"SUPER-POWER."

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 10163, 18 July 1924, Page 5

"SUPER-POWER."

VAST PROJECT FOR AMERICA. The United States is now engaged upon an enterprise characteristically big, which seems likely to produce in the new few years profound changes in the life of the nation. It is an attempt to unite the whole of the country's production and distribution of mechanical energy in a single system. Already the plan has been carried a long way towards realisation, writes the New York correspondent of "The Times." In the Pacific station an. unbroken line of electric power stations stretches for 1200 miles, and presently a similar unbroken line will stretch for 1600 miles between Canada and Mexico. In part of New England and oyer a group of the Southern States there are other large system all ready to be a part of the great articulation. And but very recently nine light and power companies in Pennsylvania, organised still another combination of plants which, when the time comes, will be fitted into the isystem. In the southwest there is a plan for putting the errant and destructive Colorado River to work, which will certainly resuM in the creation of yet one more system that can lie included in the eventual greater union. It is not clear who originated the idea of a universal system of power, but probably it gradually grew up out of the realisation that there must be co-operation between States when rivers, which have scant respect for political boundaries, were to be utilised to produce electricity or any other form of power. More than that, there had to be co-operation with the Federal Government if rivers were to be dammed for power plants, because all the navigable waters of the country are under the jurisdiction of the War Department. The Federal Government took no really important action for t"ie encouragment of new power enterprises until about four years ago when Congress created the Federal Power Commission. In the short time that the Commission has been functioning it has issued licenses for the installation of plants with a total capacity tor producing 7,500,000 h.p,, and under its authority plants with a capacity of 2,400,000 h.p. have been built, or arcbeing built. Previously there had been built under Federal authorisation, over | a period of 20 years, plants with a capacity of but 1,400,000 h.p. in all. . How vast the development of electric power has been in recent years can be seen from the fact that, whereas in 1919 the output of all plants in the United States was 35,921,000 of Inllowat hours, by 1923 it had risen to 55 925,000,000 of killowatt hours In the earlier year 37.5 per cent, of the total output of electric energy was produced by water power and 62.5 per cent by coal and other fuels; but in 1923 the proportion had changed to 35' 1 and 64.9 per cent. The alteration in the ratio is significant. It means not a diminution in water power enterprises, but an increase at a relatively faster rate of plants producing electricity from coal, oil, and other fuels. Carbo-eleetno plants are, ot course, generally cheaper to install though not cheaper to maintain, than hvdro-electric plants. And not only is" coal comparatively inexpensive in the United States, but improvements have been made in the method of using it so that only 2,4 lb. is required to produce a killowatt hour of electricity, as against 3.21 b. in 1919.