Gas From Coal

If Germany can make gasoline--floods of it, in fact--out of coal, then the U.S. can do it too, and probably a darn sight better! Not only can but should, agreed Harold Ickes, his Bureau of Mines and the Senate Appropriations Committee last week. They plan to build an $85,000 pilot plant at Pittsburgh to imitate the German hydrogenation techniques whereby carbon (from coal) is combined with hydrogen to form the group of light hydrocarbon compounds called gasoline.

The Germans, of course, have almost no petroleum. But neither (relatively speaking) has the U.S. Any day now--perhaps in only 15 years--the last U.S. oil wells will begin to gurgle, gasp and dry up. And, said the Bureau of Mines last week, look at synthetic rubber: we all wish serious work on that had begun before last Dec 7. Look also at Alaska: it has lots of coal and no oil,* and perhaps gasoline can be made on the spot cheaper than it can be hauled in by tanker (though Alaska's chief ports are no farther from the California oil fields than New England ports are from the Gulf fields). Anyhow, when the ultimate gasoline shortage appears in 1957, 1970 or 1982, the Bureau of Mines plans to be ready for it.

* Bureau of Mines experts forgot that their colleagues in the U.S. Geological survey have found "at least three large areas" in Alaska which look potential oilfields.

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