Public Welfare Service Bulletin No. 2 (Third Edition) ny ait tY-QF TH: ey ea } 1937 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS SrecrRieity Its Process of Manufacture and Distribution Pictured in Simple Language For Use of School Students, English and Current Topics Classes and Debating Clubs Issued by ILLINOIS COMMITTEE on PUBLIC UTILITY INFORMATION 125 South Clark Street - - - Chicago, Illinois ELECTRICITY — Zhe Giant Energy Introductory: Electricity has been called the giant energy. Within the memory of men now living it has revolutionized the world. It has made possible, within half a century, greater progress than in all the 500,000 years of history which preceded it and which science gives to the career of man on earth. Man has learned to harness, distribute and util- ize this secret power for day and night service throughout the civilized world. It has banished darkness, lightened the burden of the housewife and become the silent partner of industry. The story of the development of the use of electricity is a fascinating recital. It is a story of progress. Electricity has brought about @ rev- olution in industry, for it has enabled one man to do the work of many men, and made possible huge production in our factories, rapid transpor- tation and better living conditions in our homes. It has built our great cities and industrial centers. It has torn away the barriers of time and distance and made all men neighbors. Your Thirty Slaves’: The Smithsonian Institution has figured that if all our machinery operated by electrical and steam power should be taken away, it would re- quire the services of 3,000,000,000 hard-working slaves to duplicate the work done in America. In other words, the use of power and machinery gives to every man, woman and child in our coun- try the equivalent of 30 slaves, or the average family of five has 150 “slaves” working for it. But instead of this army-of slaves we have electricity working for us at a “wage” so small as to bring its services within reach of the poorest man’s pocketbook; a sum so small as would not even pay for what a servant would eat. Push a button and our homes are illuminated as by the midday sun; an electric vacuum cleaner starts banishing dirt and dust; electric washing machines and irons are helping with the house- work; an electric fan starts giving cooling breezes or an electric heater gives forth warmth; an electric range is ready for the cooking of a meal; the electric refrigerator starts generating ice, or the countless other labor saving devices are in action. Electricity rings the door bell, or it tows a ship through the Panama Canal, lifts a great bridge, pulls a train over the mountains, increases the efficiency of a modern factory by providing vastly increased and better direct illumination and by supplying a more efficient and easily controlled motive power. It milks the cows of the farmer, chops his feed and does a multitude of other things. It lights the home, the store and the factory. It provides the light by which the sur- geon in the hospital performs his operations. It has been made available, at any hour day or night, through the tremendous efforts of the na- tion’s electrical utility companies. Yet it was only a short time ago—less than 50 years—that even the richest kings had none of the commonplace things which brighten the lives oi the poorest American today. The Great Minds of Electricity: Many great minds have contributed to the de- velopment of the present-day electric central-sta- tion systems through which our electricity is provided. If only one name were to be men- tioned, it would undoubtedly be that of Thomas A. Edison. But before Edison, with his marvel- ous inventions, and contemporary with him a host of other electrical scientists and inventors have contributed their part. Such men as Dr. William Gilbert, Benjamin Franklin, Luigi Galvani, Alesandro Volto, Sir Humphry Davy, H. C. Oersted, A. M. Ampere, G. S. Ohm, Charles Wheatstone, Michael Fara- day, Joseph Henry, Z. T. Gramme, J. C. Max- well, A. Pacinotti, S. Z. deFerranti, Werner von Siemens, Lord Kelvin and many others did very important work. Early Inventions: Although the electric light and power business, as we know it today, is a development of com- paratively recent origin, the foundations for it were laid by early experimenters in the Seven- teenth and Eighteenth centuries. Back in 1600, Dr. Gilbert, an English physician, conducted numerous experiments and made many important discoveries, but it was nearly a century and a half later before any great progress was made by others who studied the subject. Benjamin Franklin’s demonstration by his fa- mous kite experiment in 1752, proving that light- ning is an electrical phenomenon, is well known. About 1790, Galvani discovered a current of elec- tricity. Up to that time electricity had been de- veloped only by friction. Volta developed the electric battery in 1800. Oersted of Copenhagen discovered in 1820 the magnetic effect of électric current. This paved the way for the later devel- opments of electrical machinery. Michael Fara- day of England discovered in 1831 the basic prin- ciples on which dynamo electric machines are ay ae oe! B80.% LAGCVE 1)O.2, ed.3 ty 4 designed. Many other scientists and inventors Af DP itxr at Dh/ made important discoveries during the early part of the Nineteenth century. The telegraph was the first great electrical in- vention. It was invented by Morse in 1837. Elec- tro plating was perfected about the same time. The electric motor was developed about 1873. The First Central Station: Development of the electrical industry, how- ever, really dates from Sept. 4, 1882, the day on which there was opened in New York city, the first central: electricity generating station in the world. This plant, known as the Pearl street sta- tion, furnished electricity for lighting in a re- stricted territory in downtown Manhattan. Edison had invented the electric light three years previously on Oct. 21, 1879, but until the opening of the Pearl street station, it was little more than a display or a curiosity. There were also in various parts of the country a few isolated electric light plants supplying individual custom- ers. The inauguration of service from Pearl street, however, marked a new epoch, because it was the pioneer of the modern electric generating and distribution systems. From the plan origin- ally conceived by Edison, practically all electrical energy in the United States today is generated and distributed by central station companies. take residential lighting service. The first central station only four decades ago served 59 customers. Today the electrical in- dustry has expanded to 5,654 operating com- panies, serving approximately 15,000 communi- ties and 12,206,590 customers, of whom 9,676,330 ‘The number of customers of electric light and power companies in the United States doubled in the six years from 1909 to 1915, and doubled again in the next six years from 1915 to 1921. The increase today is at the rate of more than 1,400,000 a year. The Pearl Street station had six generators with a total generating capacity of 559.5 kilo- watts. The generating capacity of all plants in the United States at the beginning of 1923 was 17,404,000 kilowatts or approximately 22,205,000 horse power. The output of electricity in 1922 set a new high record, the total being 47,612,194,000 kilowatt hours, according to reports of the U. S. Geological Survey. The Commonwealth Edison Company, which serves Chicago, in 1922 had an output of 2,225,442,875 kilowatt hours, the largest produc- . tion of any steam central station company in the world. An illustration of the rapid development of the electrical industry is shown by the fact that the Commonwealth Edison Company had a generating capacity of only about 640 kilowatts in 1888. In 1923 it was over 700,000 kilowatts. Today the electric light and power industry represents an investment of approximately $5,- 100,000,000, and about $750,000,000 is spent an- nually for new plants and extensions to meet the ever-increasing demands for service. The gross revenue of the electric light and power companies of the country in 1922 was $1,084,000,000. The industry is owned by over 1,750,000 men and women investors, as well as banks, insurance companies and others, their money providing funds for building the great system whose serv- ices are available to all of the people. W here Electricity Comes From: The public obtains its electrical energy, which we have been picturing, from central generating plants or “Central Stations” as they are called, where electricity can be produced in large quan- tities and sent out from advantageously located centers to supply the needs of the people—to make their lamps burn, to operate their factory machines, to make street cars and interurban cars go, to supply the electric flat irons and the elec- tric fans, and for all the thousands of uses for which electricity is employed. Electricity can be produced most economically by the use of large generating units, and it can also be transmitted and distributed to the great- est advantage if all the electrical needs of a large community or a number of small communities are supplied from one common system of wires. Therefore, the modern tendency is for the small individual community central station of earlier years to disappear, being replaced by the sub- stations (or local distributing stations) of large systems, giving the smaller towns the benefits and economies of the great system. There are two kinds of electricity made and distributed by a central station—“direct” and “alternating.” Direct, or continuous current, constantly flows in one direction. This kind of current, because it cannot be sent any great dis- tance, is used largely in the congested centers of populous cities. Alternating current flows first in one direction, then reverses, but so fast that the changes cannot be detected in an electric light by the naked eye. Alternating current can be sent, economically, hundreds of miles, and therefore, is now used almost universally. How Electricity Is Made Available: Electricity is produced from some form of heat energy, as that obtained by the combustion of coal, oil, gas or wood; from some form of mechanical energy like that of falling water _or (to a slight extent) wind power, or from chemical energy, as in batteries. In the case of waterpower plants the momentum of the falling water is used to turn waterwheels which in turn operate electric generators. The water may be comparatively small in amount, but of great velocity or it may be of low pressure and of much volume, or of any combination of. these characteristics. In the case of the familiar central station pro- ducing electrical energy from steam derived from the burning of coal we first see long trains of sometimes more than a hundred coal cars deliver- ing the fuel from the mines of Central Illinois to the premises of the central station. (But elec- tric generating plants are sometimes built right at the coal mine in Illinois and other states.) Here the coal is handled by various forms of mechanical conveyors and crushers, themselves run by electricity, and delivered to the automatic stokers of the furnaces without being touched by human hands. (See “A,” in illustration.) The other raw material (assuming that brains, labor and capital are not raw materials) is water, and it is delivered to the boilers, the steam pro- duced by the application of the heat of the burn- ing coal being led through pipes to steam tur- bines, where its expansive force and impact are used to turn the shafts of electric generators (B). The Turbine: The principle of the steam turbine is very simple. It is practically the same as the water turbine, and the water turbine is nothing but an elaborated water wheel. The latter receives its power from water pressure of rivers or reser- voirs of water stored so that when the water flows it strikes the blades of the wheel, rotating it and producing power. In like manner steam generated in a central station by boilers is forced against the blades of a steam turbine which rotates from this impact, perhaps 1,800 times a minute, and produces power. To these turbines “electric machines” or generators, as we now call them, are usually attached direct to the shaft without the use of belts. The energy we have pictured as being created in a central generating station so far is mechani- cal energy and not electrical, but right here, be- tween the turbine and the generator, the trans- formation takes place. The power that goes into the turbine as mechanical energy is taken from GENERATION 4 Robes LAG DIAGRAM TRANSMISSION the generator at the other end of the shaft as electrical energy. In spite of the enormous power locked up in a modern generator, the principle of its work is founded on very simple laws. Early experi- ments by the famous Faraday (born in England, 1791) marked the beginning of the electric generator, and the same laws that Faraday worked out are applied to the making of the huge generators of today, nothing of importance havy- ing been added except elaboration of machinery. Faraday first took a coil of wire and a magnet. Each time the magnet was thrust into the coil its magnetism was found to cause a flow of electricity in the coil, as shown by a compass near the coil of wire. The same phenomenon takes place when a generator rotates. A large magnet and several coils of wire connected in a circuit do the same work, only thousands of times more effectively. So long as the generator and turbine rotate a flow of electricity will be generated. In fact, nowadays the turbine and the generator are so closely related that they are made by manufacturers in one machine known as a turbo-generator. The electricity which comes from the genera- tors is so powerful that it must be very care- fully controlled. This is accomplished by means of various copper switching devices (C). Copper is used because it is one of the best conductors of electricity, and relatively cheap. The energy is often raised to a high pressure because at high pressures electricity can be transmitted over long distances by use of comparatively small copper wires. Electrical energy from the power house is thus often sent great distances over “trans- mission lines” of poles and wires—the great arteries of the electrical system—to the place where it is required. DISTRIBUTION OIRECST CURREN? Suowmo tus Principat Evements or tHe Prysica. System Requirep to Convert Our Raw ! Mareriat (Coat) into Evecrrican Engroy anv to Brino rt to THE Consumers 1n Usaate Form. = = — aa _ Dad BA as ae) ii. $ et lof The Transformer: Now, before the electricity which these trans- mission lines carry may be put to practical use as light or power, the pressure must be greatly reduced. A device known as a transformer is used to accomplish this. Transformers may be used in two ways—they can either “step” the pressure up, or reduce the pressure. Sometimes huge transformers, (D), are used in “sub-sta- tions” from which energy is distributed to Jarge sections of a city or to small towns, but the trans- formers which are a familiar sight on poles in streets or alleys, (E), finally reduce the pressure to a safe point for domestic use and send it into the dozen or more houses in the midst of which the transformer is located. The Basic Laws of Electrical Energy: Something very interesting takes place within the transformer and if our eyes could see elec- tricity we should see a remarkable phenomenon going on all the time in each one of these little iron boxes. We have already noted above, in connection with the generator, that when a piece of magnetized iron was moved through a coil of wire electricity was produced. Early experi- menters found another trust which naturally followed: viz., that when electricity flowed through a coil of wire around a piece of iron magnetism was produced in the iron. These two principles taken together illustrate how a transformer works. Suppose we think of elec- trical energy as it travels from the power sta- tion along transmission lines into the transformer box. There it runs into a coil of wire which surrounds a piece of iron. The electricity in the coil magnetizes the iron and the magnetized iron in its turn produces electricity in another coil, which is around the magnet but entirely separ- ate from the first coil. The more wires in either of these two coils the more pressure we have, therefore, if one coil has ten times as many wires as the other or “secondary” coil, the pressure at the other side of the transformer will be reduced to one-tenth of what it was when it entered it. From the other side of the transformer elec- tricity is led at low pressure into the house or factory through a service switch where it can be turned on or off, and then through a meter, which measures the current. After that it is available for toasters, irons and the dozens of other household uses. In the case of the large neighborhood sub-stations, power taken from the secondary side of the large transformers may be used to operate street railways or street lighting circuits. How Electricity Has Revolutionized Industry: Electricity has made America machineland. There are no less than 3,000 uses for electricity. Most of them are in industry, but the use of elec- tricity for power, as well as for lighting and heat- ing, in the home is growing steadily. Striking progress in the electrification of Amer- ican industry is shown in a recent report of the U. S. Bureau of the Census which has just tab- ulated the results of its 1919 census of manu- facturers. This report shows that at the end of that year there were 1,483,039 electrical motors in use in the factories of the United States. This is nearly twice the number in use only five years previously. The total horse-power rating of these motors was 16,317,383 or nearly double the total horse- power rating of the motors five years before. Of the primary power used in manufacturing in the United States 64.4 per cent is electrical. On January 1, 1922, industrial motors served by central station electric companies numbered 1,759,300. They had a rating oi 19,561,200 horse power. While the use of electrical energy for driving motors is the most common use of electricity in industry, aside from illumination, it is being used more and more for generating heat and bringing about chemical reactions in many manu- facturing processes. In the latter field electricity has a wide use in electro-chemistry, a department of industrial en- deavor with which most people are not familiar. In electro-chemistry, electricity is used to break down, build up, cover, uncover, separate and blend. Some remarkable accomplishments result. These are probably better understood by refer- ence to the experiment conducted in school lab- oratories of reducing water to its component parts, hydrogen and oxygen, by passing an elec- tric current through it. That is an example of breaking down. Electro-plating is an example of the building up process. In electro-plating, cop- per plates are immersed in a solution of silver nitrate and by! passing current through the solu- tion, silver is deposited on one of the plates. There are many other reactions brought about by electricity on a large scale which are the basis of the electro-chemistry industry. Eighty per cent of the copper produced in the United States is separated from the ore by electricity. Gold and silver are separated from ore in the same way. Aluminum, nickel and silver are “recov- ered” from ore and waste. Almost all gold jew- elry is gilded by electrolysis. Many bakeries are electrified. In some of them the entire process of baking bread is mechanical. Flour is received by electric conveyors and me- chanically sifted, blended and mixed. The dough is cut into loaf sizes by electric machines and put into ovens. Electric machines wrap and seal the bread after it is baked and electric trucks deliver it to the grocer and the individual customer. Electricity has increased the speed of opera- tions in the foundry business. Giant magnetic cranes lift heavy materials and place them where needed. The “skull cracker,” or giant ball, used to smash up scrap by being dropped on it and raised by a magnet, has cut down the time re- quired for this important operation. Use of electricity for smelting ore is a compara- tively recent development. Making of “electric steel” is a fast-growing industry. The number of electric furnaces has increased rapidly. In 1914, 25,000 tons of “electric steel” was produced. The production five years later in 1919 was 1,150,000 tons. By using electricity, vanadium and chrome— new kinds of steel—were produced. These are used for automobile and airplane parts and for castings where a perfect texture is necessary. Electric steel is also used in making tools such as drilling bits which must stand hard wear. Electric heat is being applied to iron, nickel, copper, silver, brass and bronze and other non- ferrous metals. Electric furnaces produce such electro-chemical “mysteries” as ferro manganese, silican, tungsten, molybdenum, chromium and titanium, abrasive materials such as carborun- dum and alaxite, magnesite, dolomite and calcite. The great development of the future will prob- ably be electrification of the railroads. The ex- perimental stage of electrification of the railroads seems to be past. The terminals of several im- portant railroads have been electrified in certain cities and in Montana a railroad has electrified its lines across the mountains for several hundred miles. Four thousand ton trains go up and down heavy mountain grades under perfect control at speeds never known before and with a regularity that leaves no doubt as to the practicability of electrification. The big obstacle in the way of railroad electrification at present, however, is its cost, but once the railroads have proper credit so they can induce investors to provide the enor- mous sums necessary for this improvement, great savings will be made in the nation’s coal re- sources and railroad travel will be clean and more rapid than it is today. What an Electrical Map of the U.S. A. Would Look Like: Ii one could see, upon a map of the United States, outlines of systems for generating, trans- mitting and distributing electricity the impres- sion would be something like a number of in- ter-connected spider-webs, each large generating station being the center of its own web. Each system may have several generating stations, the whole network being tied together in such a way that the breakdown of a machine in one generat- ‘ing station or the failure of a sub-station would not, usually, mean loss of service to the customer, other sources of supply being available in emer- gency. Already many farms have electricity delivered to them by the central station plants and within a very short time it is to be expected that the rural districts will have the same efficient and modern service as is possible in the thickly popu- lated cities. The same plants that serve the cities, now fur- nish service to the smaller communities and to the farms. They are no longer local distributors, Total Generation in but reach out as iar as their wires reach. One company, alone, may serve hundreds of commu- nities from its central station energy producing plants. That is why the rendering of service is now regulated by the state. It has outgrown its original boundaries. The Illinois Super-Power System: The first electric generating stations and dis- tribution systems were constructed in large cities, such as Chicago and New York, only about 30 years ago. At first many small stations were constructed in the same city to serve very restricted areas which did not exceed two miles square. The art of generating and distributing electric energy rapidly advanced so that about 10 years after the completion of the first plants we find that in the large cities many of these small plants were sup- erseded by very much larger generating stations which supplied the entire community. About 20 or 25 years ago small plants were also constructed in medium sized cities and smaller communities of not less than 5,000 inhab- itants. At this time, therefore, only a relatively small proportion of these people of any country living in cities or towns were able to secure any electric service, because in the state of the art when small plants were necessary for each com- munity, there remained thousands of small com- munities in which no electric service was supplied because of the impossibility of furnishing this service without loss. Early Systems Small: The early systems in most small and medium- sized towns did not operate 24 hours per day but only from dusk to dawn over each night, since practically the entire business supplied in those days consisted of lighting. Aiter 15 or 20 years ago the electric motor com- menced to develop and many of these plants were then operated throughout 24 hours per day in order to furnish motor power. This 24-hour op- eration was extended to only a portion of the plants in existence at that time, as in a great number of communities sufficient load in the day time could not be found to pay the additional Statistical Data Showing Develoaue: in the United States ] 1902 1907 19) Capital Invested ...... 504,740,352 1$1,096,913,622 |$2,175,678,266 |$3,060,3 Gross Revenue .......... 78,735,500|$ 175,642,3381$ 302,273,3981$ 526,8 Capacity in Kilo- iat WALCS alr. eee 1,212,200 2,709,225 8,9 No. of Customers CPotal iat 1,465,060 1,946,979 6,9 Residence; 4. Commercial ...........- Power) 222-2 Kilowatt - hours ....} 2,507,051,515| 5,862,276,737 |11,569,109,885 |29,650,0 expenses of operating the plant and system throughout the full day and night. — The plants of 15 or 20 years ago in small and : medium-sized communities proved to be expen- sive to operate and the rates for electric light and power service were therefore comparatively high—in fact so high that they would seem ri- diculous and impossible today. : A great many of the early plants established in this manner failed financially, notwithstanding the high rates received, because many such sys- tems had been installed in communities where there was not a sufficient volume of business, even at the high rate, to pay the expense of opera- tion and a return upon the investment for these systems. About 15 years ago the condensing steam tur- bine was developed in very much larger sizes than the reciprocating engine. It was found to be very much more economical in the use of coal and in addition could be built in very large units. Development of large stations became possible and it began to be generally recognized that the only way in which the advantages of the develop- ment of the electrical art could be extended to the smaller and medium-sized cities was by means of transmission lines which would receive 4 their supply at one large generating station and . transmit it for use to a large number of commu- nities. This would permit of 24-hour service, it was found, and also of a reduction in electric rates, then something like 20 cents per kilowatt hour, which figure today would be considered an impossible rate. Transmission Line Systems: Commencing about 10 years ago transmission systems of this character were built. Large num- bers of isolated generating stations were dis- placed by the new service and all these commu- nities were then given 24-hour service in place of the former restricted supply. Thousands of communities, too small to operate an isolated plant, were given electric service for the first time at rates very much less than formerly charged in the larger communities which had the ; advantages of the early, small stations. ) Industries were furnished with power from the i new systems which before that time had been he Electric Light and Power Industry ring the Last 20 Years t 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 41($3,121,600,000 $3,345,071,000/$3,688,597,000}$4,658,000,000 Ther ono nog '40|/$ 664,850,000]$ 773,650,000|$ 932,000,000/$ 983,000,000 1,084,000,000 1107 9,174,295 12,761,000 13,000,000 14,466,915 17,404,000 421 7,498,105 8,457,762 9,597,997 10,794,083 12,206,590 5,744,800 6,517,600 7,465,900 8,467,600 9,676,330 1,445,000 1,585,300 1,744,500]: 1,896,900 2,080,260 308,305 352,862 387,597 429,584 450,000 00 |37,826,410,000)38,921,000,000) 43,555,000,000]40,976,000,000)47,612,194,000 RR a a ee a, compelled to generate power by installation oi inefficient stations with resulting high costs of operation. Energy was furnished for great num- bers of domestic appliances used in homes, such as electric irons, toasters; washing machines, vac- uum cleaners, fans and finally thé electric range. In no section of our country has this great development been more marked than in Illinois. Before the days when “transmission lines were built, electric service*was available to only about 200 communities, and inithe majority of cases only for part of.the 24 hours. Illinois a Leader: At the present time, after a ten-year period of continuous construction of transmission lines throughout the state by many public service com- panies, 24-hour electric service is being rendered to a total of 1,080 organized communities. It is fair to say that practically all the communities now receiving electric service from transmission systems, which were not included in the original 200 communities; could not be furnished this service upon a basis where it would be a com- mercial possibility. There have been cases where, small isolated plants have been constructed in the last 10 years in our state, but these’ were usually cases where transmission service was impossible to obtain and many of these have since been sup- erseded by transmission line service. A map of the state of Illinois showing all of the transmission lines now in-operation, appears as an amazing network of lines, and showing that almost all of the state-is-now receiving the benefits of this class of service. There is now in operation in Illinois about 6,500 miles of transmission line operating at high voltages, the predominating voltage being 33,000. Branching off from these great energy lines are thousands of miles of lateral wires which lead to the users of electricity. There is now installed and in operation a total of 1,200,000 kilowatts of generating capacity in central stations of the util- ities of the state. Illinois stands first among the states in the number of electric light customers and second in number of electric power customers served by central stations. The number of electric lighting customers served in the four leading states in the United States on Jan. 1, 1922, was as follows: TUTOR OI ee en 858,000 CANOLA tage nce 752,000 Dawn OF ie Riuacnase 686,000 Pennsylvania ...........-.---943,000 State was a Pioneer: Illinois was a pioneer in the building of the early transmission systems serving a large num- ber of communities from a central source. Great as is the present super-power system, large addi- tions are constantly being made. By tracing the extreme limits of some of the inter-connected transmission lines in Illinois, one notes a continuous transmission system starting at Zion City, at the extreme northeast corner of the state, southward around Chicago as far as Bismarck—a transmission line distance of ap- proximately 250 miles. This same system is in- ter-connected west as far as Freeport, Erie and Toulon, these three points being about 225 miles from Zion City along the transmission lines. Further south is a continuous system extend- ing from Keokuk, Ia., through central Illinois to Terre Haute, Ind., a transmission line distance of approximately 350 miles. This is the longest continuous transmission line in the state. There is also a continuous transmission line system ex- tending from Danville on the east, Peoria on the north to Venice on the south, giving a transmis- sion line mileage of about 200 miles. From Keo- kuk, Ia., to St. Louis is another transmission line of 141 miles. Many of the transmission systems in Iilinois near state lines are connected with lines in the adjoining states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri and Iowa. While the systems referred to com- prise the larger and more striking transmission lines, it will be noted that there are numerous other systems not connected to the larger sys- tems, but which serve comparatively large areas. The further development of the transmission line systems in Illinois, which will take place in the immediate future, will undoubtedly be the extension of present systems to serve additional territory and the inter-connection of a great many of the systems now in operation. A compara- tively small number of miles of transmission lines will inter-connect almost all of the transmission systems of the state. The inter-connection of the existing systems will result in achieving substan- tial benefits to the systems thus connected through concentrating the production of the en- ergy required in the large and more efficient gen- erating stations. To illustrate the relative advantages of the economic results which are now secured in the generation of energy in the large transmission systems, as compared with the smaller isolated plants which were superseded, the small plants, before the construction of transmission lines, used an average of 15 pounds of coal per kilowatt hour. Through building large and efficient plants, discontinuing the operation of a large number of small, inefficient stations and distributing energy by transmission lines, the average coal consump- tion is possible of reduction to but 344 pounds per kilowatt hour. Big Benehits Obtained: The benefits of this great gain in efficiency have been given, to the customers in the form of lower rates than those originally charged by the smaller plants, 24-hour service to all communi- ties served and adequate power supplies for in- dustries at reasonable rates. Notwithstanding the fact that coal today costs 100 per cent more per ton than in pre-war times, the average rates now charged are very much less than the average 190 rates ten years ago in these same communities. If such systems had not been constructed, the average rates now prevailing would be at least 25 to 50 per cent higher in order to pay the cost of operating the smaller, inefficient stations. Aiter most of the existing transmission sys- tems in Illinois have been inter-connected, and the loads served by these systems continue to increase to much larger amounts, there will un- doubtedly be constructed new, large capacity, high-voltage trunk lines, or true super-power lines, which will serve as feeder lines to the existing transmission systems at a large number of intersecting points. Such super-power lines will undoubtedly receive their supply of energy from very large central stations of the most ef- ficient type, and the development of such a sys- tem will enable the more inefficient stations still operating to be discontinued. The existing trans- mission lines will then occupy the relative posi- tion of primary distribution lines, with the new trunk lines serving as: the transmission source. Such a development will not render useless any of the present systems now in service, but on the contrary serves to increase their capacity and thus enable increased capacities to be supplied to all of the communities served to keep up with the growth of these communities. Electricity Cannot be Stored: One characteristic of electrical power which has an interesting bearing on central station en- terprises is that it cannot be stored. This is not literally true, because you are familiar with dry batteries and the larger storage batteries, but for general power purposes in large cities batteries are not practical, except as an emergency reserve. The result is that when a customer of a central station company makes a “demand” upon the company for electricity by turning a switch, the company must be prepared to supply this demand instantaneously and it must likewise be pre- pared to supply all of the simultaneous demands of all of its customers. Unfortunately central stations cannot make up in advance enough electricity to supply their cus- tomers for a day or a week or a month, as a store stocks up with goods in advance of its custom- ers’ demands. This very fact puts an added bur- den on the central station because it must main- tain a plant and equipment large enough to de- liver the huge amounts of electricity for the dark and busy days of December, even though during the month of June, when the days are long, a much smaller plant costing very much less money might suffice. Similarly plant and equipment must be large enough to take care of the very heavy demands of the late afternoons of winter months, whereas during the rest of the day and night only a small fraction of that amount of electricity would be demanded. These highest points of “demand” are called the “peak load” and the central station managers always have to figure on investing enough money to take care of the “peak load.” WAUKEGAN mi LAKE FOREST GLENCOE ILLINOIS SUPER-POWER ELECTRICITY SYSTEM er ed a ; I DANVILLE ' “ 1 ' ’ ' ! i oa a ‘ ' =-peot oe . t ' i] ' . ------ ary “1 ee ee This map shows the location of the high tension electric trans- mission lines, ranging ds icantly 66,000 ' volts, whi compose ? 6 - the “backbone” of the great energy sys- | --¢]- Pacers ys — oman ae tem serving the state’s people. Radiating Being ye I ' from these “trunk lines” are thousands gongsporo ! : of miles of distribution lines, covering the ) ! tots state like a closely woven web, which carry ; ‘. the electricity into the homes, offices and a factories. Ms yYCAIRO Watching the Service Demand: Let us go to the electric lighting company and see just how electricity is made to do its work. We walk into the office of the: manager of one of these companies. One of the manager’s duties is to watch the traffic. He is the guardian over the flow of electricity. Every minute of the day he can tell something interesting about what the citizens of his community are doing. Before him he has a long sheet on which lines indicate the rise and fall in the use of the service he is fur- nishing. His fingers are on the “pulse” every minute. The line which he is watching is called the “load,” which simply means the total amount of service being used at a given moment. We will watch him for a day. Let us say this particular manager is manager of your local elec- tric company. In the larger companies there is a man assigned to this work solely, and he is called the “load dispatcher.” It is 5 o’clock in the morning. The line is running along straight. It is 5:30 A. M.; the line commences nervously to start upwards. Some people are rising and turning on the lights. It is 6 A. M.; the line has shot far up. Many people are getting up, but it is still dusk, and they must have light. It is 7 A. M.; the line has taken an almost perpendicular upturn. Prac- tically everybody in town is now up; some are using electricity to read the morning paper, some for cooking; the street car systems have put on many cars hauling people to work; the industries have turned on electricity for operating the big machines. It is 8 o’clock; his line shows that out in the residence districts but little current is be: ing used, but in the manufacturing centers, the load is tremendous. So he watches the current that would have gone to the residential district shift to the manufacturing district. The street car load is much less than it was while people were going to work. It is mid-day. The residential district load has “picked up” a little. Some women are ironing, others using sewing machines, washing ma- chines, or vacuum cleaners, still others are cook- ing lunch. ‘Afternoon sees his line up near the top of his sheet and keeping steady. Most of the current is being used in the manufacturing plants. Five o’clock comes. The workers quit for the day. The mills, with the exception of the great electric furnaces in the steel mills and smelters, close down their machinery. But at the same time has come a great demand from another source. The people must getihome. The trans- portation electric load swells. The residential dis- tricts are again demanding electricity for lighting and cooking. His load shifts over to that side. Up until 6 P. M. it may sag a trifle, while the industrial load has eased, but then the great de- mand comes for the evening lighting of the homes, and it picks up again. Then comes 9 o’clock. The children have been put to bed. Many lights have been darkened. 10 The load sags; 10 o’clock and many grown-ups are going to bed and it sags more; 11 o’clock and the majority are in bed and the demand now is far below that of an hour before. The great engines in the power plant can be eased up a bit, given a little rest, when repairs and cleaning can be done for a repetition of this giving of service in the morning. What the electric manager saw, the gas and telephone and transportation traffic men saw, their line only changing to represent the happen- ings in their particular branch of giving service. They are the genii who “drive” invisible forces about their work, seeing that at all times they work efficiently and are always on the spot when needed and that their strength is equal to the tasks they must perform. Governmental Regulation: Electric light and power companies are regu- lated as are other public utilities such as gas, street railway and telephone companies. In prac- tically every state in the union they are regulated by state commissions created for that purpose. In Illinois the regulatory body is the Illinois Commerce commission. Illinois has had state regulation since Jan. 1, 1914, when the Illinois Public Utilities commission came into existence under an act passed by the state legislature dur- ing the previous year. In 1921 the legislature modified the law to some extent and changed the name of the regulatory body to the Illinois Com- merce commission. This commission exercises supervision over the rates and service of the util- ities. The theory of these commissions is that they will be an impartial judge in all controver- sies which might arise, so that no stumbling blocks may be thrown in the way of proper and continuous development of the various utility services for all of the people. Why Public Utilities are Built on Borrowed Money: In one important respect the utility industry is unlike almost any other business in the nation. The electric light and power, gas, telephone, street railways and steam railroads have had to be built up on borrowed money. They make no “profits” in the sense that most businesses do. Under the system of regulation in effect they are permitted to charge rates which will enable them to earn operating expenses and a fair return on the money invested in their properties. Conse- quently all additions and extensions must be financed by the sale of new securities to thrifty investors. The reason for this latter is simple. Where the ordinary business turns its capital over three to five times a year, the utility company turns it only once in four or five years. In the case of a dry goods store, for instance, the merchant bills out to his customers and gets back from them each year several times as much money as he has invested in his business, whereas the utility = bills out to 1ts customers and gets back each year only a small fraction of the money that its stock- holders have invested in it. If you should decide, for example, to become a merchant in your home town and you invested $10,000 in the business you would expect to transact a total business each year of $30,000 or $40,000 or perhaps $50,000, but on the other hand if you decided to start a utility enterprise in your home town and you in- vested $10,000 in that enterprise you could only expect to transact a business of $2,000 each year, or at the best $3,000. Schools Now Hold Generations That Must Carry on the Utilities: Service of these commodities necessary to modern life does not begin, nor end, with the mere installation of power plants, distributing plants, the maze of equipment, nor the building up of great bodies of employes as the operating forces. There are three fundamental elements back of all this: 1. Individual brains: this is personified in the man who sees the possibilities of rendering service to a community; who devotes his time, experience and brains to skillfully planning that service to meet needs; who interests people having money in his “big idea,” organizes a company and gives the public the benefits of his initiative. 2. The investors: Those of the state and nation, who having saved through thrift from their earnings, become interested and purchase securities—stocks or bonds—in the company in the expectation that it will be successful and will earn profits for them in return for their lending their savings to- ward financing this plant that is to render public service indiscriminately to all per- sons of a community. 3. The inventors: The geniuses who made possible the great machines and wonderful apparatus that is necessary to produce service, and who are constantly striving for improvement, they too expecting finan- cial reward for their labors. These three elements of service form an un- breakable chain. Were it not for the initiative, daring and constructive effort of the man “with the idea” and who carries it to success, the com- pany that furnishes service would not come into existence; were it not for the great army of in- vestors, made up of men and women who have saved, of banks, trust funds and insurance com- panies, the large sums of money necessary to build the plants planned by the promoter would not be possible; were it not for the ceaseless work of the inventor and developer, already a creator and striving for further improvement in machin- ery and methods of production, the service itself could not be rendered. All three are indispen- sable to one another. Were any one of them to become discouraged, development would imme- 11 diately lag and the nation would be the loser. In the schools today are those who in the future must “carry on”; who must soon be in the har- ness working out the problems of light, heat, transportation and communication for the nation -and the world; problems that will be none the less complex than those that the great pioneers have faced. The tremendous fight of the pioneers —those of the “first generation,” the men with the vision—who convinced the world that such “absurdities” as electric lighting, electric power, street cars that moved by invisible power, tele- phone wires that could carry a voice over un- limited spaces, gas that could actually be piped and made to cook, heat and operate: great fac- tories, were in reality possible, and through over- coming incredibility and actual superstition made possible a revolution of home, commercial and industrial life, has not ended. Within the next ten years the demands of the nation for service will probably be double that of now as a result of the more complex civilization, increase in pop- ulation and need of more intensive and econom- ical production. Definitions of Electrical Terms: AN OHM:— The practical unit of electrical resistance. It is named for G. S. Ohm, the German scientist. Illustration: The difficulty with which water flows through a pipe is determined by the size, shape, length, smoothness and so forth of the pipe. This difficulty with which current flows along a wire is determined by the size, length and material of the wire. ance is measured in ohms. AN AMPERE:— A unit of measurement to determine the rate of flow of electric current along a wire. It is named after A. M. Ampere, French mathemati- cian. Illustration: The rate at which water flows through a pipe which may be checked by open- ing any faucet and measuring what comes out is generally measured gallons per minute. The rate of flow of electric current is measured by Am- peres. A VOLT :— A volt represents the force required to produce a current of one ampere when applied to a circuit of unit resistance. The name is derived from Volta, the Italian physicist. Illustration: The flow of electric current in a single circuit is just about the same thing as the flow of water through a pipe. The three princi- pal elements are found under practically iden- tical circumstances, namely, pressure imposed to. induce flow; rate of flow and resistance to flow. Pressure exerted to send electricity along a wire is sometimes known as. “electro-motive-force” and is commonly measured in volts. AN ELECTRO-MAGNETIC UNIT :— A system of units based upon the attraction or repulsion between magnetic poles, employed to The electrical resist- ° measure quantity, pressure, etc., in connection with electric currents. A WATT :— A watt is the unit of electrical power produced when one ampere of current flows with an elec- tric pressure of one volt applied. A watt is equal approximately to 1/746 of one horse-power, or one horse-power is equal to 746 watts. It de- rives its name from James Watt, a Scottish engi- neer and inventor. A KILO-WATT :— A unit of electric power, equal to one thousand watts, especially applied to the output of dyna- mos. Electric power is usually expressed in kilo- watts. As the watt is equal to 1/746 horse-power, the kilowatt equals 1000/746 or 1.34 horse-power. Kilo is of Greek origin and means one thou- sand. A kilowatt is one thousand watts. A KILOWATT HOUR:— A kilowatt hour means the work performed by one kilowatt of electric power during an hour's time. HORSE-POWER:— A unit of mechanical power; the power re- quired to raise 550 pounds to the height of one foot in one second, or 33,000 pounds to that height in a minute. Horse-power involved three elements, force, distance and time. If we ex- press the force in pounds and the distance passed through in feet, it is the solution of and the meaning for the term “foot pounds.” Hence a foot pound is a resistance equal to one pound moved one foot. James Watt, Scotch inventor, was asked how many horses his engines would replace. To ob- tain data as to actual performance in continuous work, he experimented with powerful horses, and found that one traveling 2%4 miles per hour, or 220 feet per minute, and harnessed to a rope lead- ing over a pulley and down a vertical shaft could haul up a weight averaging 100 pounds, equaling 22,000 foot pounds per minute. To give good measure, Watt increased the measurement by 50 per cent, thus getting the familiar unit of 33,000 minute foot pounds. HORSE-POWER ELECTRIC :— A unit of electrical work, expressed in watts. It is equal to 746 watts. To express the rate of doing electrical work in mechanical horse-power units, divide the number of watts by 746. ELECTRICAL CURRENT :— Current is the term applied to a flow of elec- tricity through a conductor. DIRECT CURRENT :— Direct or continuous current flows constantly in one direction. This current, because it cannot be sent any great distance, is used largely in the congested centers of thickly populated cities. ALTERNATING CURRENT :— ines Alternating current flows first in one direction, then reverses, but so fast that the changes cannot —_— be detected in an electric light bulb by the naked eye. Alternating current can be sent economic- ally hundreds of miles, and, therefore, is now used almost universally. Ff THE PART ELECTRICITY PLAYED IN THE MAKING OF THIS BOOK The Type—Set by an electric machine. The Illustrations—Electricity furnished the bright arti- ficial light, drying heat and current used in the engraving process. Electrotypes—Made by electrically depositing copper on wax moulds. The Printing—The presses were run by electricity. Folding—An electric folding machine saved hours ot hand-labor. Binding—The machines that stitched the pages were run by electricity. Cutting—Electric paper cutters trimmed the pages to the proper size. How to Use This Bulletin: NOTE—There are four ends of speech, or in other words, four purposes for which men speak; first, to make an idea clear; second, to make an idea impressive ; third, to make men believe some- thing, that is, to convince; and to lead men to action. Rhetoric, Oral English, and Current Topics Classes: Suggested topics for theme writing; Oral English and Current Topics discussions. 1. To make an Idea Clear: Describe the Electrical Equipment of this Community. 2. To Make an Idea Impressive: The New World Created by Electrical Inven- tions. 3. To Convince: Debate. Resolved: That Electricity Has Had a Greater Effect Upon Human Life Than Have the Railroads. 4. To Secure Action: Make Our City the Best Equipped City in the State. Other Topics: 1, An Electrically Equipped Home. «> 2. Some New Uses for Electricity, ~~ 3. A Short Story of Edison’s Life. Debate: 1. Large Central Stations Systems Are Pref- erable to Many Smaller Plants. 2. That Thomas A. Edison Is America’s Greatest Inventor. Electrically FOR ADDITIONAL BULLETINS PLEASE ADDRESS Illinois Committee on Public Utility Information, 125 South Clark Street, Chicago, ll. , r— ppg va