RUNNING TO WASTE

Evening Post, Volume xciv, Issue 73, 24 September 1917, Page 3

RUNNING TO WASTE

WHAT THE CITY IS LOSING

WELLINGTON'S NEEDS

HYDRO-ELECTRIC SOURCES.

"Whatever may be the explanation, Wellington is rapidly growing. It may be due to the proximity of tlie military camps or other causes, but the expansion of the city is remarkable. Cessation of the war may restrict military activity and reduce the immense amount of war work now being done in the city and its vicinity, but that will not dispose of the houses just built and building in every nearby locality. The only eleotncsupplying authority is the City Council. That body finds both its lighting and tramways installations overtaxed for the work there is already to do, without a , thought of extensions or amplification of existing activities. The money market is not propitious for raising loans, and I even if it were, the necessary material cannot be obtained. Orders not only from .the City Council, but from other big concerns and from private firms, stand in manufacturers' books and are likely to stand there for a long tune, a very long time, if the war continues. The three chief suppliers of electrical plant, Great Britain, United States, and GeT-many, are engaged in oilier more serious business. In any case, with peace restored to-morrow, it will be some time before the German will be selling his wares in this market. All this time between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 horse-power is running to waste in the unharnessed watercourses. Of 3,800,000 ascertained horse-power suitable for generating electricity in the whole Dominion only 28,000 horse-power is employed. Economy is preached far ana wide here, at 'Home,' and assuredly in the enemy countries. The diversion of thousands of millions of savings to war loans, arid the vast sume raised and to be raised by taxation on account of the war, will enforce the practice of that economy now so generally preached. That is inevitable. And still this 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 of cheap power is running to waste: still coal will be mined, trucked, rahed, carried by sea, distributed, all at gTeat cost; still kerosene for lighting, and .petrol for travelling and power, •will be pumped, refined, canned or barrelled, brought long distances, by sea, at costly freights and high insurance rates; still a lot of work in the home, which electricity would save, will have to be done and paid for in money or vital force, or both. BEALISED DREAMS. Fancy has given place to fact in the case of the Lake Coleridge hydro-electric scheme, and that, too, may be said to be but in its experimental stage when compared with the great potentialities of the unused 3.000,000 to 4,000,000 horse power that now makes its uninterrupted flow to the sea. What is being done in the area served by the Lake Coleridge scheme to-day? 1654 street lamps are lighted in Christchurch city; 4217 ChristchurcE consumers take current; Christchurch Electric Tramways running costs have been reduced by £2500 per annum, and the system'rendered independent of coal; Islington, Belfast, and Kaiapoi freezing works are run by electricity; flour milling power is reduced in price from about 4s 6d to 2s per ton, with smoother working results; motor cars and lorries are ! running with electricity instead of petrol; tanneries and fellmongery establishments are operated by electricity; butter and cheese factories are operated by the same power; milking machines are fpund to run better with electricity than with other power; quarries, brickyards, and a pottery are run by electricity, with better results than by steam or other power; electricity has been made available in institutions for lighting, heating, cooking, refrigerating, pumping, sawing, sewing, ironing, washing, hot water heating, and a multitude of general and particular purposes. Coal consumption has been reduced to the advantage of the user by the substitution of electricity. It is estimated by Mr. L. Birks, electrical engineer, that taking the returns from the Addington station alone, Christchnrch is saving , £100,000 a year by the use of electricity ! instead of coal; and where nearly 400 men would be engaged on the hard work of coal mining, transport, and handling, 60 to 80 men are engaged in operating and maintaining the Lake Coleridge power and its distribution. Mr. Birks also estimates that Christchurch is saving £10,000 a year on the use of electricity instead of petrol for motor vehicles. As a city it may be said that Christchurch is only just beginning its electrical existence, for the Lake Coleridge supply has been running continuously since March, 1915, and it has since been increased by a fourth unit, the full capacity of the then installed plant being reached in March, 1917. WHITE COAL OR BLACK? In the view of Mr. Evan Parry, the Chief Electrical Engineer to the Public Works Department, the supply of gae and the supply of electricity in borough areas are not antagonistic, but they both have a field- of usefulness. Mr. Parry estimates that the whole capital cost of an electric power distribution system is not more than the cost of a four or five years' supply of coal required to provide the same amount of power under present conditions; i.e., the expenditure upon a power supply system is recoverable in four to five. years with cost of coal alone, .without reckoning any other saving. It is now generally well known that a triangular hydro-electric scheme has been decided upon for the North Island. Without going into the technicalities, it may be stated that the first, portion of this scheme will serve AVellington 1 City and the country round about from Wanganui on the one side to Dannevirke and beyond on the other. The source of supply of power is the Mangahao River.. To tap that source it will first be necessary to make tunnels aggregating three miles of excavation to carry the mains. They will measure at the face 6ft by 6ft. This work will probably take from two to three years to complete, and require to more than say one hundred men working continuouslyl, upon ii. The rest of the scheme . largely waits upon this tunnel. It is not yet begun. But if it were started to-morrow there would not be any too much time to permit the ordering, arrival of plant, and beginning of the preliminary work for the installation. Manufacturers are snowed under j with orders as it is, all awaiting the, termination of the war. Business, it may be taken for granted, will be mainly executed in rotation. In the meantime, Wellington. City is growing beyond its electric ' tramways, lighting, and power facilities. Its Engineer informed the City Council on Thursday that if a satisfactory supply from hydro-electric sources cannot be made available for Wellington, then a big scheme of reconstruction of the electric supply of the city w?ll have to be entertained. The hydro-electric scheme the Government has in view would obviate such a large expenditure on an independent steam-power generating plant. And yet thousands of horse-power are running to waste every minute in the Mangahao.