1063.    FORTUNE.  Coming:  Ersatz Gasoline.  Vol. 31, 1945, pp. 200, 203.

       Our present crude petroleum reserves have dwindled to about a 14-yr. supply at the present rate of consumption, assuming that no new oil is found and that all of the present reserve can be brought above ground.  To supplement that, we have other raw materials from which liquid fuels can be made:  Natural gas about equal to the proved petroleum reserves, oil shale sufficient to maintain the normal rate of oil production for 65 yr., tar sands which contain enough oil for gasoline for 100 yr., and, finally, vast coal reserves, enough to supply liquid fuel by the Bergius and Fischer synthetic processes for 1,000 yr. or more.  Some conservation-minded experts believe that natural gas should be used as such, since gas loses about half its heat content in being converted into gasoline.  Therefore, the Bureau of Mines, in its study of the production of liquid fuels, is turning down natural gas and giving its attention to the production of gasoline and fuel oils from oil shale and from coal by means of the Fischer and Bergius processes.  Economically, it is believed that gasoline made by the Fischer process is competitive with gasoline made from crude petroleum, and 2 companies are now ready to construct commercial Fischer plants.  However, it is believed that success may not be too rapid, since the transfer of the process from laboratory and pilot-plant stage is sure to be difficult, obsolescence will be rapid, the after-war market for gasoline may be bad, with 7,000,000 cars off the road, and the supply of natural gas is not too secure, with 75% of it already earmarked for other industrial and domestic uses and being consumed at a rate that will exhaust present proved reserves in about 30 yr.