Power at Niagara Falls

Little Likelihood that Current Be Utilized at a Distance.

FAST GROWING DEMAND AT HOME

But Little Chance for New Enterprises — Old Plants Are Still Far from Their Full Capacity.

Special to The New York Times.

NIAGARA FALLS, Feb. 10. — All depends on the point of view in considering the application of the electrical energy generated by the water power here. Practice has shown that it can be profitably employed at or near the generating point only, and there is no commercial effort to extend operations beyond territory already in hand. This territory consumes all the power now generated, and it promises to use the full supply that can be furnished for at least a generation to come. The present output is about 65,000 horse power. It will be doubled by plant extensions now in progress.

Those who count on running boats on the Erie Canal with Niagara power may as well reckon without the present companies. These companies are in the business of selling, but when they sell now up to their capacity and are assured of orders for any possible increase the chances of distant transmission would seem remote. Nothing has been heard here for some time of the Erie Canal traction project which Commodore P. Vedder, Charlton T. Lewis, and their associates had in hand. It is believed that if they still cherish the project they will look elsewhere for power.

THE COST OF POWER.

The companies can offer power here at very attractive prices. When transmission is involved prices must advance because of waste, which amounts to 20 per cent. between this point and Buffalo. The charge here is $20 per horse power. At Buffalo it is $25 If the proportion of waste were continued to Rochester, seventy-five miles away, it would be 60 per cent., and the price at Rochester would be nearly $35 per horse power. That price might not be unattractive except as compared with $20, but manifestly, consumers at much greater distances would be repelled. They could get power at home as cheaply as from here, and perhaps more satisfactorily.

Authorities most frequently quoted in connection with Niagara possibilities are Tesla and Edison. Tesla says that Niagara will some day supply New York City, giving it all the electric power it can consume without the use of wires. Edison says that Niagara itself, within a few years, will furnish a market for everything the existing companies may have to sell.

Signs favor the Edison rather than the Tesla view, for manufacturing interests here are rapidly growing. They have been attracted by the power. Actual plant investment, exclusive of the power companies, has grown from $500,000 to $1,500,000 in the three years that electrical power has been sold. The outlook is for continuing growth at a rate no less rapid, for some of the most important plant additions have been made in the last year, and plans for extensions, improvements and fresh investment are freely discussed.

Advantages of cheap power and its relative value in manufacturing receive frequent illustration here. One company built a plant in Virginia because of proximity there to an important ingredient in its product. The experiment cost the company a loss of $50,000, due mainly to the expense of power. It came here and made a profit of $50,000 last year, although it had to send a long distance for its valued ingredient. Plants have been built here for the manufacture of goods that heretofore could be had only by importation. Every one of them has prospered. The population reaches more than 22,000 now, an increase of 4,000 in three years, due largely to the improved labor market. There were eleven new factories last year, which added nearly 2,000 to the labor population. Some experts and enthusiasts in progression have figured out that at the recent rate of increase Niagara in a few years will have a population of 1,000,000 and will build to the Buffalo line. There is certainly no doubt that news of manufacturing development is spreading and that inquiries for factory sites and prospects were never so numerous as now.

LITTLE CHANCE FOR NEW PLANTS.

The trouble with big calculations is to be found in the capacity and limitations of the present power companies and in the obstacles in the way of new ones. Charter provisions and physical equipment restrict the companies to 300,000 horse power on the American shore, with nothing in sight to show that they will have more than half that quantity to offer. These companies own or control the choice water front. Tunnel construction and other engineering work is tremendously expensive. It would cost new companies much more than the present ones because of the greater tunnel distance to be traversed. New projects occasionally come to the front, but so far they have not passed the stage of promotion. The Niagara Falls Power Company, capitalized at $3,000,000, with authority to raise $10,000,000 in bonds, having New York City capital and resources behind it, has spent $7,500,000 in developing 50,000 horse power. It will add nearly $1,000,000 to that outlay in doubling the capacity, with no fresh tunnel to build. It has a Canadian concession, for the possible development of 250,000 horse power, which is capitalized at $500,000, with authority to issue $3,000,000 in bonds. This amount will all be expended, and probably more, in building on the other side of the boundary line a plant with a capacity of 125,000 horse power.

There is no market for any such power in Canada, the present plant carrying all the power across the river that can be sold. The Canada plant is intended merely as a reserve, to be drawn upon only in case of mishap to the American plant, or any portion of it. Since the company is engaged to light Buffalo and to propel the surface cars there, it cannot afford to let the lights go out or the cars to stop. The Canadian plant will minimize that chance. With the additional 50,000 power about to be installed at the American plant, new custom, already in sight or in prospect, is to be supplied. A company under promotion can materialize only if prepared to spend much more money than the Niagara Falls Power Company has spent, even if it may overcome the State or Dominion objection to any enterprise that may tend to disfigure the Falls. There may be 7,000,000 horse power in the Falls, but only a fraction of that power can be used without disfigurement, and it is a question whether the limit of use is not already closely approached by the existing companies, counting their undeveloped privileges. The Canadian company, which has got into print as a possible new rival, is wholly on paper. It proposes to use the Welland River as a discharging point. No one doubts the feasibility of the plan nor has any one been able to estimate its cost. It proposes to develop 200,000 horse power.

THE PRESENT POWER COMPANIES.

The two power companies in operation, the Niagara Falls Power Company and the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company, have developed along different lines. The latter company was first in the field, having begun as a hydraulic company in 1838, when a canal that had been five years in construction was opened from the river above the falls, through the town, a distance of 4,400 feet, to the river bank below the falls. The company had cliff, but not slope privileges, except the right to excavate down the face of the bank for 100 feet. That was thought to be sufficient then, because it was not supposed that wheels could be built to stand a pressure at a higher head. Mills in those days did not attempt to use more than fifty to sixty feet head. The enterprise had slow growth for about twenty years, when it was taken in hand by the present company, which straightway obtained privileges to the river's edge and proceeded to sell power to factories. Power connection was furnished the factories by means of shafts sunk in the rock some distance back from the edge of the bank. Wheels were placed in the shaft, and canal water was admitted to turn them. It most cases a tunnel had to be driven from the bottom of the shaft to the face of the bank for the discharge of the water after passing the wheels; in other cases wheels were lodged in notches in the face of the cliff. In 1881 the company installed a power plant from which to deliver power to customers at their mills. A shaft 20 feet by 40 feet was sunk in the rock 80 feet deep about 200 feet back from the river bank. From the bottom of the shaft a tunnel was driven to the face of the bank for a tail race. Power developed from the wheels in use in this plan was transmitted by shaft, belting, or rope to customers within 300 feet of the wheelpit. Demands upon the company for additional power, the organization of a new company; with rivalry in prospect and the possibilities that had developed commercially for electrical power, next led the company to enlarge its canal from 30 feet wide and 6 feet deep to 100 feet wide and 14 feet deep, and to construct a power house at the foot of the river slope. Canal water is carried to the power house by means of flange steel penstocks. It has a fall of 210 feet to the wheels and is discharged by tail races. There are sixteen wheels of about 2,500 horse power each, but only about 15,000 to 20,000 horse power has yet been developed from them. Electrical installation occurred in 1896, since which time the company's operations have steadily grown. The outlay for this equipment has cost at least $6,000,000.

Coming later into the field, the Niagara Falls Power Company found more work to do than its predecessor had in providing an equipment. It dug a canal 250 feet wide and 12 feet deep from the river about one and a half miles above the Falls and extended it inward 1,700 feet to the power house. At this site a wheel pit 158 feet deep and 400 feet long was dug in solid rock. Water reaches the pit by means of steel penstocks 7½ feet in diameter, and it whirls the turbines placed there 250 revolutions per minute. The turbines are connected by shaft with the ten 5,000 horse power dynamos at the surface. To provide a tail race for the water it was necessary to build a tunnel 7,000 feet long under the town to the river. The tunnel is large enough to carry water from twenty turbines, but no more. When the new wheel pit shall be completed there will be twenty turbines in use, operating dynamos of 100,000 horse power. The additional 100,000 which the State charter permits the company to generate cannot be furnished except by building a new tunnel, as well as new wheel pits.

THE CANADIAN PROJECT.

This summary of operations, indicating generally the physical and financial magnitude of an electric power undertaking here, may fairly put the burden of proof on the managers of new enterprises of the kind before reports about them are given credence. The reason the present Canadian project receives attention is because the interest of Gen. George F. Field of Buffalo has apparently been enlisted in it. His Union Bridge Company connections justify the opinion that he would not knowingly lend himself to a mere scheme. The incorporation known originally as the English Exploration Company, now the Ontario Power Company, is three years old, and its plans, so far as announced, contemplate engineering and financial undertakings that neither of the present companies would care to engage in. The Canadian Company is supposed to have been responsible for the proposition to tax current transmitted across the boundary line. Ottawa and Washington authorities concluded, on reflection, however, to impose no duty on this product. At present the only transmission is for a surface-car line along the Canadian bank and for a few factories and buildings in Niagara Falls, Ontario. It is carried across the river in cables.