General Electric

“ Since 1954, General Electric sought to confine the employees of independent contractors, described hereafter, who work on the premises of the Park, to the use of Gate 3-A and confine its use to them. The undisputed reason for doing so was to insulate General Electric employees from the frequent labor disputes in which the contractors were involved. Gate 3-A is 550 feet away from the nearest entrance available for General Electric employees, suppliers, and deliverymen. ”

“ The next step came with the creation of the great General Electric Company of to-day, a combination of the Edison, Thomson-Houston, and Brush lighting interests in manufacture, which to this day maintains the ever-growing plants at Harrison, Lynn, and Schenectady, and there employs from twenty to twenty-five thousand people. ”

“ Further practical engineering experience was gained with the General Electric Company at Lynn, and in consulting work in connection with the gas and natural oil fields, oil engines, power plant economies, municipal and private steam-electric and gas-electric power plants, continuing from 1905 to 1915. ”

“ It follows at once from this fact that there must be cogent reasons, apart from the matter of first cost, if the general substitution of steel towers for wooden poles on transmission lines is to be justified on economic grounds. During fifteen years the electric transmission of energy from distant water-powers to important centres of population has grown from the most humble beginnings to the delivery of hundreds of thousands of horse-power in the service of millions of people, and the lines for this work are supported, with very few exceptions, on wooden poles. ”

“ Where the electric generators operate at the maximum voltage of the system, as at Garvin’s Falls and in the power-house of the Manhattan Elevated Railway, there may be said to be only one general plan of connections possible. That is, the generators must connect directly with the main bus-bars at the voltage of the system, and the feeders or transmission lines must also connect to these same bars. ”

“ Synchronous Converters at Campbell Avenue and Homer Street Station
13 Power Supply The power for the early elevated lines was derived from engine-driven direct-current power plants all of which have since become obsolete. All power, therefore, is supplied from the network of the Commonwealth Edison Co., which maintains an ample reserve to supply all needs. While a large percentage of the power now being purchased is generated at 25 cycles, the policy of the Power Co. on all new equipment is to specify 60 cycles. ”

“ There is however one phase of this industry, which is rapidly placing—even a general knowledge, of the means by which the electric current is generated and distributed beyond the reach of all but those actually connected with it as a business, or the student who proposes to follow it as a profession; this is the tendency to centralize electric lighting and to substitute large central stations, where the machinery for generating the current is located and whence the wires are run for distributing the same, for the numerous small plants now scattered over the country. ”

“ Transformers at the Niagara Falls station raise the voltage from 2,200 to 22,000 for the transmission to Buffalo.
As transformers can be wound for any desired ratio of voltages in their primary and secondary coils, a generator pressure that will allow the most economical construction can be selected where step-up transformers are employed. In general it may be said that the greater the capacity of each generator, the higher should be its voltage and that of the primary coils of step-up transformers, for economical construction. ”

“ In some cases, gas may yet for some time compete with the electric light both in brilliancy and economy; for the electric light has spurred on the gas Companies to the improved lighting of many of our public streets and places.
With the general introduction of electricity for the purpose of lighting comes the introduction of electricity for the production of power; for the same current entering by the same conductors can be used for the production of light or of power, or of both. The same plant at the central stations will supply power by day and light by night, with evident economy. ”

“ Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, under and by virtue of the powers vested in me by the foregoing resolutions and statute, and by virtue of all other powers thereto me enabling, do hereby, through Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, take possession and assume control at 12 o'clock noon on the twenty-eighth day of December, 1917, of each and every system of transportation and the appurtenances thereof located wholly or in part within the boundaries of the continental United States and consisting of railroads, and owned or controlled systems of coastwise and inland transportation, engaged in general transportation, whether operated by steam or by electric power, including also terminals, terminal companies and terminal associations, sleeping and parlor cars, private cars and private car lines, elevators, warehouses, telegraph and telephone lines and all other equipment and appurtenances commonly used upon or operated as a part of such rail or combined rail and water systems of transportation, to the end that such systems of transportation be utilized for the transfer and transportation of troops, war material and equipment to the exclusion so far as may be necessary of all other traffic thereon, and that so far as such exclusive use be not necessary or desirable, such systems of transportation be operated and utilized in the performance of such other services as the national interest 140may require and of the usual and ordinary business and duties of common carriers. ”

“ We are living in the morning of electrical knowledge, and what the day may bring no one can imagine. Americans have given the world many of the greatest inventions, and in the field of electricity they have given it nearly everything of value. It is to American ingenuity that civilization is indebted for the electrical telegraph, the sub-marine cable, the telephone, the electric light, and the electric car. The names of Morse, Vail, Field, Bell, Brush, Gray, Edison, and Sprague—all American electrical inventors—will always be prominent in the list of the world's great benefactors. ”

“ But not every promise brought forward in the name of the electrician has his assent or sanction. So much has been done by electricity, and so much more is plainly feasible, that a reflection of its triumphs has gilded many a baseless dream. One of these is that the cheap electric motor, by supply power at home, will break up the factory system, and bring back the domestic manufacturing of old days. But if this power cost nothing at all the gift would leave the factory unassailed ”

“ To ensure the electricity is delivered efficiently, Congress must make reliability standards for electric utilities mandatory, not optional. We've got modern interstate grids for our phone lines and highways. It is time to put practical law in place so we can have modern electricity grids, as well. ”

“ If you could store large amounts of electricity in an accumulator of small volume, without appreciable leakage loss, you could build generators designed to handle average rather than peak load—with resultant savings in cost; you could build electric motors, containing their own energy supply and hence portable—which meant electric automobiles and possibly aircraft ”

“ Except for a few little storage-battery or Diesel generator systems, that couldn't handle one tenth of one per cent of the barest minimum load, it's been the only source of electric current here since 1962, when the last coal-burning power plant was dismantled. ”

“ In the United States a co-operative electrical development association canvasses both the general public and the electricity supply undertakers. Funds are provided by the manufacturing companies acting in concert with the supply authorities and contractors, and the spirit underlying the work is to advertise the merits of electricity—not any particular company or interest. Their efforts are directed to securing new consumers and stimulating the increased and more varied use of electricity among actual consumers. ”

“ Power transmission with continuous current has the advantage that the cost of generators remains nearly the same whatever the line voltage, and that no transformers are required. Such transmissions are common in Europe, but have hardly a footing as yet in the United States. The reason for the uniform cost of continuous-current generators is found in the fact that they are connected in series to give the desired line voltage, and the voltage of each machine is kept under 3,000 or 4,000. ”

“ Well managed central stations broaden their market by putting a premium upon the utmost possible use of electricity. In Brooklyn, for example, the Edison Electric Company charges 10 cents per horse-power hour to customers using 100 to 250 horse-power hours per month; as consumption increases so do discounts until the customer who buys 5,000 horse-power hours pays 4 cents. The demand for current in all its diverse applications is stimulated with energy and address. ”

“ With such facts before us, it is fairly easy to predict the still further electrical development of all important centers. There will be more and better light in homes; there will be more and better light in offices and factories, thus greatly lessening the chances for injury or eye-strain. In all industry, great and small, laborious hand processes will be replaced by safely operated electric machinery, while wider use of electric labor-saving appliances will extend into the home. ”

“ Ten years ago we had about 700 miles of electric railway; to-day about 15,000 miles are in operation in the United States alone; a thousand millions of dollars are invested in the stock, and an army of two hundred thousand men is employed by them, mainly in the great cities, but with steady growth towards all sections and into all aggregations of population. Two thousand millions of dollars are reported to be now invested in apparatus of electrical distributions of energy, converted ultimately into light and power. ”

“ As a very natural consequence of such development, the company by 1902 had 420 miles of underground system supplying installation amounting to 1,928,090 fifty-watt equivalents.
Electricity a Living Factor.
To talk about electrical development in terms of power consumed tells but one side of the story. More impressive even than figures are the immense number of uses to which electricity is put. Electric lighting, introduced in 1882, has become practically the standard for illumination, not only here, but for the entire civilized world. ”

“ In smaller places where the commercial service is not so reliable, it is usual to provide, in addition to the commercial electric-power service, an independent source of power in the form of a gas or steam engine. ”

“ All supply undertakers are anxious to develop the consumption of electricity for power purposes even more than for lighting, but the first cost of installing electric motors is a deterrent to the adoption of electricity in small factories and shops, and most undertakers are therefore prepared to let out motors, &c., on hire or purchase on varying terms according to circumstances.
A board of trade unit will supply one 8 c.p. carbon lamp of 30 hours or 30 such lamps for one hour. ”

“ Even though it goes back and forth in waves of tremendous rapidity, you can see that there must be a time in this period when the electricity is for an infinitesimal space of time at low power, and another infinitesimal space of time at high. In order to keep the supply even and steady, two and sometimes three coils of wire are used in the generator to catch the electricity so that there is scant opportunity for the electric supply to be anything but even, for when one coil is up the other is down and thus they even up the strength of the current. ”

“ All proposals for the extension of generating stations and mains had to be brought before the Electric Power Supply Department of the Ministry, which issued priority certificates for those judged to be most urgent. The output of electrical manufacturing firms was likewise controlled, so that the production of both electric power and electric plant was centrally organized to meet the ever-increasing demand for current. ”

“ To focus the inquiry, it is well to state what is not involved in this case. There is no question that the interstate transmission of electric energy is fully subject to the commerce powers of Congress. ”

“ This bill came before Congress as prepared by the staff of the Commission, couched largely in the technical language of the electric art. Federal jurisdiction was to follow the flow of electric energy, an engineering and scientific, rather than a legalistic or governmental test. Technology of the business is such that if any part of a supply of electric energy comes from outside of a state it is, or may be present in every connected distribution facility. Every facility from generator to the appliance for consumption may thus be called one for transmitting such interstate power. ”

“ Let the problem be to deliver electrical energy in a city distant 100 miles from the generating plant. Transformers with approximately twice the capacity corresponding to the maximum rate of transmission must be provided, because one set is required at the generating and another at the delivery station. The cost of these transformers will be approximately $7.50 per horse-power for any large capacity.
Reliability is of the utmost importance in a great power transmission, and this requires a pole line of the most substantial construction. ”