Hydroelectricity

“ The steam turbine of Curtis or Parsons is today the prevailing engine. But the development of hydro-electric power has already gone far. It is estimated that the electric energy produced in the United States by the utilization of water powers every year equals the power product of forty million tons of coal, or about one-tenth of the coal which is consumed in the production of steam. Yet hydro-electricity is said to be only in its beginnings, for not more than a tenth of the readily available water power of the country is actually in use. ”

“ It does not follow from the foregoing that it is always more economical to develop two or more smaller water-powers at different points along a river for transmission to some common centre than it is to concentrate the water at a single larger station by more elaborate hydraulic construction, and then deliver all of the energy over a single transmission line. The single larger hydraulic and electric plant will usually have a first cost larger than that of the several smaller ones, because of the required canals or pipe lines. ”

“ When a water power is once developed it may be applied to practical use either near the place of development or at a considerable distance. If it is to be used for power only, and not for lighting, and can be used where it is developed, there is no need of converting it into electricity. But if it is to be used for lighting, or for power to be applied at a considerable distance from the water-power site, then it becomes necessary to convert the power into electricity, in which form it may be most conveniently transmitted from one place to another. ”

“ It is usually much cheaper to store water than electrical energy for the daily fluctuations of load, and the only practicable place for this storage is most commonly behind the dam that maintains the head for the power-station. This storage space should be so large that the drain upon it during the hours of heavy load will lower the head of water on the wheels but little, else it may be hard to maintain the standard speed of revolution for the wheels and generators, and consequently the transmission voltage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Water is still water, after it has run through a turbine wheel to turn an electric generator. It is still wet; it is there for watering the stock; and a few rods further down stream, where it drops five or ten feet again, it can be made to do the same work over again—and over and over again as long as it continues to fall, on its journey to the sea. The city of Los Angeles has a municipal water plant, generating 200,000 horsepower of electricity, in which the water is used three times in its fall of 6,000 feet ”

“ One advantage of water- over steam-power is the smaller cost of the building with the former for a given capacity of plant. The building for direct-connected electric generators, driven by water-wheels, is relatively small and simple. Space for fuel, boilers, economizers, feed-water heaters, condensers, steam piping, and pumps is not required where water-power is used. No chimney or apparatus for mechanical draught is needed. ”

“ Motor-driven Sewing Machine
However, the convenience and cleanliness of electricity are fairly well known and appreciated, but the means by which electric currents may be generated economically, and by which this form of energy may be applied to bring about sufficient returns, financial and otherwise, to warrant the installation of an isolated plant for a farm or country home, are not so generally understood.
Electric current may be generated by means of a dynamo, or generator, with any kind of a power-producing plant. ”

“ I wish to point out to you the attitude of the administration as to the Federal regulation of water power in our navigable rivers.
It is needless to remind such a body as yours of the importance of that sphere of Conservation. All our other present sources of power—such as coal, wood, oil, and the like—are limited, and will be eventually exhausted. Water power alone is permanent. And just as we are coming to learn more and more the value of that permanence, we are simultaneously, through the development of electricity, learning to transmit its energy to greater and greater distances. ”

“ Electricity is of so much value in farm operations, as well as in the farm house, that the farmer who is not fortunate enough to possess water-power of his own, or to live in a community where a coöperative hydro-electric plant may be established, should not deny himself its many conveniences. In place of the water wheel to turn the dynamo, there is the gasoline engine (or other forms of internal combustion engine using oil, gas, or alcohol as fuel) ; in many districts where steam engines are used for logging or other operations, electricity may be generated as a by-product ”

“ The pumped storage plant, an engineering innovation of growing use, is to supplement the energy produced by other plants during periods of peak demands. During such periods it generates energy through use of hydroelectric units driven by water falling from an elevated reservoir into a lower pool. [3] During off-peak periods it uses energy from other sources to pump water from the lower pool back to the headwater pool. [4] The project is capable of creating up to 350 megawatts and the energy created will be utilized in Missouri, Illinois, and possibly Iowa. ”

“ The great advantage of water-power is that the expense of maintenance—once the plant is installed—is practically nothing. This advantage is offset in some measure by the fact that other forms of power, gas, steam, or windmills, are already installed, in many instances and that their judicious use in generating electricity does not impair their usefulness for the other farm operations for which they were originally purchased. In recent years gasoline engines have come into general use on farms as a cheap dependable source of power for all operations ”

“ Where a number of water-power stations feed into a single sub-station the requirement that each generating station have its capacity divided up among quite a number of dynamos may not exist, since one station may be entirely shut down for repairs and the load carried meantime by the other stations. A good illustration of this point may be seen at Manchester, where a single sub-station receives energy transmitted from four water-power plants. At one of these plants the entire capacity of 1,200 kilowatts is in a single generator. ”

“ This property of falling water makes it the ideal power for generating electricity. Electricity generated from mechanical power depends on constant speed for steady pressure—since the electric current, when analyzed, is merely a succession of pulsations through a wire, like waves beating against a sea wall. Water-power delivers these waves at a constant speed, so that electric lights made from water-power do not flicker and jump like the flame of a lantern in a gusty wind. On the other hand, to accomplish the same thing with steam or gasoline requires an especially constructed engine. ”

“ In the aggregate these are used in collecting water from mountain streams, in conducting it for considerable distances to power house where the force arising from its descent through the pipe lines is transmuted into electric energy, and in transmitting that energy to places beyond the reservations, where it is sold to whoever has occasion to use it for power, lighting, or heating. In each case some part of the works is on private lands, but much the greater part is on lands of the United States. ”

“ On the other hand, the purposes for which power is usually required are not only for the elevation of water for a water supply, but for many other and varied requirements. In such cases the power must be developed in such manner that it may be utilized to operate machinery near the site of the development, or transmitted for some distance, and there used to operate machinery or for lighting or heating. To develop water power in this manner requires some kind of a waterwheel. ”

“ Where power is the most important element in the service of an electric water-power and transmission system there is a decided tendency to adopt a rather small number of periods for the system, even at some disadvantage as to lighting facilities. This is illustrated by the transmission from St. Anthony’s Falls, Minn., at 35 cycles, from Cañon City to Cripple Creek, Col., at 30 cycles, by the Sault Ste. Marie plant of 32,000 kilowatts at 30 cycles, as well as by the two Niagara Falls plants of 78,750 kilowatts at 25 cycles. ”

“ After a plant has been in operation a year, the family have discovered uses for electricity which they did not think of in the beginning. For this reason, it is well to put in a plant larger than the needs of the moment seem to require. An electrical horsepower or two one way or another will not greatly change the first cost, and you will always find use for any excess.
Once for all, to settle the question of water-power, the water wheel should be twice the normal capacity of the dynamo it drives, in terms of power. ”

“ To convey electricity to distant centres at a low pressure would require thousands of dollars in copper cables alone as conductors. To illustrate the service of the transformer in electricity it is only necessary to consider water power at a low pressure. In such a case the water can only be transmitted at slow speed and through great openings, like dams or large canals, and withal the force is weak and of little practical efficiency, whereas under high pressure a small quantity can be forced through a small pipe and create an energy beyond comparison to that developed when under low pressure. ”

“ Even a small water-driven electric station that can be operated by a single attendant at any one time must have two attendants if it is to deliver energy during the greater part or all of every twenty-four hours. But a single attendant can care for a water-power plant of 2,000 horse-power or more capacity, so that two plants of 750 horse-power each will require double the operating force of one plant of 1,500 horse-power. ”

“ Up from the ledge that forms the bed of the stream, and into the rocky walls, the power-station, about 110 feet long, is built. The up-stream wall of this station is built after the fashion of a dam, and is reënforced by the down-stream wall, and the water flows directly through the power-station by way of the wheels. A construction of this sort is all that could well be attained in the way of economy, there being neither canal nor long penstocks, and only one wall of a power-house apart from the dam. ”

“ To reach this result, rather long canals, flumes, or pipe lines must be utilized to convey the water to power-stations and deliver it at high pressures.
In cases of this kind the cost of the canal or pipe line may be the largest item in the power development, and it may be an important question whether this cost should be reduced or avoided by the erection of several [74] small generating plants instead of one large one. California offers numerous examples of electric-power development with water that has been carried several miles through artificial channels. ”

“ From this canal ten short penstocks, each 12 feet in diameter, will convey water under a head of 80 feet to as many sets of turbine wheels in the station. These wheels will drive ten generators with an aggregate capacity of 24,000 kilowatts or 32,000 horse-power.
Sometimes the slope in the bed of a river is so gradual or so divided up between the number of small falls, or the volume of water is so small, that no very large power can be developed at any one point without the construction of a long canal. ”

“ The canal which runs along the land side of the power-house, and takes water at the up-stream side of the abutment, is about twice the length of the power-house itself. The saving in the cost of canal construction alone, to say nothing of the saving as to the required area of land, is evidently a large item in favor of the electrical development and transmission. In its small area and short canal the Cañon Ferry plant is not an exception, but is rather typical of a large class of electric water-power plants that operate under moderate heads. ”

“ Water will be pumped from the Mississippi up to the head bays of the power intake dam at the plant to meet possible shortages in supply. The tailrace will extend for a mile along the shore of the Mississippi to a point below Dam 16 on that River. Transmission lines will connect the project with a source of steam standby electric current at Davenport, Iowa, 24 miles up the Mississippi. The plant is expected to produce 200,000,000 kwh. of marketable power per year, of which 151,000,000 kwh. will be firm energy in an average year. ”

“ Work is now under way for the electric transmission of water-power, either for the first time or in larger amounts, to Albany, Toronto, Chicago, Duluth, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and dozens of other cities that might be named. ”