Steam & Power Politics

Steam at the highest pressure in history drives a new turbine near South Bend, Ind., with such efficiency that the private U.S. power industry anticipates a revolution in the production--and, they hope, the politics--of electricity.

The turbine's initial steam pressure of 2,300 lb. per sq. in surpasses highest previous pressures for U.S. central stations by a good 900 lb. Superheated to 940DEG F., the blasting steam operates the turbine at 3,600 r.p.m., can turn out 76,500 kilowatts. It converts one pound of mediocre Indiana soft coal (11,500 B.t.u.) into one kilowatt hour of electricity.*

Since the average U.S. turbine now requires two-thirds more coal, the new turbine thus cuts coal consumption 40% below that of average turbines--a saving of 16,000 tons per month (value: over $30,000) and thus giving its owner, Indiana & Michigan Electric Co. the most economical steam power plant in the U.S.

Upon no great trick or discovery hinges this sudden spurt into once unimaginable pressures. Instead it is the climax of a decade of development in welding, alloys resistant to heat and stress, sensitive control instruments, etc.

Developed by General Electric, the new turbine is the best news of many years to forlorn U.S. powermen, who have long felt marked for ultimate liquidation by the. Federal Government. Steam plants, largely privately owned, produce some 72% of U.S. electricity, convert an average of only 30% of coal's energy into current. Hydroelectric plants convert into current 75 to 90% of the energy of falling water.* Therefore the possibilities of increasing power output and lowering costs are far greater for steam generation than for further hydroelectric development.

The new high-pressure turbine, with its leap from 30 to 50% energy-conversion, was greeted by powermen last week as one more potent argument against President Roosevelt's long dreamed-of St. Lawrence seaway-power project, which would threaten with a sceptre-like "yardstick" the great privately owned, steam-powered utility systems of the industrial Northeast. Utilitymen regard the new turbine as a symbol, great as the monumental dams of the several power Authorities, that their own spirit of technological pioneering is not moribund, as friends of Government power claim. As a sound dollars-&-cents weapon against Government control, it reaffirms Thomas Edison's remark: "Steam power is business; hydro power is politics."

* In 1901 each kilowatt hour demanded six to eight lb. of coal.

* A ton of water must fall one mile to equal the energy in the average pound of coal.

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