nically only by the amount of cooling available. It is interesting to note that the first large size atomic units at Hanford, Wash., had a heat production of approximately 3,000,000 B. t. u. per hour. This heat liberation is somewhat more than that produced by the coal used in a 200,000-kilowatt power plant which is average size for large municipal units.

Future atomic units will undoubtedly be larger, and if desirable, could easily exceed the power output of the large hydroelectric dams in our Pacific Northwest. Units of this size could be located in many localities in the United States. In fact, atomic power units are more adaptable to large units than to small ones.

A major consideration in the use of atomic power, is, of course, the availability of the necessary materials for decomposition. It is therefore desirable to consider the availability of uranium. Brason and Tarr in "Introduction to Geology," McGraw-Hill Book Co., second edition, 1941, page 6, state that the earth's crust is estimated to contain 0.008 percent uranium by weight. From the analysis of igneous rocks, these authors state that this composition is probably representative down to a depth of 30 miles. The amount of uranium this represents is tremendous, but instead of quoting the billions and billions of tons of material in the earth's crust for a depth of 30 miles, it would probably be more instructive to give the comparable percentages for some of the more common metals. For example, the following table (from Brason and Tarr) lists a few of these:

Thus it will be noted that uranium is almost as plentiful as copper, it is twice as plentiful as zinc and four times as plentiful as lead. When one considers the enormous quantities of copper, zinc, and lead that are being used and that have been used, it is apparent that the quantities of uranium are very great.

Besides the total availability it is also desirable to consider the concentrations of the material. The value of 0.008 percent for uranium corresponds to an average of 0.16 pounds per ton of the earth's crust or about two troy ounces. Since the distribution of uranium is not uniform there are large deposits in many countries that have concentrations three to four times this great. Six to eight ounces per ton may not sound very large, but it should be remembered that it is found economical to recover gold when the concentration is only 1 ounce per ton. A price of $50 per pound of uranium should make it profitable to work these large reserves and such a price for the original uranium material would not rule out the possibility of atomic power competing with coal at present prices.

Estimating the time at which atomic power will be available is difficult because of the rapidly changing character of the field. A number of such estimates have been made by various engineers and scientists which in general range from 5 to 25 years. It is significant that in general those who are most familiar with the field tend to

give the shorter estimates. Smyth, in the Government publication, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes, states

There is no immediate possibility of running cars with nuclear power or lighting houses with radioactive lamps, although there is a good possibility that nuclear power for special purposes could be developed within 10 years.

The time scale is of course, dependent upon the research and development effort that is applied in the field. We can be certain that such work will be very actively followed and encouraged by spectacular experimentation. It is interesting to note that early in June 1946, the Manhattan district announced that the General Electric Co. had agreed to take a contract for the operation of the Hanford, Wash., pile for the specific purpose of developing practical atomic power units.

It is my opinion that atomic power units suitable for the propulsion of naval vessels will be available in less than 10 years. The development work on these units will be rushed because in this use, performance and not cost is the main criterion. The step from these units to, large industrial plants will be relatively simple from an engineering viewpoint, and the timing is largely a matter of relative costs of atomic energy as compared to conventional fuels. Even making a pessimistic estimate, it is difficult to foresee how practical industrial atomic power could be delayed as much as 50 years.

The importance of the development of these units should not be overlooked in any survey or appraisal of our national energy resources.

CONCLUSION

It is apparent that solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels are interchangeable into each other by processes which are fully developed and are or have been extensively used on an industrial scale. Coal is converted into both oil and gas by distillation and by the Bergius and FischerTropsch processes. Coal is converted into synthetic natural gas (even pure methane). The coals employed do not have to be of high grade. Indeed, not only can lignites be a source of the necessary raw material but peat, wood, and any suitable combustible vegetable matter could be used.

The gas reserves represented by the coal deposits are enormousgiving about 2,500 years' supply at present consumption rates of gas. Even after allowing for large-scale manufacture of synthetic liquid fuels also from coal and assuming continued use of solid coal at the present rate of consumption there is coal enough in the United States to supply gaseous fuel for a thousand years or more. Table A illustrates a possible balance on the three future fuel uses of coal.

In essence the only limitations on the interchangeability of coal, gas, and oil are questions of economic justification, the answer to which depend on factors such as location, convenience, value, and the like. The progress already made in the development and use of atomic energy means, in my opinion, an addition to our reserves of energy available for human uses by future generations at the least comparable to our reserves of coal. These tremendous total reserves and their interchangeability as sources, make it difficult to envisage serious shortages of the presently known, desirable forms of energy for practical

uses.

(Table A is as follows:)

TABLE A.-Illustrative balance on United States hydrocarbon fuel supply from coal

Assuming synthesis plants would operate to produce both gaseous and liquid products at following yields per ton of coal: Gas 7,000 cubic feet, liquid 2.1 barrels. Net United States coal reserve expressed as bituminous equivalent1

Deduct reserve of solid coal for 1,000 years at 600,000,000 ton-years

Net available for synthesis...

Tons

1,760, 000, 000, 000

600, 000, 000, 000

1, 160, 000, 000, 000

Assuming one-half used for gas and one-half for liquid: Prospective gas yield----- 580 billion tons by 7,000=4.1 quadrillion cubic feet or 1,000 years' supply at present consumption rate (4.1 trillion cubic feet per year).

Prospective liquid yield. 580 billion tons by 2.1=1,220 billion barrels or 680 years' supply at present liquid fuels consumption rate (1.8 billion barrels per year).

1 From testimony before U. S. Senate, War Minerals Subcommittee, August 4, 1943, net is based on total minable reserve of 3,178 billion tons all classes of coal and lignite, as of Jan. 1, 1942, converted to bituminous equivalent (13,000 B. t. u./16) and assuming recovery of 69 percent.

Dr. LEWIS. Natural gas is a wonderful fuel because of its gaseous form. That gives it an extreme convenience value. Now, on the other hand, it shares that convenience value with other gaseous fuels. We have made gaseous fuels from coal for 125 years. We have converted coal completely into gas for something like 75 years, and the gases thus produced are similar to natural gas.

Now, they differ from natural gas in two significant respects. In the first place, these gases made from coal, as ordinarily manufactured, as they have been manufactured in the past, have a heating value per cubic foot of only a little over half the heating value of ordinary natural gas.

Now, that represents a limitation, a disadvantage, particularly from the point of view of transportation. You have to transport nearly twice as much gas to the consumer to the point of use if you are employing these gases made directly from coal.

There are other minor disadvantages that are really inconsequential, but the second outstanding advantage of natural gas is that in so many situations it is so much cheaper than the gas we can produce from coal. And that question of cost is the outstanding advantage which natural gas possesses.

A great deal of emphasis has apparently in the recent past been laid on the fact that natural gas does have this higher heating value, and that does mean lower cost of transportation, which is very important if you are going to transmit the natural gas over long distances. On the other hand, to say that it is irreplaceable is unjustifiable. We had methods of synthesis of methane, essentially natural gas, of high-heating-value gas, over 20 years ago.

It is true that those methods at the time were developed in the laboratory only; they had never been reduced to practical industrial demonstration, but their applicability where it was desirable to produce these high-heating-value gases was, I think, beyond doubt even at that time.

However, it could then be claimed that those claims were based on theory and small-scale experiment only, and were not industrially demonstrated facts.

That situation is no longer true. The Germans synthesized highheating-value gases from coal. They did not do it primarily to get the gas. They did it primarily to get oil. But as a byproduct, in the conversion of coal into oil, they did secure these gases, and in this text, which is in the record, I quote one single plant at Huels, Germany, which produced a maximum of about 20,000,000 cubic feet of natural gas a day.

They did it on a far larger scale than that. But the Huels plant and the Huels operation was the one on which I was able to get the data. On the general production in Germany I was not able to get the data.

Today we are in a position to produce gas from coal, high-heatingvalue gas, the equivalent of natural gas, the full equivalent of natural gas from coal, by methods that are far more efficient than the Germans had, because of the advances that research and development of pilot plant work have made in this country in the last 5 years.

Now, we have data today on the cost, the probable costs of such operation. We can take natural gas in Texas and convert it into gasoline at costs that are competitive, evidently competitive with present-day sources of gasoline, and one such plant is being built in Texas, already referred to this morning.

The Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey and the Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Co., I think it is, are working together on the attempt to develop the potentialities of converting coal into gas and oil, producing gas that can be use, high-heating-value gas, that can be used to replace natural gas. That is in process of development. Those companies are putting a lot of money into it. It looks to me as though it will be some time before the thing can be reduced to practical operation, but it is certainly not out of the picture.

The summary which I have already put in the record quotes some figures on the possibility of operating a combination plant of that sort producing gas and oil jointly. One is the byproduct of the other. It indicates a cost of about 74 cents for the gasoline if one is going to credit the gas at 25 cents a thousand.

On the other hand, in the last few days-that data is over a year old-I have been checking up on the thing, and construction costs have been skyrocketing, inflation has run up those costs so much that today if we are going to credit gas at 25 cents a thousand cubic feet, the gasoline apparently will cost a trifle over 10 cents a gallon, which, of course, is higher than present costs from oil.

On the other hand, the whole tendency of development and research is to cut those costs down and to make this conversion of coal into gas and oil a more promising thing than one 5 years ago could possibly have dreamed as in the realm of practicability.

On this question of the replaceability of natural gas I do want to emphasize this point: We can make natural gas or its equivalent, the equivalent of natural gas, synthetically from coal today. That means that we have enormous fuel energy reserves in the form of coal which can be made available for the production of high heating value gas, the equivalent of natural gas, but after all we are dealing here with the problem of energy, and in the recent past the developments of the physicists in the field of atomic energy have opened up tremendous new sources of energy which far surpass the potential sources that we have

had in the past. So that it seems to me a fair thing to say that not only do we have very large reserves of coal which will handle the needs of this country, could handle the needs of this country, including all possible gasoline for a matter of a thousand years and upward, but behind that stand these reserves of atomic energy which we have already learned how to tap, which we do not know how to tap today efficiently enough to make them today competitive with coal, but which many of the experts in the field, feel can be competitive with coal and gas, in the not distant future, and by "not distant" what they mean evidently, is something between five, and let us say, 25 years.

Our reserves of energy are tremendous, and we do not have to save natural gas for special uses because we can replace it at a cost that is not unduly great.

It is my conviction that the principle that ought to govern our use of raw materials is to have a free flow of basic raw materials available for the use of industry and the ultimate consumer all over the country. One of the most important of those basic raw materials is energy. Natural gas is one of those forms of energy. It can be used advantageously to the interests of all the people, and I feel that whatever legislation is passed out to be in the direction of seeing to it that this splendid raw material is made available to us everywhere as freely as practicable considerations will allow.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions, gentlemen?

Mr. HARRIS. Just one question.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Harris.

Mr. HARRIS. Doctor, are you familiar with the Pittsburgh gasification product?

Dr. LEWIS. I am familiar with the work that is being done by the Standard Oil Development Co. which is one of the partners in that project, with the research and development work that is being done by them.

They are working in cooperation with the Pittsburgh Consolidation, and on the other hand I simply have not had any contact with that cooperative effort.

Mr. HARRIS. You are not familiar enough with it to explain to the committee?

Dr. LEWIS. No. You mean how they do it?

Mr. HARRIS. Yes.

Dr. LEWIS. In the first place, you realize that this is still in the process of development.

Mr. HARRIS. Yes; it is experimental, I know.

Dr. LEWIS. It is experimental. What will, in my opinion, be done is this: We will take coal and we will convert it into water gas. Now, coal has been converted into water gas for 75 years. On the other hand, in the very recent past, great improvements in the technique of doing that have been made. This water-gas production will not be by the old method. It will be by these new and improved methods.

Then that water gas will be converted into liquid fuels and gas. That will use a modification of this German process, the so-called Fischer-Tropsch. The trouble with that process was that it made a low octane number gasoline. We think that the main trouble was that the Germans used the wrong catalyst. They used cobalt as a