CHEAP POWER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9135, 7 February 1910, Page 5

CHEAP POWER.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —In the English Mechanic, page .60, February 19, 1909, is a novel plan for obtaining power. If it, will not meet our wants in Palmerston for the trams, so much talked about just how, it may bo of use to some of your readers, who require power and can obtain the water. In a novel American plan, for driving' motors by compressed air from'* a, fall of water, three five-foot, shafts are sunk behind a. dam to a depth of 300 feet, ending in a chamber having a capacity of 70,000 ft. As the water falls down theshaft it carries air and compresses it in the underground chambcr to as much, as 73 atmospheres. The compressed air is carried to the motors by *a pipe, and the water rises through a tail race, to a level above the dam. The water is allowed to fall in such a way as £o entrain (or one may say entangle) particles of air, the weight _of the water compresses the air particles. In developing 5000 h.p. 82 per cent of the theoretical power is realised. The iirst cost'of' such a plant is largo, but the expense of maintenance is quite insignificant.—l am. etc., , POWER FOR THE NEW TRAMS.