Keep America Great Already

Passing through Eastern Washington one of our posse Elliot Mainzer who runs the Bonneville Power Administration, arranged for an in-depth tour of the The Grand Coulee Dam which is the beating hydro heart that feeds power into over 15,000 miles of the Bonneville power grid across the West.

The Grand Coulee was built as a New Deal project from 1933 to 1942 to create employment and to deliver power and irrigation to the Northwest. There were originally two power houses with 18 turbines producing 125 Megawatts each in addition to a series of pumps which are used to deliver water to irrigate a million acres of the Columbia Valley. The dam is operated by the Bureau of Reclamation that got its name from its mission to “reclaim” land by irrigation. Without the water from here, Eastern Washington is certainly unfarmable and essentially uninhabitable. Without the power from here, many of the most important employers and businesses in this region would not have got started; think aluminum for Boeing or data centers for Amazon.

In 1974, after an agreement on water management with Canada, a third power house was added with six more turbines; three of which deliver 690 MegaWatts each and three that deliver 805 MegaWatts each. Any one of these can deliver most of the power needs for Seattle. Taken together, this is the largest power plant in the US.

The Grand Coulee is also critical to the working of wind and solar power that is connected to the BPA grid. When the wind power varies, it is possible to increase or decrease power from the dam within seconds to allow the overall supply to remain constant. Without this buffer, wind power would be a lot harder to implement and a lot less reliable.

Standing above one of the larger turbines in motion is an inspiring experience; the silent power that surges around you to spin this 2000 ton blad is majestic, the numbers are staggering, and the human ingenuity to harness these forces is impressive. The project to demolish part of the dam to add the third power house is a modern engineering marvel.

But this project must have been built by a different America to the one we have now. An earlier civilization that believed in science, trusted government, and was willing to make the collective financial commitment to a massive infrastructure project that would benefit companies, families, farms, and millions of homes.

The current administration tells us that they want to Make America Great Again at the same time as they vandalise the institutions and denigrate the beliefs that have already made the country great in ways that are clearly on display at Grand Coulee. 

Photos:

– Elliot and Scott at the Visitor Center getting the big picture – Coleman Smith with the control panel for one of the smaller turbines running 125 MWatts – The elevator calibrated in feet above sea level with the top floor accessing the top of the dam about 20 feet above the lake and the bottom floor under the turbines almost 400 feet lower – The turbine hall in one of the small power houses – The world’s largest indoor crane needed to remove the large turbines – One of the larger turbines dialed back to 750 MWatts – The stator of one large turbine under repair – Water exists to be put to work by man on a mural in the small turbine hall – The shaft of one of the large turbines and all its water control valves turning at 120 rpm with zero vibration.