The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, OCT, 4th, 1921. SUPER POWER.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 October 1924, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, OCT, 4th, 1921. SUPER POWER.

'I hk world, aside 1 rein scientific bodies ami tar linger interests \\licm.-. future is 1.1 1,.. | >l-1 >Kj 1111 ly alfivti'd liv the out; oine. .-.ays ;i New York coinimToia I paper, is only beginning to realise the iiiipm tan. i> of the Win Id I’mver COll- - \. liieli recently 1 m.eluded a two weeks’ .-essian at London, in conjiiiution with the Empiio Exjiositiou at Wembley. World Toner here does 1.01 mean international polities. It deals with the creation and conservation of motive energy. At these cessions engineers of thirty nations assembled. 'llicse if the Tnited States and Canada were piomineiil in the •.iisciissioos. j.ime the two countries are lir.st to-day not only in the potential power to lie developed, hilt in the t ital already utilised. What some of tlie-.e lrud-liendo.l men bad to say about •'super ] nwor,’’ a phrase ruined enly a. lew ye ars ago. alim-t sur| asses I elief. William ts. Murray, a delegate I I .mi New York, in dealing with bis report <lll “A Superpower System for

tin- legion between I>(.->te >ll and Washington," r.-.t minted ilia requirement i'or Hiii'li energy through clod rical utilities In]' municipal, ; rivato and jndilstiial and rail:.Kid purposes for the Pa stou to Wash install legion in 151:10, only .six years hence, at thirty-one hillion kiln.rail hours at an annual east el S'JH!I,OOO.OCO less than hy the lineo-ordinated .systems now in ti.se. 'I hat, ivnioniher, enihrai es one limited distriet tdone. Tile total, multiplied nationally, and including Canada, runs into figures that resemble war debts in magnitude. Super-power, it should he kept in mind, dees not mean merely the hni'iu.xsing of waters. It deals wiLli steam power as well, hut the niiiiii idea is to .generate under eentralised eontml “a common giant t urrent at an et|Uali.setl and reduced cost to consumers everywhere. It is comparable to a witter main giving like service to consumers at whatever distance from the reservoir.” The United States is to lie laid out in :t series of districts that will convey power Irom (oast to coast. It is pointed out indeed that the linking of a lew gaps now will complete one chain leaching across the eoutiuent. The .super power lines will he as definite as railway systems and will confer benefits on all paints in exact proportion. One estimate is that such a co-ordinated diain will result in a saving of two hundred million tons of <on I, fifty million tons of which are now consumed in hauling this fuel about. Instead of transporting this unwieldy coal, it will In' converted into energy at the pit mouth and carried thence hy wire, lclioving congested terminal areas hy scattering industries in a thousand new directions. As Minted heforo, 'these are not the dreams of idealists. They are cold facts worked out. hv men who deal in

realities. But at first reading the layman may he excused for entertaining a feeling that he is being treated to Wellsian fiction. So far from > ring fiction it is an accurate picture of national life that will lie enjoyed while the pre-put generation still lives. Xo one will accuse Secretary of Commerce Hoover with being a lift ion ist. lie is an engineer hy profession, and has served on hoards of some of the most distinguished technical bodies in Am-

erica and Kurop.e. Yet Mr Hoover talks of super power as Mr Wolfs docs of wars of worlds. "We have to-day about G.OCKI separate power and lighting systems.” he says. ‘‘Wo need in-ter-connection of these isolated systems over large areas to provide a great reservoir into- which large streams of power may he poured from eential plants and from great water powers. .Some inter-conneetion lias taken place, hut in this large vision, of our most recent engineering advance .less than 10 per cent of the systems are inter-con-nected. . . Competing systems in power distribution mean an enormous duplication of capital and a tremendous waste in equipment and operation. In the end such duplication is n charge upon the consumer. . . We cannot secure super-power development unless there is free flow of power across State lines. 'We have thus created <i physical and economic inter-state question. Our power development must now take on a nation and not a local basis. Super-power is in daily progress before our very eyes. After recapitulating what America has accomplished with its 27.000 telegraph staions. 15,000.000 telephones. 000 radio irnndvastiug stations, 15,000,000 peo-

pie listening nt receiving sets, 9,C00,C00 homes wired for eeletiie light, and with capacity to generate 27 million electrical horse-power, the Secretary of Commerce says that the American wage earner has at his ellmw 50 per cent more power than his competitors, and that, in eonsqneiiee, his produce is greater, his wage higher and hi.s physical strain less than any other, “lint we yet Imvc a quarter of our homes without telephones; half of them without electric light; two-thirds of them without radio. We will need 30,000,000 more electrical horse-power in 20 years. Within that time our electrical industries must find thirty or forty billions of dollars in capital with which to have added the necessary equipment to our national plant.” He concludes that the real purpose in super-power i.s not to make new and bonds alone, hut that through more power we shall increase the product and decrease the burden of labor. “Through super-power we shall gain in higher .standards of living, with wider enjoyment and enmfoit to every fireside, which is the end and sole purpose of our economic effort as a nation.” Needless to r.ay there are many, including not a few experts, who do not agree wholly with Air Hoover. One North-western professor has lieen pointing out that the hope of unlimited and cheap hydro-electric service is exaggerated. He calls attention to the fact that there arc only so many water falls, ai.d says that their potential power will not sidfiie for manufacturin'.: purposes alone within the next thirty or forty years. Nobody dispute;; that an enoimolis waste is now going on. It is the staggering cost, of harnessing this power that i.s delaying development.