The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 11, 1926, Page 12

er-pnormous abundance—water and air. Power and Superpower Article |. ; QyVHIS period, we are told, is the “Machine Age” } Some machines are driven by hand, but when wé peak of the “Machine Age” with capital letters we link of huge organisms of steel with parts forced back and forth by the irresistible expansion of Bteam, or held in endless gyration by the force of Bn electric current, Power of on@ kind or another is what keeps our machines moving. Hand power, horse- power, wind power, steam power, oil power, water power, elec tricity—where do they come from? What can we use them for? How do we use them? Will they Qast forever? Are they being wasted? What is *superpower”’? Hand power or “muscle power” is used instine- Rively. The food we eat is fuel for our body; it is “burned up” inside just as coal is burned under a Boiler. As long as we last—and get food—our Miscle power lasts. It may seriously decrease in guantity as we get worn out. The earliest factories ft the dawn of the Industrial Revolution operated @ntirely on hand power. if we feed a horse and hitch him to a wagon we ®@re using the horse’s muscle power, or “horse pow- er”. For centuries this was the last word in trans- poration. The only improvement wpon a horse was two horses, and the only improvement upon two forses was four horses. With the use of steam power, the Machine Age be in. But. steam is made by boiling water, and to oi the water you. must heat it with something. {Again we'see that the energy, the power, must come from a fuel. What can we use as a fuel? What can we heat the water with? Anything—anything that » ‘will burn and produce heat. Wood, peat, soft coal, hard coal, brown coal, powdered coal, coke, natural ®as, manufactured gas, fuel oil. Hundreds of miles @f Russian railways are traversed by wood-burning focomotives. Several Russian steam-electric stations @re run on peat. Brown coal is widely used in Ger- many. The use of powdered coal and of gas un- @er boilers is becoming common in America. The pil burning steamships and locomotives burn oil ®nder boilers in order to generate steam. Any and @very fuel may be used to produce steam, but steam Itself is not a primary source ‘of power. Its energy $s derived from the fuel. The use of gasoline in automobile, airplane and motorboat, or of a heavier ofl in the Diesel (inter- fal combustion) engine (motorship"and submarine) re cases where the energy of the fuel is transmit- ted directly to the engine without the use of an ex- fernal intermediary such as steam, “Gasoline power” @r “oil power” must be classed with steam power as @erived from=fuel. 3 How long will our steam power and oil power Yast? As long as our fuel lasts.._In America, the end of off and natural gas is probably a matter of @ecades. Coal is good for a few centuries yet, but f{s extraction from the mines will become increas- gly difficult. Already fuel conservation is becom- a vital problem. Now for sources of power other than fuel—ready- Made power. Two fluids exist upon the earth in These fluids ®re in constant motion and this motion means pow- gr—in unlimited quantities. The motion of the air fwe know as “wind,” that of the water as “tides” and *currents”. Windmills have been used since ancient times, and for centuries wind power was relied upon exclusively for the whole world’s marine commerce; ft is barely a half a century since the steamship be- gan to encroach seriously upon the realm of the Sailing vessel. But wind power altho it is practical- ly something for nothing is uncertain and uncon- frollable. A ship stays idle for days in a calm and then gets wrecked in a terrific blow. The Miami hurricane represented millions of horsepower turn- ed loose in one terrific outburst, destroying every- thing in its path, and then dissipating itself useless- iy. The Rotor Ship of Anton Flettner will probably fncrease in value as a well-devised use of wind as en auxiliary power, but until a method is discov- The ‘State of Emergency’ in Italy (Continued from page 4) Me was merely a result of its political invigoration. The #nfluence of the party thruout the working class and glso among the broad strata of the urban and coun- try petty bourgeoisie, who are deeply disappointed 4n fascism and embittered by their penury, has made euch progress within the last year that it definitely eurpasses the influence of all the other “opposition” audi “antifascist” parties whose treacherous “half- heartedness was the best of support to fascism, This development will make further important progress during the future stages of the “fascist revolution.” The unlimited suppression and oppres gion of the workers and the peasants, on the one hand, the “boldest” robbery “known to international finance” of all classes of the Italian nation for the denefit of the big bourgeoisie, on the other hand, which robbery will also inevitably have its effect upon the opposition petty-bourgeois wing of fasciem, create im Italy a revolutionary situation which, um der the leadership of the Communist Party of ftuly must lead to the overthrow of the fascist regime and of the rule of the Italian bourgeoisie! ered for storing wind power, it can hardly regain any importance. No effective means has yet been devised of utiliz ing the power of tides or ocean currents. But when it comes to river currents, the sftuation is very dif- ferent. A lumber raft drifting down stream is be- ing driven by the power of the river current. Since centuries mills have been operated by waterwheels driven by river currents, And the old wooden wheel, turning lazily as the stream filled up its successive buckets is the prototype of the mammoth turbine wheels of our modern hydro-electric stations, driv- en around at an incredible speed by the hundreds of tons of water dashing against their blades. Rivers, then, are what we méan when we talk of “water power”. Water power is available in im mense quantities; it lasts forever, as the water it- self is not consumed, as ig fuel; and it does not increase in difficulty of exploitation as do coal and oil, the extraction of which becomes increasingly difficult as the mines and weils approach exhaustion, We have spoken of hand power, steam power, wind power and water power. . Where does elec- tricity come in? Electricity must be classed with steam and hand power in the respect that it is not a primary source of power. The only industrially important means of generating electricity is the “dynamo” or “generator”. A large number of cop per wires are wound tightly ovér a cylinder. When this unit (the familiar “armature” or “rotor”’) is ro- tated between magnets, a current of electricity is generated in it. Where does this electricity—this electrical power—come from? From the power that turned the armature. If the generator is small, it ean be turned by hand; in this case hand power is ~being transformed into electrical power. If the generator is larger the rotor may be turned by a steam engine; here steam power is being convert- ed into electrical power. Any kind of power—steam power, wind power, water power—that can turn the rotor of a generator, can by this means be converted into electrical power. The most common generat- ing unit is the “turbogenerator”’. A turbine wheel and the rotor of a generator are mounted on the same shaft. When the turbine is rotated by steam or water power, the rotor also turns and generates current. A single unit as large as 225,000 kilowatts (300,000 hersepower) has recently been built. By far the greater part of the electricity used in the United States is generated in steam-electric sta- tions, i. e., stations where the generators are driv- en by steam engines or steam turbines. Why is not steam power sufficient in itself? What advantages has electricity that warrant the construction of tre- By N. Sparks mendous stations and generators, merely in order to transform one kind of power into another? In the ¢irst place: light, The heating effect of electricity can be applied in such a way as to make & metallic filament glow white hot. And this ig exactly what we do every time we “switch on the light”. Electric ght is cheap and efficient. But could not the combustion of the original fuel be used to give light without going thru the double trans formation into steam power and electricity? O8 course it could; but who wants to go back to fire- light, torches, candle light, the kerosene lamp and the gas burner? And so a large percentage of the total electric power generated in the U. S. is used for lighting. : Second: heat. Altho electricity occupies a de cidedly subordinate place in heating operations, there are a large number of industrial processes and operations where electric heating is advantage- ous. ‘Fhe exceedingly high temperatures required in some chemical processes can be obtained only in the electric furnace. " Third: electricity is transmissible. Steam power cannot be transmitted any distance. The steam will condense and we will have at the end of the line instead of a burst of high pressure steam, just a powerless trickle of luke-warm water. Therefore wherever a steam engine is to be used, boiler and fires must be provided right on the spot, and not only that, but fuel for the fire and clean feed-water for the boiler too. Electricity, however, can be transmitted hundreds of miles with comparatively smal loss. No matter how remote from the power station, wherever two wires can be carried, elec- tricity can be constantly on tap. Add to this the fact that in general convenience, general applicability and economy, steam cannot compare with electricity, and we will be able to un- derstand why millions of horsepower of steam are generated for the sole purpose of being immediate- ly converted into electricity. : Now that we see what a tremendously advantage ous form of power electricity is, we can appreciate the significance of the fact that water power—this inexhaustible source of energy—can be transform- ed directly into electricity. : : An electric station that is operated by water pow- er ts called a hydro-electric station. Why some rivere are available for hydro-electric development while others are not, why some developments _re- quire the construction of expensive dams, and why hydro-electric projects often involve the. flooding of large areas of land, we shall see in the next ar ticle. In the Wake of the News (Continued from Page 1.) lined up with the capitalist class, and the capitalists have so much to gain by keeping them in power that _ it ds highly doubtful if they have any intention of * yielding to the majority opinion of their member- ship even when it is overwhelming. “Vote as you damn glease, I'll be elected anyhow,” was Frank Farrington’s defy to the membership. s s s s ype Hearst pregs hag again performed one of those many public services for which it is noted. It discovered the habitat of the wandering radio operator, Kenneth G. Ormiston, whose tracks were so faint that he defied detection by the bloodhounds of the law. But he could not get away with it on Hearst. The Hearst press has a nice collection of underwear, said to be the property of Aimee Mc- Pherson, whose affairs need not be recalled to your attention. Whenever opportunity arises the Hearst editors hang out the flimsies on their pages, Cir- culation goes up and so do advertising rates. Hearst gives another contribution to a church and is prais- ed by the preachers while Ormiston will be held up as a horrible example to the public by mentally bankrupt clergymen who pray fervently that they may néver get caught. HINA quit the league of nations and a represent- ‘ tative of the Kuomintang is given a sumptuous room to do his observing from, by the league sec- retariat. “The league power, most affected by any thing China may do, is England. And England is wor- tying over China, It was Chao Hsin-Chu, representa- tive of the non-existent Peking government that of- ficially announced his intention not to take any part in the activities of the league, but he was speaking the words of Shia Ting, the representative of the Cantonese, Indeed a reasonable suspicion might be entertained that Chao Hsin-Chu is not as unwilling to do what he is told as people thot. Not so long ago, he read an antiBritish leaflet distributed by Kuomintang students, before the league assembly to the consternation of the august delegates who could not understand wh plain language. . * @ league of nations now looks more of a mock- ery than ever. Organized by England as a weap- on in her imperialist schemes, but ostensibly to pre- serve peace it is now clear, to even those gullible - poople that expect imperialist powers to follow a policy of peace for the sake of peace that the league is an instrument to be used principally for the sub- jection of the so-called backward peoples. The big robbers desire to maintain peace with each other as long as possible but recently league members have been making treaties with.other powers with- out consulting the league. War scares are flying these days in greater numbers than before the last holocaust. It would be a brave statesman who would ask for cannon fodder for the next war on the ground that it is a war to end war. — deep hatred that the British ruling classes en- tertain for A. J. Cook, fighting secretary of the British miners, was demonstrated in the house of commons last Wednesday when Stanley Baldwin, premier, and the picture man of the cabinet, the . man who is represented as mild and fair, indulged in a bitter personal attack on Cook. He chargéd Cook with having let down the miners, the trade unions and the labor party after having raised “hell” for months. Nobody knows better than Bald- win that this is a damnable lie, * 2 ¢ @ ALDWIN hates Cook because the latter openly declared from the start that Baldwin was a tool of the coal owners, and pointed out that Baldwin himself was a millionaire steel and coal magnate: The owners, very cleverly put up Baldwin as a de coy duck to induce the miners to listen to reason. Only the Communist Party, thru its organs, the Weekly Worker and the Communist Review and the ‘ Left Wing paper, The Sunday Worker, together with the left ‘Wing leaders of miners’ union, headed by A. J. Cook, tagged Baldwin as a faker and fraud, who was placing the armed forces of the gov- ernment at the disposal of the workers while he was indulging in tommyrot about the neutrality of the government. prime minister rightly charged the Labor Party leaders with lack of courage during the strike, but his conception of a display of courage would be for them to come out openly against the miners instead of sabotaging it secretly. Indeed it is generally believed among the left wing of the British working class that Messrs, Thémas and Be-_ vin as well as other right wing leaders were under ~the instructions of Scotland Yard during the general strike. However, this cannot be proved until the British working class publish the secret files of that institution. As for the minerg being let down by Cook. They were let down by the general coun- cil of the Trade Union Congress that called off the strike when victory was in sight. And afterwards when the miners decided to fight the battle alone they were let down by the whole trade union lead- ership of England and the rest of the world, out- side of the Soviet Union, at