IN his presidential address to the Institution of Electrical Engineers on October 3, Mr. V. Z. de Ferran analysed the progress which has been made towards the ‘all-electric’ goal envisaged by his renowned fatner, in a paper delivered to the same institution thirty-six years ago. The latter took as his basis the 150 million tons of coal a year being used in Great Britain in 1910 and estimated that by raising the efficiency of conversion to 25 per cent the same usefulness could be achieved by the conversion of only 60 million tons into electricity. He visualized the generation of 131,400 million kWh. by means of 25 million kW. of operative plant working at a 60 per cent load factor, this plant to be concentrated in about a hundred stations spread over the country. Of these targets, the efficiency one has been exceeded in individual installations. Notwithstanding the introduction of the Grid scheme, however, progress toward the others has been slow. Thus only 24 million tons of coal a year are converted into electricity, and this is but 12 per cent of the coal now available. The electricity consumption figure is 32,000 kWh., though if recent trends are maintained the ‘target’ of 131,400 kWh., or about 2,850 kWh. per head of population, should be reached in 1959. It is evident, however, that with the considerably increased rise of energy consumption in one form or another, this would be far from representing the ‘all-electric’ condition visualized in 1910, and that much still remains to be done in the industrial and domestic fields if unnecessary waste of energy, and its several unsocial consequences, are to be avoided.