are not entirely satisfied, and further investigation of this problem is being actively 1778 pursued on an adequate scale at the Fuel Research Station. The crux of the problem is the amount of suitable fuel of various types available in this country, and the adequacy of the fuel supply will require careful organisation and co-operation between the fuel interests and the motor trade. That is a point to which my noble friend Lord Teynham referred and is one of really supreme importance in this matter. As research and discovery progress on fuels and filters so will the supply of suitable fuel increase. A producer gas component consists of a hopper at the top, which is usually a round cylinder rather like a large petrol tin, in which the anthracite is placed. Below it is the combustion chamber, and then come a series of coolers to cool the gas down before it is taken to the cylinders of the motor car. Between the coolers and the motor car engine, as I have said, is the filter which is such a very important part of the equipment.
Your Lordships may ask: Is the gas produced from these fuels as efficient as petrol? The answer is, "No, it is not." To put it briefly and in a way which I think is easily understood, it is one gear less efficient than a motor car. In other words, if you have to put your car into third gear to get up a hill on petrol, you will have to put it into second gear to get up that same hill on producer gas. On the flat I think it is practically as efficient as petrol, but up a hill you have to go one gear lower than on petrol. I travelled about in one of these producer vehicles the other day, a fully-loaded lorry, and although we had just started from the Research Station and the engine had not got fully warmed up, yet it was quite flexible in London traffic. The only thing that one noticed was that the engine, because it had only recently started running, went at a rather higher speed than would the engine in an ordinary petrol-driven motor lorry in ordinary circumstances. It was quite efficient on the road and, although we were held up in a traffic block for some time, it restarted straight away like any ordinary lorry.
It is asked, "Does it take a long time to start the engine going?" The answer is, "No." When these things are inspected, of course they never do as well as when they are doing their ordinary run. They told me it would probably take four minutes because I happened to be Presi- 1779 dent in charge of the Department, and so it did, but I believe that on ordinary occasions it would probably take only two minutes instead of four. I do not think your Lordships will think that an excessive time. A three-ton lorry fully laden can run on one single charge for 120 to 150 miles, but it is a very simple operation to re-charge it. All you have to do is to draw in at the side of the road and fill up your hopper at the top with a further charge of fuel, and off you go again. It is, of course, a plant which is more suitable for long runs with heavy vehicles than it would be for dodging about in a town, and doing short runs because the gas is being made all the time that the hopper is in operation. Although you can close it down for a longish halt, and then start it again, obviously it is wasting fuel if it is stopping constantly; whereas with a petrol-driven car you turn off your supply of petrol.
As a result of the experience which the Committee have gained they found that the necessary alterations to the ordinary lorry or motor car were often so expensive, or were so wasteful in carrying space that on the whole they found the best results were probably got with a trailer drawn behind the vehicle. They have now been able to produce a trailer with a satisfactory attachment to a car, useful both for lorries and for 'buses. The particular trailer that I saw was some distance behind the lorry to enable the lorry to be unloaded without having to unhook the trailer—obviously a great advantage; but in the case of the motor 'bus you would be able to bring it much closer to the rear of the vehicle, and therefore take up a good deal less road space.
I do not know that I need say very much more at this moment, because I hope that these vehicles will be taken up by the trade and appear in large numbers on the road, and your Lordships, who probably know a good deal more about motor cars than I do, will no doubt be able to appreciate the value of these producer-gas plants more fully by seeing them in operation, than by anything I can say in the House. But I think we should all like to express our thanks to those who have been giving such deep thought, and working so hard on this question, and particularly to Sir Harold 1780 Hartley, the Chairman of the Fuel Research Board, and to the firms who have given able and ready assistance in carrying out road trials of different designs and of different producers. Remember that necessity is the mother of invention, and the war in which we find ourselves is perhaps a very considerable urge forward, to encourage us to try to find types of fuel which we shall not have to import into this country. In addition, the fuel which we do get is thereby freed for other uses; my noble friend suggested, for the distributive trades, but also for use in aeroplanes, or in other ways.
I think that we may expect that, once the gas-producer operated vehicles appear on the roads in any substantial number, they will be improved out of all recognition. Your Lordships will remember the type of aeroplane that prevailed at the beginning of the last war, and the type of aeroplane that was produced by the end of it. I am not one of those who think this war is going to be as long as the last, but I do think that as soon as these vehicles begin to appear on the roads we shall find they are improving very rapidly, and it is impossible to say now what the type of producer vehicle will be by the time progress has been made with this new form of propulsion, or whether it will be as unrecognisable as the early motor car would be to those familiar with the motor car of to-day. At any rate, it seems to me that it may eventually develop into a real alternative to the petrol-driven vehicle, as efficient in performance and as economic in operation. I do not pretend to say it is that at this moment, but it is at any rate a very useful substitute. In view of petrol rationing, I think there are many who wish to use power-driven vehicles who may find this a very useful form of substitute for petrol, and one which will enable them to carry on the trade of the country in a way which they would not otherwise be able to do.
§ 5.46 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGIMy Lords, I should like to be allowed to refer very briefly to the most important statement made by the noble Earl. When the Lord President assumed his present high office it was my pleasure to congratulate him on having under his care what I considered by far the most important body in the whole of the State, and that is the 1781 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. I would like on behalf of my noble friends to reinforce what he said about the great work that that Department has done, particularly in recent years, in so many directions at the Fuel Research Station. It is really only the people in the coal mining industry who realise what they have done, and I know my miner friends in another place are very conscious of the great contribution they have made to the prosperity of the country, especially to the country's future prosperity.
The statement made by the noble Earl on behalf of the Government is of the highest importance. We are promised, as far as this Government are concerned—and of course no Government can bind Parliament—no tax for five years. Well, we tremble to think of the present Government being in office for five years; it is a dismal prospect. Nevertheless, I would like to say this. I have not consulted my noble friends—and we could not bind our Party at all—nor have I consulted my Party, but I intend to bring this matter up with the authorities of my Party to see if we cannot get some statement along the same lines, as far as we are concerned. I should think, in view of the strength of the mining interest in the Labour Party, and knowing as we all do the pressure the miners have been putting for years and years in this direction, that the Labour Party will be quite prepared to say ditto, as far as they can bind Parliament, to this very important statement by the Lord President. What he said about rationing and no rationing and the concessions which he indicated was very satisfactory. I should like, if I may, to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, on the result of his long efforts in your Lordships' House on this matter. One thing was not quite clear. At present I understand that if I wish to have a trailer drawn by my motor car I have to pay a licence. Now, will these trailers, only used for the purposes of the producer-gas plant, have to pay the extra licence?
§ EARL STANHOPENo, I do not think I can say anything about that at present. I think the Minister of Transport is going into the matter. I understand a satisfactory solution is likely to be arrived at, but he has not reached a decision yet.
LORD STRABOLGII am much obliged. I see the noble Lord, Lord 1782 Cadman, here, and I know his great interest in this matter. I am sure if he ventured to address your Lordships he would say that the great oil interests with which he is so closely associated naturally take a wide national point of view in this matter, and they would welcome the Government's statement just as much as I have done. I am sure he and his experts will be delighted at the result of the Government's investigations, and will hope to see some of the embarrassment on the oil supplies of the country removed by this means. I just wanted to say these few words and to congratulate the Government—that is always a pleasant thing to do for those who occasionally have to criticise—on having tackled this very important question and brought it to some fruition.
§ 5.49 p.m.
§ LORD CADMANMy Lords, as I have been referred to in terms that are very unusual to me, may I say that I endorse what has been said, and further endorse the remarks of the Lord President of the Council with regard to those who have been working on this matter? He referred to Sir Harold Hartley and the great work that he and his Committee have done. I would like also to pay tribute to the men on the station who are doing this work. I know what they are doing. Dr. Sinnatt and those working with him are engaged on a very difficult and very tiresome job. I am sure no one welcomes the progress that is being made more than my colleagues and myself. I do not want for a moment to suggest that my mind is entirely devoted to oil, or that I owe allegiance to oil. I started in coal, and I shall finish in coal. I think the main product of this country, which is coal, must be watched and watched unceasingly. I admire the way in which the Government are tackling this problem. It is a fine piece of work, but I must give one word of warning. One cannot hope to make a liquid out of a solid at anything like the price that one enjoys in the case of an oil that flows from a well.
§ 5.52 p.m.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSEMy Lords, I should like to ask the noble Earl if he would clarify one point in his speech. I rather gathered, when he referred to the results of the Fuel Research Board, that they had arrived at some kind of approved 1783 Government design of producer-gas plant. Will this approved specification be open for the inspection of all manufacturers of repute? I ask that question because I happen to know one or two firms who have seen this approved specification, but the firm with which I am connected was refused permission. I am quite sure noble Lords would resent any partiality on the part of the Government towards some firms as opposed to other firms. I should also like to ask whether, if a firm presents to the Fuel Research Board a design which attains to the approved design, they will be able to obtain a certificate or something saying that their gas-producer plant has passed the test or reached the test of the approved Government specification plant? The same with fuel: Will a manufacturer of a fuel which has attained to the same standard as the approved specification of the Government fuel be able to obtain a certificate or something to say that his fuel has reached the standard of the approved specification?
§ 5.54 p.m.
§ EARL STANHOPEMy Lords, if I may address your Lordships a second time, I did say that the design was available for all motor traders who wished to apply to make this engine, but my noble friend definitely put in the words "those who were approved" because he realised the importance of that. We are not particularly anxious that certain parts of this machine shall get abroad to Germany. They have a great many producer-gas plants there already, but we hope ours will be better, and there are certain parts we hope we shall be able to use in this country which will not be exported abroad. As regards other plants, I think I am right in saying that the Research Station would be prepared to examine them and see how far they would go, but there is no question of giving a certificate in regard to any particular plant. All they would do would be to give it a test and say it reached such-and-such a standard, and leave it at that. Similarly in regard to fuel. The idea is that the Hartley Committee is going to produce three reports—one for the manufacturer, which will be a sort of working specification, one for the user of the machine, and one for the fuel producer. The fuel producers will be told that they must not 1784 have a tar content above a certain point, and various other matters of that kind. It will be quite easy for any person who produces fuel to say, "My fuel comes up to the standard which is considered necessary for producer-gas vehicles."
§ 5.56 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAMMy Lords, I am grateful to His Majesty's Government for the very full statement which has been made by my noble friend the Lord President of the Council. I was particularly glad to notice the reference to taxation, not only in regard to fuel but in regard to vehicles. The producer-gas industry and the motor vehicle industry will be given a great lead by this statement which we have had to-day. Great credit is due to all concerned, and not least to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, who was largely responsible for pressing this matter when he was Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence.