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Non-Tech : Alternative energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (7742)	4/5/2010 10:41:48 PM
From: Eric	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16955

Yes, it is amazing how different the two halves of Washington are. I get a kick out of showing folks that if they have never been here before. Very green west of the Cascade crest and very dry east, especially in the central basin. Grand Coulee was originally designed and built just for irrigation but others knew it would eventually become the "big generator" just because of it's sheer size. My dad took me completely through the original dam in the early 1960's when I was in grade school. Sadly you cannot do that today since 9/11. You can only tour a small part of the "third powerhouse" that was built in the early 1970's. One of those turbines in the Third powerhouse has almost as much generating power as all of the "old turbines" in the original old dam. The dam actually slightly vibrates at the north end where the third powerhouse is. One of it's turbines can power Seattle on it's own at "off peak" times. Back in the 1930's my dad grew up in Spokane and almost every weekend he and his father would drive to Grand Coulee and take B/W negatives and print them up after returning home. His dad was a photography buff and had a darkroom in the basement. So from the first shovel of dirt up until going to college in late 1940 up till 1944 (most of his college years) my dad ended up with thousands of negatives of the dam being built, a large number shot with a large format camera. I've talked him into giving it to the Bureau of Reclamation. It's probably one of the best photographic records of the dam being built. I've been fortunate to tour a number of dams when I was much younger, Hoover and others but the one that impressed me more than all the others was Grand Coulee, especially the Third powerhouse. I very highly recommend the tour if you ever get back to Eastern Washington. Eric