In order to compete for this treasure land, the United States declared war on Canada in June 18 12, and the United States did not take advantage in the two-year war. 18 14 On February 24th, the United States and Canada signed the treaty of ghent, which ended the war, brought the relations between the two countries back to the pre-war state, and stipulated that niagara river should be owned by both countries. After that, the two countries jointly developed and utilized it.
Farewell to Niagara Falls, the car drove about 8 kilometers downstream of the falls, and the enthusiastic female driver temporarily stopped to add a scenic spot to it.
We can see the hydroelectric dam in America at a glance, as opposed to the hydroelectric dam in Canada. Niagara river flows slowly between them, and the high-voltage lines across the two banks tell people that the two banks of the river belong to the same power grid, which is a great spectacle of human peace and friendship and a great crystallization of human wisdom.
1. 1845, the United States took the lead in using Niagara Falls.
According to 1940, the book Man and Volt-A History of General Electric (GE) published in new york, USA, "As early as 1845, the waterway and manufacturing company first installed a water turbine in the Great Falls. Power many flour mills here with 5000 to 10000 horsepower. ..... Many people use various methods to calculate the power of the Great Waterfall, and finally think it is 9 million kilowatts. "
2. 188 1 year, the United States built the Serkop hydropower station on the Niagara River, which is the first hydropower station in the world and the first private hydropower station.
As early as 186 1 year, the Great Falls in the United States had a passage with a width of 1 1 meter and a depth of 2.5 meters. About 1866, Waterfall Water Mill Company developed the first flour mill with a head of 7.6 meters and a hydraulic turbine output of 150 horsepower.
1877 May 1 A man named Friedrich? Jacob. The Germans in Schelkopf bought the license of the Great Falls to develop water, land and hydropower for 765,438+000 dollars.
In his early years, he came to Buffalo, new york with $800, and started a tanning business. He owns several tanneries and flour mills in Niagara Falls, Milwaukee and Chicago.
After purchasing the license, he bought a hydraulic turbine, built a factory building and set up a channel company. He dug a diversion canal from the upper reaches of niagara river to the lower reaches of the river bank. Using the drop of tens of meters between the downstream of the Great Waterfall and the water surface, the water in the diversion canal flows into the river from the ditch under the impetus of the current. Belt and transmission shaft output power grinding surface for hydraulic turbine.
188 1 year, Charles, Ohio? Prush arrived at the Great Falls with 16 arc lamp and generator, so Schelkopf used his water turbine as the driving force for Charles? Prush's generator supplies power for its own 16 arc lamp.
188 1 year, Serkop owned this small hydropower station, which is the first hydropower station in the world, powered (indirectly) by a turbine in Niagara Falls. It provides electricity for machines in local factories and lighting for streets in the town.
1893, Canada diverted river water to generate electricity for the first time at Niagara Falls, and a small power plant generated 2200 kilowatts. It can be seen that the United States used the Great Falls to generate electricity 10 years earlier than Canada.
After 1882, Serkop Fu founded "Serkop Fu Hydropower Company" and built several independent hydropower stations at different sites near the Great Waterfall, and named them "Serkop Fu Hydropower Station" 1 No.2, No.3a and No.3b.
19 18, "Shelkov hydropower company" and Edward? Adams' Niagara Falls Power Company was merged and called Adams Hydropower Station.
1895, Niagara Falls Power Company built the world's first large-scale hydropower station.
1886, new York state engineer Thomas? Evershed has put forward a plan to make full use of the whole of niagara river, and plans to develop 200,000 horsepower in the waterfall. It plans to build a series of channels above the waterfall to provide power for hundreds of factories, and dig huge tunnels to lead all the water to the downstream rivers.
However, at that time, the maximum power turbine that the United States could manufacture was only 100 horsepower, and the widely used DC transmission distance was only 3.2 kilometers, which was far from enough to send it to Buffalo, New York, 40 kilometers away from Great Falls. In addition, investment is also difficult to raise. Therefore, many world-renowned experts believe that the goal of developing the hydraulic resources of the Great Falls is still very far away.
This plan is more ambitious for the Bischel Kopf hydropower station. But it costs a lot of money. Engineers found Rankin, a lawyer from New York State. Rankin, who has a wide range of social contacts, quickly went to a financier and finally personally met Morgan, who is very popular on Wall Street. After being worn out, he persuaded Morgan to invest in the plan, and then recommended Edward? Dean. Adams, as the executor of the plan.
Morgan knows about ADAMS. Adams is a low-key financial investor. What he is best at is to revive the weak railway enterprises with blood and once saved the cotton trust. For this reason, he got a pure gold vase as a gift. Adams has been a shareholder of Edison since 1884. As an insider, he is very optimistic about the Niagara Power Station project. So the first thing he did after taking office was to visit Cyrus, the best mechanical engineer in America, and join the team.
Cyrus visited Niagara Falls, told Adams in new york, and persuaded a consortium of 65,438+003 financial tycoons to invest $2.63 million to build Niagara Power Station. Adams is the president of Niagara Falls Power Company, and Cyrus is the chief engineer.
Adams thought that the existing technical level at that time could not solve the hydropower development and long-distance transmission problems of the Great Falls. Therefore, Niagara Falls Electric Power Company offered 654.38+million dollars to the inventor who could solve the problem of long-distance transmission, but no one responded.
1890, Adams and Cyrus visited various hydropower stations in Europe, asked European veterans about various technical and planning issues, and invited scientists and engineers from all over the world to make suggestions for Niagara Power Station.
Photo: Left 1: Professor of French E. Mascart College, Left 2: Professor of Academia Sinica in London, Middle: Sir William Thomson, Sir Kelvin of Glasgow University, 4th: Professor of Dr. Coleman Cyrus Franklin College, 5th: Theodore Trotini, a hydraulic engineer in Geneva, Switzerland.
1890 In July, the International Niagara Committee was established. The Committee inspected the transmission projects in North America and Europe at that time, and collected the construction plans of European and American countries with prizes. A * * * received 13 schemes from six countries. There are 8 projects involving power transmission, of which 4 projects are realized by power transmission, 2 projects are DC, 1 project is single-phase communication, and 1 project is multi-phase communication.
After Edison invented direct current, high-cost direct current was used in industry and commerce, public facilities and household appliances. Because of the loss in the circuit, a generator set must be built every kilometer when using direct current. After the completion of Niagara Hydropower Station, it is impossible to transmit electricity to Buffalo, new york, 35km away by direct current.
1885, Croatian Nikolai? Tesla left Edison and met George Westinghouse, the boss of Westinghouse. With his support, he officially introduced alternating current to the society on 1888. 1At the Columbia Expo in May, 893, Tesla demonstrated AC lighting and became the winner of the "current war".
Photo: 1895 Niagara Falls Power Company photographed Adams Power Station, the world's first large-scale hydropower station 1, No.2 plant and power distribution room. The image comes from the website of Tesla Social Museum in new york, USA.
1On May 6th, 893, Niagara Falls Power Company finally decided to adopt the alternating current invented by Tesla in power generation technology and transmission technology, and realize long-distance power supply with high-voltage electricity. This epoch-making invention not only solved the problem of long-distance power supply of Niagara Hydropower Station, but also brought people a convenient and cheap electricity environment.
Photo: Generator set equipment in Adams Power Station 1, the world's first large-scale hydropower station.
During the three years from 1892 to 1894, Niagara Falls Power Company built a horseshoe tunnel with a length of 2,042 meters, a height of 6 meters and a width of 5 meters, which led the niagara river River to the power plant of Niagara Falls Power Company.
10 in 1995, the United States built and installed the10 generator set with the highest rated power at that time (3,700 kilowatts means the rated power is 5,000 horsepower). On August 25th, the power station 1 started to generate electricity, and the high-voltage alternator was used for the first time. 1896165438+1October 15, which is the first time to transmit the maximum power load to 40 kilometers away by AC high-voltage transmission, and is connected with Buffalo, a large industrial city with 25,000 people. Buffalo became the first large-scale power supply city in North America, so it was nicknamed "City of Light". With the success of this large-scale power generation and transmission project, many enterprises have moved to Buffalo for development, and Buffalo has developed rapidly.
Network picture: 5000 horsepower generator designed by Forbes.
All these made Adams Hydropower Station the undisputed largest hydropower station in the United States and even the world at that time, and it was still in operation in 124 years, which became a miracle in the history of science and technology for a hundred years.
Since then, more than a dozen hydropower stations, large and small, have been built on both sides of niagara river, generating enough power to meet the total demand of New York and Ontario.
Photo: Tesla sculpture in Niagara Falls Park, new york. It is said that Yugoslavia (the hometown of Tesla) gave a statue of Tesla to New York State in 1976 in memory of this great inventor and engineer.
Four, in the construction of Niagara hydropower station, always used Nicholas? Tesla's nine patented inventions include the alternator and AC transmission technology invented by Tesla. Since then, alternating current has replaced direct current as the mainstream of power supply.
Later, Tesla decided to give up the patent of alternating current for some reason, provided that the patent of alternating current was permanently made public and given to human beings free of charge. This helped his lifelong dream: I hope that mankind can get inexhaustible energy.
Otherwise, alternating current will bring him a "patent fee" of $2.5 per horsepower, and Tesla will be the richest man in the world.
Pay tribute to this peerless genius who won nearly a thousand invention patents in his life, was poor and forgotten in his later years, but still worked hard to research and invent for the happiness of mankind!
Without him, the history of the world's first hydropower station will be rewritten!
20 19. 12.4 ends