ELECTRICITY CONQUERS THE ARCTIC

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 11, 14 January 1936, Page 10

ELECTRICITY CONQUERS THE ARCTIC

Transforming Lapland SCIENCE IN WILDERNESS

If you ask the average person to describe Lapland, he will tell you it is an Arctic waste inhabited by people who wear furs, drive reindeer, and live in primitive huts. As a matter fact, many of its houses now are lighted with electricity, express trains speed across it, and, 100 miles above the Arctic circle, it has a city of 14,000 white inhabitants. Modern Lapland is a new country created by electricity. In an interesting contribution to “Popular Science,” Mr 11. A. Phillips states that for 200 years, scientists have known that Arctic Lapland was one of the world’s richest storehouses of natural wealth. But its treasures lay in a forbidding stronghold guarded by ice and snow, Polar darkness and terrific cold. Now, a dramatic feat of hydro-elec-tric engineering has broken through these barriers, has tapped the vast resources of the country, and is turning the region into a twentieh-century ' Klondyke. No fewer than nine rivers rush across this country which forms the northern nost part of Sweden. All flow in a south-easterly direction to pour their torrents into the Gulf of Bothnia. Plunging down mountain ’ sides and over precipices, they have represented, for centuries, power untamed. It was when Sweden became convinced ' that the water-power resources of Lapland were as valuable as its mineral deposits that one of the most gigantic enterprises of modern times began. The earliest step in the immense undertaking, which has seen the transformation of this Arctic Waste, was the beginning of an extension of the Swedish State railway. The bold plan was to push the rails 300 miles to the northwest, crossing Lapland and the mountain range separating Sweden and Norway, ending the line at the Norwegian fishing village of Narvik. 1 By reason of its location on the Gulf .. Stream, Narvik is an< open port the year around, while the nearest Swedish port, Lulea, on the Gulf of Bothnia, is ice-bound for six months of every twelve. During th* first year after the railway reached Narvik, 800,000 l t tons of Lapland ore sailed from the 1 port. This was both the limit of 'mine production and of shipping capacity which could be attained until the plans for complete electrification could be 1 carried out. Without this, the venture could not be made to pay. In the c eyes of the man on the street, the whole e enterprise still threatened to be the most colossal failure of a generation. Early in the twentieth century science had revolutionised aiethods g . . e of prospecting lor ores. Electricity was introduced in prospecting even for e non-magnetic ores, an electric current u passed into the ground, followed the c line of least resistance, and by studying 1 its course, it could readily be ascer-

tained which parts of rock and earth conducted the current better than others. It gave a sure indication where ores were to be found. In time, a considerable improvement was made by utilising the vacuum tube, so well known now in radio. Instead of passing the current directly into the ground, an electro-magnetic field was created inductively by passing an alternating current through coils laid on the ground. By means of these improved methods a fairly accurate idea of the niueral wealth of Lapland became known. It surpassed the wildest dreams of all concerned, and spurred on the enormous scientific works in the barren wilderness of the far north. It was found that more than one billion tons of the highest grade iron ore In the world lay within a iive-mile radius that was in time to become the back-yard of Kiruna, the new wonder city of the Arctic. Nearly one billion tons more lay in the surrounding districts of Lapland! Lapland ore averages 60 per cent pure iron, whereas the world average of ore purity is 44 per eent. An eager world market awaited this ore in unlimited quantities for the manufacture of the highest grade “Swedish steel” products. Several years later, boring made by the latest type machinery failed to reach the bottom of the deposit at half a mile. At this rate, working these mines to the limit with the highest powered and most efficient machinery, it would take more than 200 years to reach the end of the supply. There remained nothing to do but to wait for the promised electric power. Porjus Falls, on the Lule River, was selected as the source of the electrification of barren Lapland. A concrete dam was constructed to hold back the river 30 feet above its old level, and give it a “head” varying from 180.4 to 290 feet. This dam was 4100 feet long. A rock basin was excavated, ! and an intake tunnel 1723 feet long was drilled to a roofed-over reservoir of five chambers that could be separately cut off by sluice gates. From these chambers penstocks were run, ■ each build into 164-foot shafts leading ' into the generator sets. ; The completed Porjus plant is pracJ tically invisible save for the switch I ' house an engineers’ quarters that ap-l - pear above ground. An electric ele-|

vator takes one down 160 feet to the power house, a vault-like room blasted out of solid rock permanently out of reach of the Arctic frost that prevails half the year in the open air above ground. The dimensions of the machinery hall are 33 by 302 feet. Its elongated shape gives it the appearance of the crypt of some vast cathedral dedicated to the worship of the gods of light and power. It is built within a shell of reinforced concrete, standing free from the surrounding rock, so that moisture cannot penetrate its walls. The natural heat from the dynamos keeps the interior pleasantly warm the year round. Through the tunnels in the surrounding rock roars the mass of water than drives the horizontal turbines. The converted power passes out through the network of coloured cables less than an inch in diameter, on a thousand missions of energy, heat and power. Compared with Sweden as a whole, which reckons on 1,060,000 horse power, the available supply of Lapland is estimated at 650,000, of which Porjus and nearby plants can be made to produce more than 300,600. Approximately one-third of the hydro-electric energy of the nation has thus been rendered possible this conversion of ArcticLapland. The Lule River drains a chain of lakes that reach high up into the mountains all the way to the Norwegian border. These serve as a storehouse, holding more than a billion cubic yards of water for the Porjus works, to be used as the season requires. The visitor is taken about the plant by the engineer in charge, who sums up the situation in the control room;— “if 1 pressed tins button,” he explains “all the trains in Lapland would instantly stop. Again, if I pressed this second button, all mining operations would come to a standstill. And if I pressed the third button, every home, store, church, school and public building, not only in the whole of Lapland, but in Narvik, Norway, 330 miles away, would be without heat and light.” In other words, should Lapland’s scientific heart stop, Lapland would again go back into oblivion and semi-darkness, and become the primitive wilderness of almost lifeless frozen silence it • had been for 100,000 years! Instead, science and invention have given the (civilised world the thriving city of Kiruna, a hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle and 850 miles north of Stockholm.

The city lies partially in the valley, partially on the mountainside. '.rhe mines themselves arc among the most curious in the world. The ore was melted and came to the surface in some mighty pre-historic convulsion ihat raised two solid mountains of iron ore nearly a half mile in height. Mining is done by stripping —literally slicing down through those deposits. Ore and rock are extracted by blasting in . stopes or ledges ranging in depth from 33 to 66 feet. Three times every day, excepting Sundays, the town of Kiruna is shaken > to its foundations. At 8.40 a.m. and . again at 12.20 and 4 P-m., red Hags are run up for miles around the blasting area. For a full ten minutes sirens shriek and wild alarms echo and re- : echo through the hills. People can bo ! seen running down the mountainside in every direction. Half the population stops its ears and braces itself lor the crash and roar, which is prolonged for 10 to 15 minutes. The ore blasted loose by the es- , plosions is loaded in llat-bottomeu trucks, carrying about 30 tons each. Five of these trucks form a train, drawn by a locomotive driven by a 220-horse-powcr motor. The locomotives haul the ore to the side ot the giant I electrically-driven crushers, where a crane seizes one side of each car and tips it until its contents slide into the : mighty jaws. These crushers themselves weighing 200 tons, crush blocks weighing up to 10 tons of ore, reducing them to pieces about 12 inches square. The crushed orc drops through verI tical shafts into a discharging meclian- : ism operated by compressed air. This ■ is located at the base, of the mountain, • at the end of a tunnel bored into it I to the uepth of one and a half mile. Here trains await tiie ore. Twenty i cars are loaded in 15 minutes, or at i an average ot 45 seconds per car. - Samples ot ore are taken, and the cars l are weighed automatically, a full load i being indicated by light and sound slg- ; nals. Uut of this tunnel emerge each - day 30 loaded trains, each composed of twents 35-ton loads —a total of 600 cars. These cars are then turned over . to the State raiways and made up into . orp trains. At last twenty trains, each consisting _ of 40 loaded cars, drawn by a 2200s horse-power electric locomotive are s sent out all through the day and night I throughout the year to Narvik, Nor- , way. These trains carry 7,000.000 tons - of the world’s highest-grade iron ore , to steel manufacturers every year. Germany, England, France and the United i States are the chief purchasers. c And so, where a lew years ago there j were only scattered reindeer trails, to- , day we find the most northerly railroad f in the world, second to none in point :l of up-to-date equipment. In less than twenty years the whole of Lapland will 3 be intersected by a network of electrified railroads, reaching all the vast de- & posits, as yet untouched, transformf ing desolate regions into prosperous mining fields.