Switchyards for the Nation's Power
June 1944 Popular Mechanics

June 1944 Popular Mechanics

[Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early mechanics and electronics. See articles from Popular Mechanics, published continuously since 1902. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

A relatively small number of people are responsible for building the world's most massive projects. Conceiving of, gathering support for, designing, building, and making operational gigantic dams, seaports, airliners, ships, railroads, skyscrapers, hospitals, highway systems, food processing plants, oil refineries, canals, is the domain of a very few engineers, scientists, managers, tradesmen, bankers, and manufacturing concerns. This article in the June 1944 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine reports on the building of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state. Take a look at the scale of the components being assembled, and consider the manufacturing facilities and people that built those parts. How does anyone take on such a monuments task? Imagine the satisfaction and pride in knowing you participated in such a project. From the late 19th century through the middle of the 20th century, Western minds and hands built the modern world's foundation. At the same time, some cultures were (and still are) living in mud huts and communicating with each other with tongue clicks and hand gestures. Now, we're supposed to feel guilty for advancing civilization while allowing others to degrade us and force us to "admit" that it was actually they who did all the thinking and work. These are insane times.

Switchyards for the Nation's Power

A heavy rainstorm in northern California is of more than local importance, for it may set into operation a chain of events that has a final effect in Texas, half a continent away. The flow of natural gas or fuel oil from a Texas petroleum field may have to be increased solely because of a rainstorm on the Pacific coast.

This odd situation exists because of interconnections between electric power systems. Hooking the systems together makes it possible to draw upon distant sources of power in times of need. Interconnections allow the electrical industry to balance its power sources so that the perpetual demand for electricity is constantly satisfied.

The full story of the tie-up between the California rain-storms and the Texas oil field is complex but a simplified outline might go like this: in anticipation of future needs, the public utility that serves the San Francisco area has been conserving the water in its northern storage reservoirs, meanwhile buying power from the Southern California Edison Company via a hydro-electric plant in the central mountains. When a big storm assures a surplus of water in the north, the San Francisco utility increases its own hydro-electric output and disconnects from its neighbor.

This allows the southern company to route the unused power over its transmission lines to Los Angeles and permits it in turn to reduce its demand on the generators at Boulder Dam in Nevada. Boulder, accordingly, reduces the flow of water through its turbines, which curtails the amount of water that flows downstream to another powerhouse at Parker Dam.

The Parker powerhouse has a guaranteed minimum flow of water on which it can depend but in these days of high demand its turbines need every drop they can get. When Parker's generators slow down, the power companies in Arizona that are connected to Parker must turn to stand-by steam plants to make up the difference. These steam plants are the final link in the chain, for they burn oil piped from Texas.

This example of interconnection is not far-fetched. It has even happened that power from Boulder Dam, flowing along transmission lines down into Mexico and west to the coast, has provided the initial link in a chain that made it possible for a power company in Idaho to meet an unusually heavy demand for electricity. Boulder power was not, of course, transmitted all that distance. Power from the dam was used simply to satisfy the needs of an adjacent area, allowing the area's normal source of power to feed its electricity into the next adjacent area, and so on up the line to Idaho.

Interconnection, too, makes it possible to ship fuel. oil, coal, or natural gas by transmission lines instead of by rail. This is accomplished by substitution, explains N. B. Hinson, executive engineer of the Southern California Edison Company and chairman of the Pacific-Southwest Power Interchange Committee. It may be that a certain small power system needs 10 carloads of fuel oil per day to keep its steam plant operating, and this fuel oil may have to be hauled hundreds of miles by rail. Often the best way is to convert the oil or other fuel into electricity at some steam plant close to the fuel source, and deliver the energy by transmission line where it is needed.

Electricity is an indispensable servant of civilization and in spite of the many tasks it performs today its greatest utilization still lies in the future. Handling power in bigger amounts than ever before, the power industry is constantly overcoming new problems, putting electricity to new uses. One new use, electro-metallurgy, alone demands vast amounts of power.

Up in the Pacific Northwest, five aluminum refining plants that didn't exist three years ago are now producing more aluminum than was produced in the whole country five years ago. This is possible because of the electrical output of Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams on the Columbia River. Power from Grand Coulee alone would light three 60-watt bulbs in every home in the United States. Even so, installation of the turbo-generators that will make Grand Coulee the world's greatest' powerhouse has not yet been completed. That title is still held by the generators at Boulder Dam.

When Boulder was built, no one dreamed that one industrial plant alone would shortly consume one fourth of its tremendous output of electricity. Yet that is the demand of Basic Magnesium, Inc., which uses more electricity than do half a dozen of the most sparsely settled western states together. Inside the plant buildings, many parts of the electrical system have been air conditioned so that the heavy power loads can be carried safely in spite of high summer temperatures. Air conditioning created its own problems, for the moisture in conditioned air combines with chlorine that is used in the plant process and causes corrosion, even on the surfaces of the huge silver and copper bus bars used as conductors. Exposed portions of the electric system must be kept painted.

Not long after BMI went into operation, mysterious flash-overs started in an outdoor 230,000-volt switchrack. Big bluish arcs flamed down over the insulators to ground. Then the circuit breakers kicked open. The cause was a film of dust from the magnesium operations settling on the insulators. The dust was inert as long as the atmosphere remained dry but in high humidity it became a conductor, allowing the current to short across the insulators. Now the insulators are washed regularly.

New problems are always coming up. The caddis fly, for instance, favored by fishermen as a lure for trout, is a headache to hydro-electric engineers in some areas. The little insect has been known to reduce the output of a power plant as much as 10 percent. The larvae of the fly, floating downstream, attach themselves to the walls of intake tunnels that lead to the power turbines. They spin webs that catch particles of dirt, reducing the tunnel's diameter and cutting down the amount of water that reaches the turbines. Intake tunnels must be cleaned of the growths each spring.

To reduce energy losses, engineers put a motor-generator set that is used for changing current from one frequency to another inside an airtight steel shell, then fill this shell with pure hydrogen. Hydrogen is a better conductor of heat than is air, so the machine operates at a cooler, more efficient temperature. Hydrogen is lighter than air, also, and the energy used by the machine's rotating parts in overcoming air resistance is reduced. As much as 500 kilowatts of power that otherwise would be lost is saved when a big frequency changer is operated in a hydrogen atmosphere.

Early in the war it was feared electricity would have to be rationed, so great were the industrial demands. By adding to its generating capacity, by interconnection, and by increasing its efficiency, the American power industry has kept ahead of the greatest demand it ever faced.

Lowering 220-ton stator of 108,000 kilowatt generator into Grand Coulee's powerhouse.

Fifty-cycle current goes in one end of this frequency changer and 60 cycle current comes out the other end. Southern California Edison Co, photo.

Linemen checking capacitors and protective equipment by which the high voltage transmission lines can carry telephone conversations.

Posted December 14, 2023