More Car Charging Juice Needed Humphrey? Yes Minister.

Basically the gas company used coal fired ovens to cook coal to release gas and the cooked coal was sold as coke, which could still be burnt as a fuel, but produced less heat than coal as the gas had been removed from it.


Andy B.

Indeed - heating the coal up with not enough air to fully burn, and adding water vapour as described above by DZ, is a key part of the old gasworks process - giving you two flammable by products, the solid but porous coke, and the gas, as well as reasonable quantities of a heavy coal tar and creosote, good  for water proofing sleepers and wood preservation. (spills of these latter, or indeed just dumping of it into pits make reclaiming old gasworks for development into a bit of an environmental nightmare. )

youtube video of a manual gas works - larger ones were more mechanised.


Once in fresh air the carbon monoxide can be persuaded to pick up another oxygen and burn but it is the hydrogen from the cracking of the water that makes town gas interesting for the current discussion, because it is often described as hard to contain, with leaks spontaneously lighting and exploding at the drop of the hat.  This has been seen in industrial settings with H2 at high pressure (hundreds of atmospheres, where about the only thing that reliably keeps it in it seems is fully welded stainless steel pipework).

But hydrogen leaks were not a serious problem in the old coal gas era with distribution pressure of a few inches of water gauge. As adding hydrogen to the current natural gas network is another thing that may soon be required, it seems  sensible to debunk some of the worst fears.

As an aside the 'Agatha Christie style ' murder of the head in the oven and not lighting the gas works with town gas, because of the unburnt CO.

With north sea gas breathing in a few lungfulls will give you a headache and a fit of coughing is more likely - with CO that is fatal.

Coke - the original smokeless fuel.


Town gas - yes delivered at a very low pressure. When natural gas (methane) came in, pressure regulators were fitted at the origin and burners had to be changed. Instead of "gasometers" gas is now stored in its pipes by virtue of changing the pressures therein.

And as a gentleman in South Wales told me, the Porth Council Electricity Power Station where his dad worked was part of the gas and tar works.

Electricity, gas, coke and tar all products of coal mined locally in the Rhonda Valley and produced within the same works.


As a personal note I can say my mother was a wages clerk at the Gas Works in Redditch many years ago, where she worked with my godmother.


Andy B.

When the conversions to natural gas from the North Sea were being carried out the gas fitters used to tell the old ladies they would not need to put any salt in the pan of spuds as the gas was salty.


Andy B.

Thanks David I never knew town gas was such a mix of gasses amazing really. I remember my dad buying creosote to coat fences around various ethnic property's I think he used to go to Newbury gasworks to buy it.

During the war vans and cars were run using town gas, as in "Dads Army", also charcoal was used to produce gas for the same purpose.

I remember in dads army they had Jones van converted to gas and it had a big gas bag on top. And then they burst it by accident with fixed bayonets Oooops. I've just realised that spellcheck put the word ethnics instead of area property's sorry I didn't notice before