MONEY FROM THE MOON

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8464, 8 April 1921, Page 5 (Supplement)

MONEY FROM THE MOON

WONDERS OF NEW TIDE SCHEMES. “Men know not what water is worth,” said Byron; and certainly we are only just beginning to recognize how vast is the value o£ the energy stored in it. The first important proposal to utilize such energy has been made by the Ministry of Tranport, which has issued details of a scheme for harnessing the tides of the Severn for the purpose of generating electricity. A concrete dam or barrage, it is planned, shall be thrown across the river close to the line of the Severn Tunnel, here about two and a half miles wide. In the dam will be sluices, which will open as the tide rises and close automatically as it falls, thus trapping the water in the upper estuary.

At low tide oj thereabouts it will he released, first passing through turbines and so generating power, and then flowing into the estuary below the barrage. In addition, there will be an energy storage plant, comprising a great high-level lake in a valley near Tintern Abbey and a tunnel. By this means more than 500,000 horse-power will be obtained during a ten-hour day—a quantity greater than that now generated by any water-power installation in the world.. Niagara, with all its resources, scores only 385,500 horsepower, and from a dam on the mighty Mississippi, the “highest possible.” is the comparatively insignificant output of 5 150,000 horse-power. A FAIRY LAND OF SCIENCE. The tide-made power, in the form of electricity, will be supplied at a cheap rate to the West of England, parts of Wales and the Midlands, and even London. In America there are many transmission cables more than 150 miles long, and current can be conveyed equal distances in this country. Wonderful is the vista which is opened out. Towns will rise on the banks of the Severn, factories will spring up like mushrooms, and' village industries will be reborn, and will, as in Switzerland and Norway, create a happy, contented, and prosperous peasantry.

At the same time agriculture will be revolutionised. The farmer will plough, sow, and reap by electricity, which will also turn his wife’s churn and save labour in his barns. He may even stimulate his crops by using underground cables.

Just as great will be the changes in the home, where that British institution, washing day. will lose its terrors and everything will be done by pushing down a switch. Light heat, power—all will be at the'command of the humblest cottager. From the country-side darkness will be dispelled. Ab the day begins to fall it will become a land of flashing miracles and be bathed in white, dazzling light, the product of tideimpelled dynamos.

Yef all this may be merely the beginning of a new age—the Electric Age. The Severn has been selected for a great watqr-power scheme not because it is the only river suitable for the purpose, but because its tides have an exceptional rise and fall. This is, indeed, a peculiarity of all rivers which flow intq the Bristol Channel, where the tides attain a force and volume unequalled anywhere else in the world except in the Bay of Fundy. Many of our rivers are more or less suitable for supplying watermade power. If, for instance, the long-contemplated dam were built across the Thames all the southern counties coould be furnished with cheap electricity.

Numerous schemes have already been planned, including two for Ireland. By one it is proposed to utilize the energy stored up in the waters of the Shannon to generate electricity for Dublin and Limerick, and by the other to transmit power from the Erne to Belfast and Londonderry. Ireland, however, is even now ahead of England in turning waterpower to account. There are small power stations on at least two of her rivers—the Callan and the Upper Bann.

Possibly, then, the Severn barrage may be the forerunner of a multitude of schemes for harnessing the tides —schemes which, besides providing employment for years for men of all grades, may turn the country into a land buzzing with energy and free us from the reproach of being the most wasteful nation on earth.