Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1901 — Heat From Electric Lamps. [ARTICLE]

Heat From Electric Lamps.

From one point of view it is to be regretted that electric lamps throw out so little heat. For many household tasks heat is demanded, aud far beyond the electrician’s ability of economical supply. Twelve lamps of standard size, each of sixteen-caudle power, require for their maintenance one horse-power. Clustered together, these twelve bulbs would ask one minute in raising a pint of water through forty degrees of the Fahrenheit scale. Clearly enough, their heat would never suffice to broil a steak or roast a chicken. Aud in the production of electric heat no device is one whit more effective than the Incandescent lamp. What, then, is the secret of this costliness, prohibitive as it is for all but minor and casual uses? Let us adjourn to a central lighting and power station, aud all will become clear. The boilers aud engines, although the best to be had, are wasting nine-tenths of the heat purveyed to them. Part of this wasted heat is thrown out into the boiler house and engine room, a much larger -fraction goes up the chimney in gasPS highly heated, but much the largest loss of all appears In the exhaust steam as It pours forth from the engines. Thus it is evident that if the electric current, as fast as produced, were then and there converted into heat ouc-e more, only about one-tenth as mueh would appear as that originally applied in the fuel under the neighboring boilers. If we can suppose an electric company generous enough to charge no interest for its invested capital, nothing for its outlays in wages, repairs, and other expenses, the heat producible from its electric current would still be much dearer than the heat to be had from a good, well-stoked furnace or stove.— Everybody's Magazine.