THE NEW AGE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 54, 4 March 1918, Page 7

THE NEW AGE

LIGHT AND POWER FREE. SOME REFLECTIONS. THE LAKE COLERIDGE SCHEME. "Yea, if one might- save! And meaiivimist be! There must 'Le refuge. Men Perished in winter winds till one smote fire From flint-stones ; coldly hiding what they held, The red' spark treasured from the kindling sun." ■ —The Light of Asia. (Evening Post;)

Probably not one-tenth of the peop'.e of New.Zealand hav e more than a hazy idea of the great work being done for the Dominion at Lake Coleridge, a work l but in its infancy so far as this country is concerned. Engineers see and appreciate the work. The} - see it with the professional eye, and are mainly interesed in its technic. Economists regard it from their own point of view ; and business men- who are not actually users of the power and light there gen-ei-ated' may regard it as an undertaking that may 01- may not be a paying proposition. But the power station represents larger and wider interests than any of these. It is a thing belonging to the new age. It is something of the utmost social importance. Its it> fluence upon the general life of the people of the near future promises to be verv great, for it represents heat, light, and power for nothing. True, the plant has to 'be built and maintained and paid for. but it merely represents th e price of a bucket. The water costs nothing:. The lakeside of Coleridge is favourable for reflections upon the vast hydrotelectric possibilities of this country. The great station with its roar, down over the brow of the hill, is but the doorstep of "the future. The lake itself is about 12 -miles long and between one. and two miles wide. It is held in the crumplings of th e land, and receives the drainage of the mountains and the meltings of their snows. Great and lonely as it seems, and angry in a gale of wind, it is now in thrall to man. On one side of it he has made a -wound, an incision. Here, at the intake, the waters are drained off into a tunnel, and thence to a chamber, through which they flow- into creat wrought steel tu'bes to "the power-house, where tbev spin the turbines round at an ascertained' but scarcely comprehensible speed, andso set th e generators humming to give out electric energy which can do the •work of 8000 horses. The -waters are then liberated to find their way into | th e Rakaia, ever sprawling over the j plains on its way to the sea.

AN ENIGMA. To people Teallv interested 111 the subject electricians will talk learnedly vet simply on th e origin, strength, capacity or vagaries of the electric current; but why the swift turn of a wheel composed of certain materials in a collar built up of similar materials should give out that which lightens both the darkQsss and th e labours of mankind they do not seem aible to impart. They know how, in the classic definition in -he charter of the institution of civil engineers, to "direct the Great Forces of Power in Nature for the use and convenience of man." In short, they know their job. So far as one can go, the electric current seem? of the essence of that "red spark treasured from the kindling sun." But for such speculations the engineer has but little time. Tt is his business to produce the energy and to apply it—and' that is quite enough to do. He knows, too. that vast as the volum e of water in Lake 'Coleridge -is he must not waste it. Billions of tons of water onav be for the mere drawing off, but for all that —----p r station takes no more than it need3 — not a gallon. The water-flow to the turbines is automatically regulated by the demand' on the plant. Wher> the nower and lighting load is reduced, so is the draught of water. There is no avoidable, waste. There is loss in transit, but it is known to a degree and is inevitable. 'Here is a preachment bv the er>?cineer in economy, made all the mor e eloquent by the needs of our time and the silence with which it is made.

INVITATION

At the poweryhouse itself the visitor is not "shoo'd" off the premises. There are no unnecessary prohibitory notices. Consistent with personal safety, the visitor, accompanied by an officer of the station, can go anywhere. "Danger" appears hoiv and there; but it is a safe rule to follow at the power station as e ]sewheve. "Never monkey with electricity." This can he drilled into every child- mind now. lor what- is in its babvhood in New Zealand to-day will have reached lusty manhood when the children are grown tip. The power-house is built on strictly utilitarian lines —a plain oblong building in reinforced concrete. It is coldlv efficient, and- lacks ornamentation of anv kind. It is an engineer's, not an architect's design. It- appears dwarfed in among the mountains all round it; Tout it is a great building all the same, and its dimensions would b e very impressive were it in the street or on the plain An architect could have done much to make the building attractive, j but nothing to add to the aw e with which an entrance is made. Here the knowledge of enormous power Toeing made available is present, and yet there is nothing spectacular to see—no gigantic flywheel or swift-turning crank, no bright shafts revolving, no fast travelling cotton ropes or endless belts, 110 hiss of steam, or glare of furnaces ; but there is a mighty roar, the j diapason of the new age. There is no j friction, for all wearing parts are cool; no "knocking," no rattling; but the noise is great, and is to foe accounted 1 for only by th e great chorus of air and -water resisting the conditions set tip by men. There is no dirt, soot, steam, or smell (except faintly of oil) in the power-house. There is abundajit light from all sides and ends by day, and plenty by night. Power equivalent to 8000 horse-power is being distributed to Christchurch and elsewhere along f .h A line, but the only men to be seen at. work in the power-house are a watcher at the switchlboard, seated at his desk; a man going round the turbines and generators, "with a keen eye on their working and- a ready hand to detect the temperature of bearings. In the workshop, wit-h its lathes and drilling machines, a workman is seen at a bench, with a file in his hand. The contrast between the three workers here under hydro-electric conditions and workers under steam conditions is striking. Not only in point of numbers is thg disparity so marked, but in the I call upon the physical resources of the | workers also. The "red spark" is doing all the hard work.

application. Nearly 70 miles away the city of Clrrist ch ur c h is drawing on this energy for running, its tramcars; for lighting its factor Fes, theatres, houses and churches; for sharpening its dental instruments or welding broken steel parts together; for running garbage lorries and charging motor-cars. In the country butter is (being made by electric power, water pumped. chali cut, aridinnumerable other odd jobs about the farm accomplished. Energy passing out of this station ov e r its lons miles of aluminium lines is being used in therapeutics or turning a sewinu" machine as the need requires. And yet all the men to be seen are the .man at the switchboard, the man among the generators, and the man with the file. It is .symbolical of what the new age will r>roduce —more work with less fatigue, and, it is to be hoped, 'better paid for. Down in the little village of Whafeamatua electricity js put to every sort of use that the cotta j horn© calls for — heating bath water, cooking, washing and l ironing, lighting and "warming. It foreshows what couvenieuAs th e home, of the new age will possess-. True patriotism, it has been said, rests upon, the deeree of satisfaction and. content with which labour views its lot. Will t•.• labour's vision take, a rosier tint when, by the installation of the Wei-linat-on, East Coast, and Auckland' hvdro-scheimes licrht, heat, and power can bp obtained f,or the mere "utilisation of water running to waste, and easier conditions of "working and living mado nossible?