Blue Gas for Lighting and Heating
A new gas is being introduced in Germany under the name of “blue gas.” It is delivered in the liquid form in such shape that it can be used in closed rooms in hanging burners, giving from 50 to 1,000 candle-power. In order to use the gas it is poured from steel cylinders, in which it is delivered, into the gasometer. About three dollars’ worth of gas will run a fifty candle-power burner for 480 hours, so that it is even cheaper than petroleum. It can be used for heating, cooking, and other industrial processes. It is three and one-half times more heating than ordinary coal gas and is not poisonous. Almost any apparatus that is arranged to burn ordinary coal gas or acetylene gas can be easily changed so as to burn this new gas. It is only about a third as explosive as coal gas and about one twelfth as explosive as acetylene. Insurance companies require no special permission to use it.