The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1895-02-14
POWER TRANSMISSION,
NThe Day Near When Electric Energy VIII
BE Sent Hundreds of Miles.

lie Sent Hundreds of Miles.
II There is no subject which at present
more strongly excites the interest of
practical men than the problems con-
nected with the generation and trans
mission of mechanical power. Some
months ago it was suggested that we
were near the end of the age of steam,
and at the beginning of the age of cleo
| tricity. That statement was accom-
| panied by some remarks bearing on
the crude and wasteful methods of
power conversion exemplified in the
steam engine. The attentive reader of
scientific contributions to the period
ical literature of both hemispheres will
find no thought so frequently repeated
as this-that the most vital of economic
problems is how to develop and trans
init mechanical energy with the mini
mum of loss. A writer in the current
number of the Nineteenth Century
makes the broad statement that great
| as have been the influences of the use
OF steam power on modern life and
civilization, compared with the posi-
bilities of electric energy as the
method of applying and transmitting
power, the influences of steam will be-
come almost trivial. Or converted into
language more closely scientific, it
may be said that while 1.-THE develop
ments that have followed the inven-
s.1;S5n 81 that imperfect instrument for
converting heat into work by the
agency of steam-the steam engine
have been of untold advantage to the
thermodynamics and electrotchnics is
destined to produce a still greater
change and amelioration in the condi-
tions of the commercial, industrial and
home life
| In the popular discussion of this sub
ject some confusion of thought is apt
to arise from the failure to discriminate
between what may be called the produc-
ton of power and its subsequent con-
version and transmission. In fall of
water, in the force of the wind in the
combustion of coal, we recognize GER
tain natural agencies which are used in
the application of power to industrial
uses. Up to date comparatively recent,
the utility of all of them has been
bounded by the very narrow limits of
locality. That is to say, the waterfall
turned only the mill which was con-
nected by shaft with the wheel to
which it communicated part of its en-
ergy. SO with the windmill, and the
steam engine, which transformed by
the aid of steam the heat energy stored
up in the coal into rotary motion. The
electrician came, and finally succeeded
in demonstrating that power generated
in one locality could be transmitted by
suitable conductors to considerable dis
tances without any serious loss, and
the possibility of a new scheme of pro-
ductive organization at once became
apparent. Given, in short, the eco
nomical and effective transformation
of any kind of motive power into elec-
tricity and its reconversion into any
| form of motion, and the extent of the
revolution of existing methods became
entirely dependent on the distance
which can be traversed by what we
shall call the electric current, without
TanS serious diminution of the force of
the original impulse.
The writer in the Ninteenth Century
| claims that at the distance of one hun
dred miles there is loss of not more
than 25 per cent. of this electrically
transmitted power On that statement
| he bases an argument on the expe-
diency of generating electrical energy
at the mouth of the pit from which the
coal is mined, and transferring it
thence to whatever point at which its
power may be required. 1t is claimed
| that the transformation of fuel into
power could be effected in manner so
nearly perfect that there would be a
ratio of three-quarters of a pound of
coal to one actual or availa bic horse
power of energy for the period of one
hour. The average consumption by
existing steam plants is said to be not
less than five pounds of fuel for the
same actual power during the same
time On the basis of English dis
tauces there would be a loss on the
transmission of this electric energy
from the Derbyshire or Staffordshire
coal fields to the midlands and the
metropolis of about 80 per cent, sc
that the given three-quarters of g
pound would be increased to one pound
of combustible per actual horsepower
per hour. Thus, the equivalent OF one
ton of transmitted electrical power de
Iivered in London would be equal t.
three tons of rail-transmitted steam
coal power -Boston Herald.