ELECTRICITY FOR SWITZERLAND

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26881, 6 November 1952, Page 11

ELECTRICITY FOR SWITZERLAND

GRANDE DIXENCE SCHEME GENEVA. One of the most impressive pieces of engineering in Europe, now being pushed ahead as quickly as possible before the winter sets in, is the Grande Dixence hydro-electric scheme, high up in the stony mountains of the Valais. This is a 15-year plan to collect the water of some 20 glaciers, conduct it through 80 miles of galleries as big as railway tunnels, store it in a reservoir with a dam more than 900 feet high, then feed it through turbo-generators and make Switzerland self-supporting in electricity. It is the highest hydro-electric scheme in Europe. The dam is Europe’s tallest. It will hold in check, at Cheilon, 400,000,000 cubic feet of water. The eventual cost will be about £80,000,000, all being met by private enterprise. Switzerland already has a dozen hydro-electric schemes, but in winter she still finds it necessary to borrow electricity from France. This she repays in summer, when she has a surplus, and France can do with more for industrial purposes. Grande Dixence, gathering a huge column of water from the Arolia, Ferpecle, and Zermatt valleys, in the region of the Matterhorn, will eventually be able to produce 1,600,000,000 kilowatts of electricity a year. Much has been done at Grande Dixence since work started two years ago. A wonderful mountain road which can take heavy lorries has been built. It winds for 19 miles until it is well over 5500 feet above Sion and 7000 feet above sea level. There is a complete village, Prazfleuri, at 8450 feet above sea level, with dormitories, offices, a restaurant (plenty of stejaks, chops, good red wine and beer) and a cinema. Many dark and awesome tunnels have been dug deep in the mountains with American excavators, bulldozers, and other equipment costing millions of Swiss francs. The contribution of Italian engineers is an overhead cable railway on which materials, equipment and food are swung into space on their way up the mountain. Roman Invasion -Route Sion, where everything for Grande Dixence seems to start, is the capital of the Valais on the Simplon line to Italy. Julius Caesar was the first to think of this route as the quickest from Rome to Western Europe. In his great invasion, he passed through Sion and made of it a Roman encampment. There are many relics of the Roman soldiers and of the women whom they brought with them, in the hilltop Chateau de Valere, one of the great fortified strongholds of the Middle Ages. To the people of Sion, the coming of the Roman soldiers was a great piece of good fortune. The arrival of Swiss engineers in the 1950’s may eventually have as big a place in local history, for they are carving out of the bare mountains a marvel of the universe.