Electricity from Garbage

Lord Kelvin, the Eminent British Scientist, Tells of a Great Discovery in England.

MILLIONS SAVED YEARLY.

Refuse of Great Cities Can Be Utilized to Produce Power, Light and Heat.

GREAT PLANT AT SHOREDITCH.

Among the passengers by the Campania yesterday wore Lord and Lady Kelvin and Professor G. F. Fitzgerald, the gentlemen being en route to Canada to participate in the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Lord Kelvin is better known as William Thompson, an eminent electrician and scientist, who was knighted on the completion of the second Atlantic cable, and raised to the peerage in 1892. He was at one time president of the Royal Society. His scientific achievements are too well known to need recapitulation.

Though now an aged man, Lord Kelvin is still vigorous both in mind and body. He is going to-day to Montreal, thence to Toronto, where the British Association meets. He said he would in all probability make a trip to Vancouver before he returned to England.

HE IS HERE TO LEARN.

I asked Lord Kelvin for his opinion about Nikola Tesla's new discovery of telegraphing without wires.

"The accounts I have seen of it," said His Lordship, "have been so meagre that I cannot say anything about it. Whether it is possible or not I do not know. I have come here to learn what you are doing."

I also referred to the "third rail" system now in use in Connecticut, and Lord Kelvin, said he hoped to see it. Then he spoke of a discovery in England which is now being put to practical use. It is the extraction of power and heat from garbage or, as he phrased it, from "dust."

"Here," he said, "you pay to collect this dust. You tow it in scows at great expense down the bay and dump it into the ocean. In our country we are utilizing it. At Shoreditch, near London, we have established a plant which has been six weeks in operation and is highly successful. We burn up the 'dust' and produce from it electricity. In fact, electric works there are running through the electricity generated from this refuse.

BUT HE TEACHES US.

"The furnaces used are not, of course, the ordinary ones. They are specially built, with peculiar cells for the reception of the dust and tubes for conducting the electricity generated. The ordinary furnace would be too cold to get out the heat from the garbage. I may say generally that a gas is produced, through a mixing with the oxygen of the air, that is without odor. There is a resultant slag from broken glass and old bottles.

"This collected 'dust' has a combustible quality and is available for electric purposes. It is the cinders which chiefly give the heat. The furnaces are so equipped that in case of emergency coal can be used. Every ton of dust will evaporate a large quantity of water.

"We have ascertained that ten tons of 'dust' is equal to one ton of coal for the purpose of getting up steam.

"Millions of dollars are flung to waste in your country every year and also in ours. The process I refer to will save all that."

Lord Kelvin added that the lighting plant at Shoreditch is run entirely by steam which is produced from the garbage. Shoreditch used to pay 2s. 3d. a ton to have the garbage collected and carried to sea. Very little labor is needed at the work. His lordship will visit the power works at Niagara Falls.