Cost is only a secondary consideration in such
cases, and where coal-gas is reasonably cheap, and nevertheless gives
place to electric lighting, acetylene clearly cannot hope to supplant the
latter. [Footnote: Where, however, as is frequently the case with small
public electricity-supply works, the voltage of the supply varies
greatly, the fluctuations in the light of the lamps, and the frequent
destruction of fuses and lamps, are such manifest inconveniences that
acetylene is in fact now being generally preferred to electric lighting
in such circumstances.] But where current cannot be had from an
electricity-supply undertaking, and it is a question, in the event of
electric lighting being adopted, of generating current by driving a
dynamo, either by means of a gas-engine supplied from public gas-mains,
by means of a special boiler installation, or by means of an oil-engine
or of a power gas-plant and gas-engine, the claims of acetylene to
preference are very strong. An important factor in the estimation of the
relative advantages of electricity and acetylene in such cases is the
cost of labour in looking after the generating plant. Where a gas-engine
supplied from public gas-mains is used for driving the dynamo, electric
lighting can be had at a relatively small expenditure for attendance on
the generating plant.
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