believe water will one day be employed as fuel that hydrogen and ox ygen which constitute it used smgly or together will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light Jules Verne ca 1870 The Mysterious island PRUVO Utah For more than century awed and con founded youngsters have been growing up on the instruction of Jules Verne Roger Billings however is making career of it When he was 13 Billings was conducting experiments using hydrogen as fuel When he was 16 he toured science fairs to suggest hydrogen would one day replace hydrocarbons as the major energy source Before yaduating from college he was running lawn mower Model Ford and Volkswagen according to Jules Vernes vision Precocious kid Decidedly And though others snickered at the youthful eggheads ideas he is today enjoying Fultones que last laugh Now 28 Roger Billings is millionaire cor poration president and as leading exponent of hydmgen energy he may well be one of the most potentially important men in this energyworried world He doesnt look like budding magnate nor prophet either Short blond squeaky clean he has no neck and his suits look as if theyve come from the win dow at Penneys He says his baby face is burden once as honored speaker at scien tific dimer Billings had to pro ve his age before being allowed in the hall But what he lacks physically he more than makes up in genius lormer Utah Sen Frank Mos calls Billings The Wizard of Provo and with good reason if Billings is right world energy problems are strictly short term he insists theres enough fuel lll our water alone hydrogen to light our lamps until kingdom come will be the major source of energy Hydrogen as tillings demonstrates fl is the most Common element in the universe Along ith oxygen it is major compound of the water which covers iiiIllllls ot the earth it is colorless tasteless odorless btii as fuel it may have limitless valuc ergo Billings and some others foresee the world entering hydrogen conniny Aside from being abundant hydrogen is also the lightest of the elements tinlike elmtrnr ty it can be stored lnlikc petroleum natural gas coal cvcn wood it is all but free of pollutants Whats more the hydrogen fuel process is cir cular when hydrogen is burn ed it vaporizes and the water Can be used to make more hydrogen But is it practical Billings admits that for most of the two centuries since its discovery hydrogen has been unwieldy and unsafe Bulky in both its li quid and gaseous state it is also highly flammable It was 40 years ago that the airship Hindenberg loaded with 67 million cubic feet of hydrogen exploded in New Jersey Then in 1960 it was found that hydrogen could be compressed and more or less safely stored in rocks made of iron and titanium This discovery was giant step forward in Billings pursuit of hydrogen economy The young inventor now puts the rocks called hydrides in vehicular fuel tanks and powers the machines with injected hydrogen Billings drove hydrogen fueled Cadillac Seville in Jim my Carters presidential iti auguration He has hydrogen powered bus operating in Pro v0 and one also in Riverside Calif Presently he is conver ting to imported cars to hydrogen for public sale Next year it will be 100 cars And after that Millions Ihope Billings hopes are not to be easily dismissed When he entered Brigham Young University here in 1968 he told advisers he hoped to build the first hydrogen energy company in America precisely five years later he did it was dur ing the BYU period that he built his hydrogen VW it won na tional contest for urban vehicle design When he graduated still precocious but also broke Bill ings talked the government into letting him start his firm in an old Qunnset hut at Utahs largest mental istitiitioii That was in one year before the Arab energy boycott At the me to gave even scant at tention to Billings and precious ltWCl LJHt research llltili As corixiration Billings early business Mls little more than nothing In will he had $9572 worth of lOSAillCll con tracts ivliei hired Billings recalls couldnt atfoni to get anyone iith experience hence he lured youths like himself who had more brilliance than financial need Even with brilliance though Billings could not haVc made it with hydrogen visions alone Itortunately ihile inventing things for the fuel concept he and his associates created compact fourth generation computer which they then manufactured for sale on the open market Things have skyrocketed for Billings since Today the Billings Energy ltesearch Corp employs 100 people and is housed in new $2 million plant on the ege of 388 acre Billingsowned in dustrial park This year Bill ings has $15 mllion in research contracts stock has gone from 15 cents share to nearly $18 and world industry is surroun ding the firm with requests and ideas Billings says Detroit auto ex ecutives are on his phone daily One major petroleum com pany has agreed to finance $200 million coal gasification plant to make hydrogen As of now according to one federal report Billings is responsible for almost half 16 of all US vehicles that have been con verted to hydrogen operation Indeed some companies in America are beginning to wonder why they didnt think of the hydrogen potential before Billings Certainly the potential has never been secret Hydrogens properties have been known since 1766 when scientists stopped calling it inflammable air It has been used as fuel for half cen tury Until the 1950s coke and coal were converted to hydrogen which fueled many of the na tions homes and factories Chicago still imports 11 tons of liquid hydrogen daily and the space program has powered its rockets with hydrogen for 30 years Many industrial pipelines still exist near Houston for example and Buf falo Like electricity hydrogen is seconvf try ft in that it must be manufactured from primary sources Billings believes gasified coal should be the primary source Others say that nuclear plants built far at sea would be ideal manufac turing plants water there cotild be passed through hot plasma to create enormous sup plies ltogcr Billings sa hydrogen fuel could be ltllltl to homes and factories by way of existing natural gas pipelines Also it Ctilllflllt carried in hydride tanks much the same is propane gas is now Most home appliacnes could cheaply convened to hydrogen for about 350 tillings says autos can also be readily made 0tl And hydrogen energy might even be created in homes with use of elmtrolyzers These machines shoot electricity through water to separate the hydrogen Billings has small clectrolyzer that can recharge the hydrides in an automobile tank today the unit cost is $10000 but in mass use the price Would drop sharply There are of course not few impediments to this kind of hydrogen economy Cost is one hydrogen product ioti is current Heat and moisture wosters ventilators can cut losses Two big energy wasters in in super he and winter sulated attics are summer moisture Cumn in no inft unilu installer Attic insulation is vulnerable to moisture damage in winter The moisture enters the attic from such sources as the kit chen bathroom laundry rooin and the household humidifier Unless this moisture is adequately ventilated it can soak insulation thus ruining energy savings When you ventilate heat from your attic in the summer your house stays cooler or your air conditioner runs 20 to 40 per cent less thus saving energy Power Ventilators from Leigh Metal Products London nt equipped with powered fans thermostats and humidistats automatically eliminate excess heat and win ter moisture Power Ven tilators are available at bar dware building supply and related mass merchant depart minis lteiail prices range bet ween $70 to $160 depending on style and power capacity required ly several times as expensive to produce as oil or natural gas Also it must be remembered that as secondary fuel source hydrogen requires vast amounts of primary energy to become usable energ itself Also hydrogen storage is bother Even with hydride rocks the fuel cannot now be compressed enough to meet anything but minimum power demands Billings Cadillac for instance can only go 100 miles on tank and it takes several days to recharge the tank un fortunately larger tank would be prohibitively heavy and expensive But perhaps the most serious drawback to the imminent mass use of hydrogen is the lack of wide production and distribution facilities Estimates are it would cost trillions to even begin to build the plants and station Hence as one expert sighs Building hydrogen car without hydrogen outlets is like inventing light bulbbefore electricity None of these problems is any surprise to the Wizard of Provo however he says he does not claim to be ready for the hydrogen economy today What he preaches along with hydrogen propaganda is foresight We have adequate fuels from hydrocarbons now but some day we wont what we have to do is get hydrogen ready for that day lhus Billings hydrogen vehicles are merely the first chapter in long book The to imported cats now being con verted for testing are compact with small hydride tanks and Will get only about 30 miles per hydrogen load So limited the cars must he dual fueled l0 when necessary they must be switched to gas power Still the cars are start says Billings The vehicles are showmg for one thing that they are 30 per cent good Uniroya the examiner Frlday Sopt so 1917 10A Utah inventor maintains hydrogen At 28 Roger Billings is millionaire corporation presi dent and as leading exponent of hydrogen energy he may well be one of the most potentially important men in this energyworried world more efficient than gas models Engine wear is also reduced Billings expects his buses to run 300000 miles on their existing power plants As for cleanliness Air going out of the cars is better than that oomingin Next the Billings Energy Research Corp will build 38 of the first hydrogen powered homes in America one of which is or Billings his wife and three children After than the com pany plans to construct hydrogen farm totally self suf ficient capable of manufactur ing as much fuel as is needed to grow the grain and milk the COWS its still long way to the hydrogen cionomy Billings ad ls Car Fitness Special Good this week only Bcylindor can 6cyllndor can 4cytlndor can Heres what you got New spark plug installed new points new rotor and new condenser We cdiuct carburotor sot engine timing chock distributor cop and ignition wiring chock starting and charging circuits chock air filter Get rid of shakes and shiiiimis Uniroyal Wheel Alignment $1 49303 cm in hard on tires to run on wheels out at alignment They wear unovonty and shorten iiro lilo robbing you of part of your the Investment More what we do Adjust cantor camber Adlust torsion bar when nocunry Chock mooring whool controlng and PCV valve and chock battery and cabin Chock tlro prouuro Chock wheel bearing Chock frontroar suspension Rood toot car Oil Change Filter Lube $125 It you patronixo your ulturvtce station you need someone to chock and top your oil and wator or ball changzoyour oil hynd illtor Indor do lube lob while we roctlgn your whoois install new tire ronow your brakes or replace faulty shocks 0r woll lust change the oIl and lubricate your car for you at this low price mits yet its quite way too from the days he was soapbox ing at science fairs Still precocious he insists the day is not really so distant when Americans will have the option of buying hydrogen car and then making fuel for it with an electrical outlet and water hose The Wizard of Provo knows this dream is large one Cur rently the US manufactures mere 22 trillion cubic feet of hydrogen year hundreds perhaps thousands of times this amount would be needed iii the hydrogen economy Yet the time to begin is now says Roger Billings We dare not delay the future Jules Verne would agree Offer Ends Fri Oct 7th Lot Uniroyal do It Wetl O00000I0OQCQIQUQI0IIo iio Bradford 51 7285965