NIAGARA’S GIANT POWER STATION
“Hydro’s” biggest feat in physical construction is the great
development, known as the Queenston Chippewa plant, on the Niagara
River. This station is designed to produce six hundred thousand
horse-power, or about one sixth as much as all the electrical energy
now generated in Canada. Suppose we visit it with one of the engineers.
Stepping into an automobile, we drive first toward the falls, now
partly obscured in the clouds of mist from the tumbling, roaring,
boiling waters. Our way lies through the park the Canadians have made
so that the people may enjoy for all time the approaches to this
monarch among the wonders of Nature.
We stop at Chippewa, at the mouth of the Welland River. This stream
used to empty into the Niagara River above the falls, but to-day its
channel carries the water diverted from the Niagara for the supply of
the power station. The river was deepened and widened for a distance of
four and a half miles, and then a canal was dug through the remaining
eight and a half miles to the site of the plant. Now we turn back,
and as our car passes over one of the numerous bridges across the big
ditch, we look down upon a miniature Panama Canal, fifty feet wide
at water level, and thirty-nine feet deep. In many places it was cut
through hills of rock to a depth of more than one hundred feet. When
the station is operated at full capacity, the flow of water through the
canal is more than twice that of the Connecticut River.
Seven miles below the falls we come to the power plant. If your nerves
are steady, walk out to the cliff and see where we are. Look first
across the great gorge. Those hills over there are in the state of New
York. See their steep, rocky sides, with van-coloured strata exposed by
the wearing action of the Niagara River through millions of years. To
our left, and hardly a mile away, the high plateau suddenly drops off;
below it are the glistening waters of Lake Ontario. We are near the end
of the escarpment over which Niagara Falls once plunged into the lake.
Now look straight down; the Niagara River is three hundred feet below
us. From this height it looks like an innocent stream. It is really a
raging torrent in the final throes of its mad struggle to get into Lake
Ontario. The workmen clinging to the sheer, rocky face of the cliff
under our feet, and boring into it with their drills, seem like huge
insects using their stingers. That big block of concrete, resting on a
shelf carved out of the rock and washed by the current, is the power
station. It has the dimensions of an eighteen-story office building,
and part of it is lower than the surface of the river.
The huge steel penstocks, or pipes, through which the water rushes to
the waterwheels below, are set in grooves cut in the rock. Each of them
is twice the diameter of a big dining-room table. The water enters the
penstocks from a great pool fed by the canal and, dropping, creates
this mighty stream of electrical energy, which surpasses any that can
be produced right at the Falls. The reason for this is that while the
total drop in the Niagara River is three hundred and twenty-seven
feet, the height of the Falls is only one hundred and sixty-seven feet.
That is the maximum “head” of water available to the power stations
located right at the Falls. But from where we stand the drop to the
waterwheels is exactly three hundred and five feet, or nearly twice as
great as that at the falls. This station, in other words, utilizes all
except about twenty feet of the difference in level between Lake Erie
and Lake Ontario. It does this by taking in the water of the Niagara
River at Chippewa and carrying it for thirteen miles nearly to the end
of the Niagara escarpment. There is a fall of only twelve feet in the
whole length of the canal.
Every cubic foot of water per second that flows through the penstocks
generates thirty horse-power, as compared with about sixteen
horse-power per foot per second developed by the stations nearer the
falls. The Canadians are thus making the water of Niagara work for the
people at almost twice the efficiency ever obtained from its waters
before.
Let us see just what this means. An ordinary pail holds about one
cubic foot of water. Suppose, as we stand on the brink of the gorge,
I hand you pails full of water, and that you let them fall, one every
second, to the river below. If the force of this fall could be applied
to a machine as efficiently as flowing water, each pailful would
generate electricity to the amount of thirty horse-power, or an amount
about equal to the energy of a five-passenger touring car when run at
full speed. Imagine twenty thousand such pailfuls being fed into the
penstocks every time your watch ticks, and you will then understand
what the six hundred thousand horse-power capacity of this station
means.
Step with me into the electric elevator that goes down the face of the
cliff to the power house. At the bottom we find the offices of the
engineers and experts in charge. There is, also, a restaurant for the
workers. One huge room is filled with the switches and recorders which
keep these men constantly informed of conditions in all parts of the
plant and enable them to control every detail. We descend still farther
to the lower levels, where are the giant waterwheels and generators.
We prowl around in vast subterranean chambers and gaze at one of the
sixty-thousand-horse-power generators. There is no visible motion and
almost no sound, yet it is producing enough power to move at high speed
a procession of two thousand motor cars, or to drive two Majesties or
Leviathans across the ocean.
The generators are of the vertical type. They are mounted above the
waterwheels, each nine feet in diameter, which keep them turning at
the highest permissible speed. The wheels are encased in steel, and we
can see nothing but their outer shell. A muffled roar is the only sign
of the mighty force they are creating. It is difficult to realize that
such tremendous energy can be completely tamed and working in harness,
and we shiver as we wonder what would happen if one of these mechanical
Titans should suddenly break loose.
Each generator is a huge affair, as tall as a four-story house, and
a rope eighty feet long would hardly reach around it. Its largest
portion weighs more than three hundred tons. It reminds us somewhat
of a merry-go-round, only in this case the whirling portion is all
inside, and turning so fast that it seems to be standing still. It
is so big that it would take thirty men, standing close together,
to encircle it, and it is making one hundred and eighty-seven and
one half revolutions a minute. We look through a little window in
the bearing case and see a miniature lake of two hundred gallons of
frothing oil that furnishes lubrication. So much heat is developed in
the operation of the generator that cold air must be fed to it. In warm
weather, it requires thirteen hundred and eighty thousand pounds of
air every two hours and a half, or exactly as much as the total weight
of the generator itself. In winter the air warmed by the generators is
utilized for heating the power station.
On the trip down to Niagara Falls from Toronto I had an opportunity to
see something of what cheap power has done for southwestern Ontario.
I passed through Hamilton, a place of more than one hundred thousand
inhabitants, with plants operated by Niagara. Here are a large number
of American branch factories using electric current that costs them
less than fifteen dollars per horse-power per year. As in London,
Windsor, Brantford, Kitchener, and other towns, the manufacturing
establishments of Hamilton are increasing in number and size, and the
people say that one of the chief reasons for their prosperity is the
“Hydro” power system. In riding over the country I was struck with
the well-cultivated farms and the attractive homes. I passed through
the heart of the Niagara fruit district, which yields rich crops of
grapes, apples, peaches, and other fruits. Most of the farmers now
have electricity to help them with their outdoor work and lighten the
labours of their wives as well.
One of the engineers I talked with has given me a new appreciation
of what development of water-power means to Canada. He tells me that
each thousand horse-power developed brings an ultimate investment
of eighteen hundred and sixty thousand dollars, which provides work
for twenty-two hundred persons and pays them wages amounting to five
hundred seventy-one thousand dollars a year. The cost of building and
operating the power station itself represents only thirteen per cent.
of all this; it is the application of the new energy in shops, mines,
and mills that is responsible for the bulk of the investment. A new
power development attracts industries; these in turn attract workers
and their families; the latter bring in their train the tradesmen and
the professional people needed to serve them. In this way new towns
come into being, and old ones start to grow. Water-power is sometimes
called “white coal.” It should be called “white magic.”
[Illustration: Canada is one of the richest countries in the world
in its water-power. Engineers calculate that every thousand electric
horse-power developed from her waterfalls eventually provides
employment for more than two thousand people.]
[Illustration: Since their discovery in 1903, the Cobalt mines have
yielded silver bullion worth more than $200,000,000. These huge piles
of tailings were formerly thrown away as waste. They are now being
worked over again at a profit.]