HYDRO-ELECTRICITY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10112, 20 October 1917, Page 7

HYDRO-ELECTRICITY.

PAPER BY MR. A. J COLQUHOUN. At last night's meeting; of the Manawatu Philosophical Society, Mr A. J. Colquhoun •cud a paper on "Hydro-Electricity," I .i subject of considerable local interest in v i<>w of the fact that an agitation exists throughout this coast for harnessing the •nergy now running to waste, and utilising t for power and lighting purposes. Mr Colquhoun commenced by stating hat ii coalmine was essentially a great .torehousc of energy'obtained from the sun .1 past geological ages, and it was this siiorgy that the coal-owner sold, leaving tin; purchaser to get the oxygen and make lie energy available. A waterfall was iilso a storehouse of energy, and to use i, it was necessary to get troin the tailing ..ater the power as it was produced, change l into another form of energy, and then either bring the work for which the power ,vas required to the fall or find some means of distributing it, and the subject that interested the meeting that night was the distribution of that energy. Referring to ,he transmission of power, the speaker remarked that a momentous advance had >.i'ii made, and now the machinery of the factory could be driven by power generated hundreds of miles away. Transmission of power, then, had two broad aspects: One the transmission of power over miles, and the other over local areas .s within a factory. Electricity was of iii;)ortance, not as a prime source of energy, but as a transformer of energy, and the triumph of using electrical methods lor transferring energy. Everyone almost Jwas familiar with the transmission of elecincal [lower, and so familiar was it that people failed to realise how wonderful it ivas. For instance, the door lx'll, the telephone, the electric lift, were all examples .>: the transmission of power. One of the great difliculties or power transmission of long distances was loss of energy, brought about by the resistance of the wires, which called for more energy to force the current through them, ami this energy was lost. tinning to a matter of local interest. ' Mr Colquhoun said our water power was ii Shannon, and by using the water t*. drive turbines or Pelton wheels, a dynamo was driven also, which transformed the ' potential energy into electrical energy. But that energy was at Shannon, and it was wanted in Palmcrston, and the difficulty ; dl insulation and of resistance had to lie overcome, and in a. manner that the ex- j peuse would not be prohibitive. Insula- | tiu'i was the first step, the uncovered wires being fixed to glass or porcelain insulators . carried on poles. The next difficulty was! thin of resistance, and it was here that Faraday's great discovery came in and j rendered long distance transmission pos-j si!ile, and the speaker gave a demonstration of how energy was conserved by Fiiradaws transformer. For instance, (he current would be nil. through a transformer ai Shannon and at a high voltage transmitted to Palinerston, but it was necessary outside the city to reduce the high voltage and make it safe, so once again the transformer came to our aid, which lessened I the voltage and increased the current. lo sum up, water power at. Shannon was used to drive turbines, and those turbines drove dynamos to generate electricity. The transformer changed this to a very high j voltage which was transmitted over wires ' to the outskirts of Palinerston, where another transformer reduced the voltage, .■in.l we had the energy available for use. To render such a scheme successful there was one fundamental postulate, and that was large demand, and an ever-increasing demand. Supposing 200 h.p. was required in Palinerston, the necessary installation must be provided, and if we Wished to increase the supply to 5000 li.il, provide. :|„. wa»er was there, tic only additional , expense would be the small outlay of additional turbines and dynamos -the overhead work would carry the 5000 h.p. as easily as the 200 h.p. To give a practical example, ! a single power station in Norway recently increased its capacity from 30.000 to' 250,000 hj p at an outlav of £%,000 on a reservoir. It would be seen that, while a liydro-elcctric scheme on a small scale ,„uv be a ghastly failure, the same scheme on a largo scale may he a brilliant, success. The Government of New Zealand was to be congratulated on insisting thai our energy shall not be dissipated on small schemes. Touching on the question of big demands introduced the question el education and the solution of the problems of our primary industries. There was now a demand on'tlie, part of the fanner for a supply of cheap power to enable him to make* use of labour-saving machines, but if electric power could be supplied cheaply j and efficiently, everything possible must he done to keep a steady load on the wires, and one feature of the educational campaign should be to demonstrate how co- ( operation could reduce the cost of power, and Mr Colquhoun gave instances of the economic employment of motors from J to 2 h.p., the various uses to which they ! could bo applied on a farm. There was another side to the educational application of electricity in regard to farming, and that was how to manufacture ammonia from the nitrogen of the atmosphere on a commercial basis. Hydro-electricity rendered this possible in Norway and Sweden, and could do the same in New Zealand. so that, the local farmer could have a cheap and valuable nitrogenous manure. | In conclusion. Mr Colquhoun, in referring j to power'installations, saiil that where vast sums had been sunk in plant and machines, I it was only natural thai vested interests would demand the retention of the old system of power in hundreds of factories, i hut the war had made a keen demand for efficiency, and in the modern munition I factories the all-electric, the one-man-one-machine system, was in vogue. At the conclusion of his address. Mr Colquhoun was accorded a very hearty vote of I thanks for his highly interesting and valuI able paper.