Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-05-25
POWER OF OCEAN
TO BE UTILIZED
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GETS
NEW INDUSTRY
HUNTINGTON BEACH is FIRST
BENEFICIARY
Government Gives Permission for Los
Angeles Inventor to Put in Pier
and Establish Wave Motor
and Dynamo Plant

"If you don't obstruct navigation,
you may draw all the electricity you
need from the ocean waves" is, in eff
feet, the decision of the United States
war department. That branch of tho
federal government upon the approval
and recommendation of Captain Amos
A Fries has given Its permission to
Alva L. Reynolds to construct a pier
at Huntington Beach and to erect there
a series of wave motors which, the
inventor believes, will solve the prob
lem of how to make old Neptune do
the worlds work.
Mr.. Reynolds says it is now but a
matter of a few months before he will
make a. practical demonstration of his
motor and be ready to sell electricity
for domestic and commercial purposes.
He and hundreds of his friends ex
press belief that the heat, light and
power for the comfort, convenience and
profit of mankind will be easily eX
tracted from the immeasurable store
house in the restless ocean.
"You can imagine nothing that will
do more for humanity than an inven-
ton that will produce power-and of
course, that means heat and light, for
cost so comparatively small that it
will be inf1nitesimal." said Mr., Reyn-
olds.
i 90 NOT D6SlIdIe TO say LldC Wllnln
five years electricity will comprise 80
per cent of the worlds fuel There
are now in Los Angeles a number Of
households wherein electricity is used
for cooking, heating and lighting. The
reason more of this electric apparatus
is not used is because of the compare
tive high price of electricity.
1.-THE city of Los Angeles pays 9
cents a kilowatt hour for it's electricity
h IL, frurg, -
pay over 4 cents, and it may pay less.
Think what it will mean to the house,
holder. The labor it will save is i'm
measurable. Factories will turn out
products at much lower prices and still
retain their profits. Transportation for
freight and passengers should be
cheaper. There will be very little fuel
dug from Mines and oil will be used
for fabrication. Petroleum will be used
largely for what is now considered by
products.
"All this power readily will be drawn
from the energy of the waves now 60
ing to waste. Every city within sew
eral hundred miles of body of water
large enough to have a disturbed sur
face will get its power from the waves.
That of course means railways will uni
versally adopt electric locomotives and
abandon the noisy and noisome coal
and oil burners.
I'VE first intend to furnish electricity
to the city of Huntington Beach. Ev-
cry housewife of thta town will throw
away her smoky and dangerous oil
stove and replace it with the clean
comfortable electric cooker. She will
have big oven with plate glass win
dows, electrically lighted and heated.
There will be no smoke and no ashes
in the house. There will be no deaths
from asphyXiation from instantaneous
gas heaters. There are a thousand
ways in which the fuel of the future
will benefit the people. The expense
will be trifiing compared with the pres
ent. To equip modern house with
electric heaters will cost about one
fourth what furnace now costs. An
electric stove does not burn up the
oxygen in sleeping rooms. 1t requires
no matches, no fire in the house. Just
press the button, or throw a switch,
and your cooker, heater or light is do
ing the work.
There is not an electric road In the
world that will not adopt the wave
made electricity for its use.
lone mile of the coast of California
will suffice to furnish the power for
everybody in the state.
There has never been but one of
these motors in the water near Los
Angeles, That one is an experimental
plant at Huntington Beach. That one
stood the buffeting of the storm for
several months. The rougher the sea
the better it worked. We will probably
let the contract for the big pier this
week. Construction will be begun at
once. From five to ten units will be
put in 800 feet from the shore Elec-
trio dynamos will be placed on the
pier and the first electricity will be
locally CONSUMED. A little later we will
call upon the city fathers at Long
Beach. We will make them a PROPOSE
tion that they cannot refuse to accept.
The citizens of Long Beach will be
the second group to benefit. Los An
geles will next come in for the cheaper
electricity.
These are the facts of the situation.
Electricity is the coming fuel and it's
coming from the ocean waves"