After all said and done, however, the reactions taking place, although
they have an intense fascination for the chemist, are not the factors
which the gas manager deems the most important, the cost of any given
process being the test by which it must stand or fall; and it will be
well now to consider, as far as it is possible, the expense of
enriching coal gas by the various methods I have brought before you.
In order to be well above the prescribed limit of illuminating power
at all parts of an extended service, the gas at the works must be sent
out at an illuminating power of 17.5 candles and we may, I think,
fairly take it that 16 candle coal gas, as made by the big London
companies, costs, as nearly as can be, 1s. per 1,000 cubic feet in the
holder, and the question we have now to solve is the cost of enriching
it from 16 to 17.5 candle power. When this is done by cannel, the cost
is 2.6 pence per candle power, so that the extra 11/2 would cost 4d. per
1,000.
Carbureting by the vapors of gasoline by the Maxim-Clarke process
costs 13/4d. per 1,000, so that the extra candle power would mean an
expenditure of 2.62 d. Unfortunately I have no figures upon which to
calculate the cost of producing such a gas by the Dinsmore process,
but with the three important water gas enrichers we can deal.
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