EXTENDED POWER TRANSMISSION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8152, 30 May 1906, Page 3

EXTENDED POWER TRANSMISSION.

♦ ~ The technical press has it seems Bounded a note of warning against the proposal to generate bydraulio power at the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi River, and to transmit it for a distance of 745 miles ior use in the gold mines at Johannesburg. The distance mentioned appears a -formidable obstacle when a comparison is instituted in respect to other transmissions. At the present time the most IMPORTANT TRANSMISSION rof energy for commercial purposes may be taken to be that from Niagara to Buffalo where the distance covered does not exceed 20 mlies. The longest transmission, again, is said to be that which is m successful operation in California over a distance of about 220 miles, so that the proposed transmission line in South Africa will be 340 per cent, longer than anything that has yet been attempted. According to Processor W. E. Ayrtoun, who not .long ago made A SEVERE CRITICISM of the scheme in the Times, the Johannesburg mining district consumes about. 150,000 horsepower at an average cost of 100 dol. per borse power per year. Niagara sends 24,000 horse-power to Buffalo, where it is sold at 15dol. per horse power per year, and Buffalo, as stated, h only 20 miles distant from Niagara. Moreover, in the neighbourhood of Johannesburg are • abundant supplies of coal, of which an excellent quality can be delivered ontbeKand for from 2dol. to 2% dol. per ton. Such are some of the • arguments > ADDUCED IN DISFAVOUR of this great projeot. A prominent scientific journal dealing with the subject says: "Although the proposal to deliver this power at a figure that would be at once economical to the consumer and profitable to the company has been ridiculed by the technical press, the public is liable to £e misled by a scheme which, upon the face of it, would seem to hold out flattering prospects of sucoess. Even if the | Victorian Falls plant were to be f built and a great transmssion line constructed it is not likely that the important mining industries in Johannesburg would be willing to trust the operation of their costly plant to the integrity of a few copper cables extending for 700 miles through the wilds of a savage country."