By Steven Levingston
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 13, 2006

D.H. Killeffer had a dire warning for gasoline-greedy Americans. The chemical engineer had crunched the numbers -- he compared the country's production of crude oil with its thirst for gasoline. "Estimates based on the most complete data now available place the end of our gasoline supply between ten and twenty years, with the odds in favor of ten rather than twenty," Killeffer, secretary of the New York division of the American Chemical Society, wrote in the New York Times.

The year was 1925.

Gasoline-powered travel was still new enough, Killeffer thought, that it was possible to break an incipient addiction to the fuel. "The general public is not necessarily committed to the gasoline-operated automobile for its transportation," he wrote. "It need not worry if it should become more economical in the future to fall back on steam or on electricity to get itself and its goods from one place to another. Even horses might again come into use in such a way as to supply the necessary transportation."

As a first recourse, Killeffer urged the auto industry to improve the efficiency of its engines. But because, as he said, "the end of petroleum and of gasoline as we now know them is imminent," he also encouraged a wide-ranging exploration for the best alternative fuel. He placed his bet on alcohol-powered engines.

Killeffer, obviously, was no prophet. But he stands as a telling symbol of where we have been and, it seems, where we will always be: fretting about the supply of gasoline and which fuel, if any, can provide a cheaper and more plentiful alternative. Gasoline shortages -- or the fear of a scarcity -- have alarmed motorists through two world wars and the Arab oil embargo in 1973. Today, there are concerns about the flow of oil from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska after BP PLC shut down its fields. Motorists worry about tensions in the Middle East interrupting supplies or driving up prices. Policymakers wonder whether hydrogen, ethanol or electric power will significantly supplement or even replace gasoline.

The questions are not all that different from those asked during the earliest days of motoring through the 1920s.

Two decades before Killefer doomed the gasoline engine, no one was sure which fuel would power the motorcar age. In 1902, an industrial exhibition in Berlin sought to determine which type of engine offered top performance. Motors powered by steam, kerosene, gasoline and alcohol were compared in a road test. "The best relative showing was made by the alcohol motors," the New York Times reported Aug. 24, 1902, "and it is believed by many persons who have given thought to the matter that alcohol is to be the fuel of the future."

Proponents of gasoline, which came in a close second, had to persuade the public that it was an economical option. As a byproduct of petroleum, gas was difficult to produce and therefore more costly than some other fuels. In a test conducted by Scientific American in 1907, gasoline showed its merits when mixed with kerosene, which was cheaper. The combo fuel trumped both pure gasoline and alcohol. The gas-kerosene mix averaged 13.35 miles per gallon, compared with 7.3 miles per gallon for an alcohol-powered car. "As kerosene can be purchased for about half the price of gasoline, the use of this fuel would tend to lower the cost of operation," The Washington Post reported on April 18, 1907. "This actually occurred to such an extent that the combination fuel car was the cheapest of the three."

Soon, gas-powered motorcars gained supremacy, thanks in part to vigorous promotion by the industry. In 1910, the American Automobile Association contrived a publicity stunt to demonstrate that an automobile was more economical than a horse and carriage. The association staged a six-day road event that pitted a Maxwell Model Q touring car with a two-speed, 22-horsepower gas engine against a horse and buggy. Billed as the "first official cost test ever held between an automobile and a horse and wagon," the contest, the association said, was for "those who take a keen interest in learning how cheaply a well-built car can be driven long distances."

The Maxwell Q, built by former Oldsmobile engineer Jonathan Maxwell with funding partly from J.P. Morgan, whomped the horse and wagon not only in distance traveled but in cost per mile. Factoring in gasoline and oil and depreciation of the vehicle, the Maxwell Q cost 3.15 cents a mile to operate. The horse and buggy cost 3.69 cents a mile. The Maxwell Q traveled 458 miles over the six days and got about 13 miles to the gallon. The horse covered 197 miles and went about 30 miles per 12 quarts of oats and 20 pounds of hay.

"Against competing technologies, gasoline ultimately won because it was inherently a more useful form of storing energy," said Michael L. Bromley, a automobile historian in Bethesda.

By the 1920s, Americans were in an automobile-buying frenzy. At the end of the decade, more than 23 million cars would be on the road, up from less than 7 million cars 10 years earlier. Buying an automobile had become almost too easy, thanks to a popular credit arrangement called the installment plan. People who had no bathtub in their home had a car out in front.

And Americans were guzzling gasoline like partygoers around the punch bowl.

Drivers were urged to extend the range of each gallon of gas. The National Motorists' Association declared in 1923 that Americans wasted $180 million in gasoline each year because they operate their automobiles unwisely. "The average car owner . . . does not appreciate the role the proper functioning of his engine plays in cutting his own fuel costs," the association said.

Motorists were told to drive at a fixed speed as much as possible to decrease gas use -- no herky-jerky pressing and releasing of the gas pedal. "On a long, steady drive the fuel consumption may be cut down enormously by a careful use of the accelerator," The Post told readers in 1921.

Auto aficionados sought better mileage in proper tire inflation -- it was listed as one of the "commandments" of good car care in The Post in 1928: "Thou shalt remember to inflate the tires at least once a week, oftener if necessary." A firmer tire, it was thought, promised better mileage than a squishy one, discrediting earlier guidance. In 1915, The Post had told readers a soft tire delivers better mileage because it "will wrap around bumps and road obstructions, while the tire, if hard, will mount them, thus consuming more power."

Technology held out the hope -- in some minds -- of squeezing a fantastic number of miles out of a gallon of gas. Charles F. Kettering, the chief of research at General Motors, asserted in 1922 that autos in the near future would get as much as 100 miles to the gallon because of changes in the gasoline refining process.

Kettering was a titan in the industry, with many accomplishments to his credit, and his word was revered. He was the one who eliminated the hardship and injuries caused by the crank-start engine with his invention of an electric, self-starting system. But as a prophet he, too, sometimes got ahead of himself.

However poor the mileage and however steep the costs to operate, the motorcar was here to stay. The love affair was in full swing. To hear the enamored tell it, a motorist at the wheel was like a musician in concert.

"Doubtless it will be a surprise to the average motorist to be told that his car possesses many of the characteristics of a musical instrument," Frederick C. Russell wrote in the New York Times on Oct. 25, 1925. "There are plenty of discordant notes of which he is aware but perhaps he had not stopped to consider that other people get better performance because they put more 'feeling' into the playing of their cars."