HARNESSING WIND AND SUN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 14345, 25 October 1910, Page 6

HARNESSING WIND AND SUN.

Schemes for .utilising tho power that is going to waste in New Zealand rivers are very much before tho public just at present, and one learns with additional interest, therefore, of a somewhat more Utopian project propounded at tho recent sessions of the British Association at Sheffield. Tho plan was unfolded by a Canadian, Professor Fessenden, the engineering member of the Niagara Power Commission, who suggested that windmills bo erected on the cliffs the English const, to pump sea water to a certain elevation, from which it would be allowed to run down. With the aid of turbines there could be developed all the motive power necessary to drive every railway and factory in tho country. The Professor said tho average velocity of the wind round tho coast of Great Britain was ample-to raise all the sea water required. He described a plant on a 3000-h.p. basis, consisting of a “solar tank,” which, by taking advantage of the sun’s radiation, would produce low-pressure steam to work turbines and dynamos. “Surrounding this tank,” said tho speaker, “I propose a steel rod framework, on which a number of windmills would bo erected. These would hang from a great central pivot, and would bo turned to lake full advantage of tho 'wind. They might be expected to bo most effectual in producing power at times when the sun’s radiation was lowest. This apparatus, the Professor explained, would pump water which could bo poured through turbines connected with dynamos. This scheme, the propounder declared, could bo carried out for less than it now costs to do the same work with coal. Sir William White, the naval architect, urged that, with the sanguine propensity of all inventors the Professor would probably have underestimated the cost; but the framer of tho project retorted with some effectiveness that the actual cost of tho Niagara Power Works was £500,000 loss Mian ho estimated it would to. There arc many cases where the scientist has followed in (ho footsteps of the novelist. It looks as if this .scheme might furnish another instance of a similar occurrence, for some years ago Mr. IT. O. Wells, in “When the Sleeper Awakes.” drew a picture of a city which derived its motive power from an immense number of. gigantic wind-, vanes. '