On 2/24/2003 @ 8:16 PM Ruth wrote:

Hi Bruce,  Which hydro plants in New England?  I had relatives who
worked
in some of them.  Ruth
>

Ruth:

I probably didn't work on the ones your relatives worked on or even know
about.  My work in that field lasted from January of '81 to about December
of '82.  I worked as the US technical rep for a French firm called
Leroy-Somer, a manufacturer of electric motors (and other drive components).
I was their only employee in the US and did everything from handling sales
inquiries to putting on a wet suit to assist in installing the machines (in
the water in November and December in New England I quickly learned the
value of the whole suit, regardless of how hard it was to get on).

My first project was known as the Branch River mill in Union, NH.  Pretty
small, just shy of 30 kW as I recall.  6-8 feet of head.  Privately owned.
An old wood shop with steam and hydro power sources.  My first experience
with putting pencil to paper, having someone else say "yes that will work,"
and having it built.

The next was at the outfall of the lake featured in the movie "On Golden
Pond" and was located just upstream from Ashland, NH (the movie was filmed
in the next town upstream--the name escapes me).  About 70 kW split between
two turbines.  Maybe 8-10 feet of head.  Run/owned by a small-town municipal
power company.  New construction tacked onto an old dam.

The third one was at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA.  It had of
the order of 70 kW split between two turbines.  Low head, at most about six
feet, but decent flow (four foot diameter pipes).  I understand from a water
resources friend that there have been some issues with the changes in water
flow affecting the fishing in the river or perhaps more accurately those
fishing in the river due to the sudden changes in flow and current (I forget
the name of the river).  The museum there really needed the electricity as
they had all-electric heat in their "modern" building(the way the power
company sets up these deals they may not have been able to use it directly
in their museum after all but if they didn't use it someone else could've
come in and taken the water rights away from them).  Another example of new
construction tacked on to an old dam.

My fourth project was way up in Milo, ME (actually only about half way up
the state but it seemed like a real long ways from Boston).  It was three
250 kW machines running at about 10-15 feet of head.  It was actually sold
by the "inventor" of the technology that my firm was using (he used their
induction motors as generators, some applications had planetary gear boxes
made by our firm, and added some turbine blades of his design--pretty low
tech), a sort of an in-your-face move to show us that it was easier to sell
the stuff than we were making it out to be (I guess he was complaining that
we weren't earning him the royalties he should've been getting).  We just
got involved with the installation.  I don't know if I ever saw that site in
operation as I left the firm as it was being completed.  My main role on
that job was as chaffeur for the French technicians brought in to do some
welding and controls work (and stand around freezing in the middle of the
winter in the middle of Maine).

I wish I could've been working in the "golden age" of hydro in New England
back around the turn of the century up until about the 40's (powering local
communities and local inter-urban trams).  There was bit of a gold rush in
the late 70's as people got tax incentives to bring the old dams back on
line but I got there a bit too late to get in with the big little players
(small companies that bought up the rights to the old dams and refurbished
the old equipment or installed new).  At some point in the early 80's the
tax incentives went away and so did the investment money.

One odd part of the business was that if you owned a dam and didn't file the
permits to lock it up (indicating you had some intent to develop its
potential) someone could come in and take control away from you.  It seemed
very un-American but I guess the idea was if you aren't going to use the
resource someone else should.

Another unfortunate aspect was the need to perform costly dam safety studies
if there was a potential for a dam blowout to flood people out downstream.
This hurt people who had a marginal project and couldn't afford a full-blown
engineering study (but a dam blowout could be catastrophic and have a
serious impact on whole communities downstream).

One of the basic rules of the game is the higher the head (the distance the
water falls) the more power you can get from a given amount of water.  This
means that at a high head site you can still get a decent amount of power
(say 30 kW) with smaller pipes, smaller equipment, and therefore less money
invested.  Mother Earth/home-made technology instead of the expensive
industrial technology my firm used to get the same amount of power.

Hydro is lots of fun farther up north where the rivers are smaller.  Once
you get farther south in NH and VT the main rivers get so big you're into
the realm of big engineering costs, big business, and the power companies.
The power involved gets a little scary too (water, electric, and
interpersonal), kinda like the difference between working off an extension
ladder on your house or barn versus these guys talking about hanging from
swing stages on the Pan Am building.  Sand Lot versus The Major Leagues.

Bruce

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