[PLUG-TALK] Intertie

Ted Mittelstaedt tedm at portlandia-it.com
Sun Dec 1 05:12:17 UTC 2024


My father used to work for Allis-Chalmers later Siemens-Allis.  They sold
high voltage power switches throughout the country and during the heyday of
his career with them he took me through all of the great old industrial
facilities in the NW.   I toured Trojan Nuclear Plant, the Aluminum potlines
that ran off the "surplus" power from Bonneville Dam,  the Celilo facility
mentioned here, as well as the million volt test line that PGE ran for many
years.  There were many more that I've forgotten, I was too young (but loved
going to them just the same).  Once older I had a number of these facilities
as my customers, West Linn Paper company down in Oregon City, I was in and
out of that place before it was shut down.

So many of these facilities are gone, now.  It's really very sad.  Yes, they
were old, yes they polluted.  But, our society to this day still consumes
the products these facilities output.  I really don't see the difference
between a polluting paper mill in China vs one in the United States, and I
find tremendous hypocrisy on the part of consumers today on this issue.  If
you are a "progressive" who really and truly doesn't want to "kill trees"
then god dammit, quit printing every god damn thing out on your printer at
the office.  Quit sucking down soda pop cans like they are going out of
style.  Just because we have "cleaned out" these facilities in the US and
can pat ourselves on the back with how advanced we are with our "clean
industries" well those don't matter a squirt of piss if we are still
consuming products from the "dirty industries" like there's no tomorrow -
and we absolutely are.

I submit that one of the big reasons that The Devil got hisself elected as
President in the last election is that a LOT of people out there see the
same sort of hypocrisy that I do from the ultra-libs and are sick of it.
I'm liberal and I'll never vote conservative but I will be the first to say
every once in a while the ultra-left needs their face slammed in the dirt of
reality.

I think the country and the government could be a LOT friendlier to heavy
industry than it is.  Looking at the taxpayer money shoved into the Intel
fiasco and the results should teach people that the "new, green" industries
are no panacea.  Meanwhile we have crumbling rail freight infrastructure all
over the country.

Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: PLUG-talk <plug-talk-bounces at lists.pdxlinux.org> On Behalf Of Aaron
Burt
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2024 9:57 AM
To: plug-talk at lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: Re: [PLUG-TALK] Intertie

On Sat, Nov 30, 2024, at 4:22 AM, Russell Senior wrote:
> A Bonneville Power Administration film about the West Coast Intertie, 
> constructed in the 1960s, including an HVDC line from The Dalles to 
> Sylmar, California.
>
>   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BLOqX0Itrk

Thank you for this!  I was lucky enough to tour the Celilo facility and the
Bonneville Dam around 2006.  They'd replaced the mercury-arc rectifier
valves with light-fired SCRs by then, but had a few on display.  There were
still some nifty exhibits left over after they closed to the public after
9/11.

Sometimes they use the Earth as a conductor on the Intertie, Sylmar has a
giant underwater ground field if I remember correctly.
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