THUNDERBOLTS AND FEAR.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1416, 16 October 1923, Page 7

THUNDERBOLTS AND FEAR.

SECRET .OF PERPETUAL POWER Laboratory lightning requires a place by itself—off where it will not disturb other electrical experimenters. This is the conclusion reached by the General Electric Company, which has made plans to add such a place to the general engineering laboratory. This place is being constructed on the top of a five-storey building at the company's plant at Schenectady, New York. In this room Dr. Charles R. Steinmetz, the .originator of the so-called "lightning generator," wil'l carry on his experimental work. There investigations into transient electrical phenomena, more thorough than any previously undertaken, will be directed by Dr. Steinmetz. A new lightning generator, by means of which is reproduced in miniature an actual flash of lightning, will be utilised. This apparatus is the most powerful so far made use of, and comes much nearer to stimulating the magnitude of actual lightning than did the original generator used by Steinmetz, which gained him the name of 'light-ning-maker" during his experiments of 1922. ' The first lightning generator produced a "flash of lightning" with an energy rate of a million horse power. The voltage back of it was 125,000 and the current amounted to 10,000 amperes. It lasted for a hun-dred-thousandth of a second. With the new lightning generator it is possible to cause a "lightning discharge of considerably more than a million horse power and so instantaneous in time that the discharge lasts only five millionths of a second. Half a. million volts are let loose at the moment of the discharge. The rates of increase in the voltage and cm-rent of this artificial lightning Mash during the- inconceivable fraction of time that it lasts are declared to be so tremendous as to stagger comprehension. The mode of operation will be the building up or storing of electrical energy until a predetermined amount of pressure or voltage is reached, whereupon a discharge takes place. This whole process corresponds to the storing of vast quantities of electric energy by countless raindrops in a thunder cloud until a pressure is reached sufficient to cause a discharge. Ten }] illion Horse. J'o weft From this work, it is hoped, the present high efficiency of electrical systems that serve the public with light, heat and power will be immensely increased. The recent demonstration at the Pittsfield works of the General Electric Company, where a voltage of 2,000,000 was made effective as nature's own lightning, are but isolated instances proving the tremendous energy at the command of man's will and direction. Thunderbolts and fear —inspiring flashes issued within laboratory walls at the pushing of a button. Those who were witnesses to that made to order thunderstorm and lightning are not likely to soon forget how the scene impressed them. This man-made flash of lightning, releasing for an instant a force greater than the total electric power used by the entire United States, with its 2,000,000 volts concentrated for a fraction of a second the enormous force of 10,000,000 horse power. Is this not startling enough to make us speculate as to what the twentieth century alchemists are planning within their sacred precincts? Associated with Giuseppe Faccioli in the experimentations that brought about the securing of the high voltage was Mr F. W. Peek, junr., who is the titular director of the high voltage engineering laboratory at Pittsfield, as Mr Faccioli is designated the works engineer. Mr Peek says that 1,000,000 volts I may never be necessary for power transmission or other purposes, "but if the time comes we will be prepared. These tests, using voltages up to 2,000,000, have shown us the characteristics of such high voltages, and we know how to proceed if we are ever called upon to use them." "Transmission voltages of 1,000,000 volts were investigated in September, 1921," he states, "and to-day we have achieved this powerful lightning voltage of 2,000,000. After more than 11 year 220,000 volts transmission has been realised in practice in California." Commenting on various phenomena accompanying the recent demonstration, when pieces of wood were split by the stroke ,of lightning -it the direction of the- man at the controller, Mr Faccioli says: "We do not know

what the smell is when the lightning leaves its path through the block of wood, but we will have to know some day. We do not know what conversion takes place, but it opens a wonderful field for research. What are the gases' that come irom the wood we do not know. Some day we will catch them and analyse them if we can. But from these tests we do know that we are handling lightning, such as is witnessed in the disturbance of nature."

Like it Novel by Wcttls.

A talk with Dr. Steinmetz is like reading a novel by Wells. What is more, the chief consulting engineer of the General Electric Company opens the pages of the book of nature, and makes it easy to understand why it is that these men devote year upon year to researches that require the expenditure of millions of dollars before any tangible result becomes evident. Power! Power! Power! That seems to be Charles P. Steinmetz's summing up of humanity's future need. It runs like a thread through his conversation. How the world will fare with its mounting population and extra demands on power is one of the problems that concerns him greatly. Let it be understood that some of the important discoveries in the domain of electric science that to-day are looked upon as matters of fact not so many years ago were nothing more than theoretical experiments. One of the things that Dr. Steinmetz is greatly interested in at present is radio power transmission. "The possibility of radio transmission, at least theoretically," he declares, "is by resonant vibrations or standing waves. Any receiving station of suitable design would be able to pick up power from the universal power supply carried by the standing wave covering the earth. Also, several sending stations might send out power." But he considers that any important development would have to be international in scope and operation.