To the seasons of life
Enhancing the image of the city
photo KDG
Taylor, Jordan and Brett are installing graphic sheets to nine hydro/ utility/ transforming boxes to make the city more appealing. A city works foreman said that the cost wasn’t that much and they are resistant to vandal writing or tagging…
The men are from Premier Graphics of Richmond.
On this day: October 5th 1665
The University of Kiel is established.
Utilities box with new graphics
Photo KDG
Pole installation and work on Voght street Merritt
Photo KDG
The work continues for the Merritt Green energy and new substation power project. Poles on Voght to transmit power from the substation and generator.
A worker on site says that they are putting pipes in the road to bring three phase power to some business’s for after they move the poles to the other side of the road.
On this day: September 30th 1955
Popular entertainer James Dean dies at 24 in a car crash.
This hawk seems relaxed around electrical fixtures.
Photo KDG
Birds are relatively safe on poles as they do not ground the power however they can sometimes make contact between transformers and lines making a circuit. This could cause an explosion and perhaps kill the bird.
On this Day:July 16 July 16th 1935
The World’s first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma.
New Tesla S
Photo KDG
Another new Tesla S owner charges his car in Merritt. The Kamloops BC resident that just bought this new EV says charging here works for him as he loops through Kelowna and back home. The model also sports a D Designation meaning 2 axles under power or (four wheel drive ). There is also to seats with belts to secure two “Grand Kids” facing backward behind the rear seats. Suitable for kids nearing 4 feet in height it looks like loading a raised trunk a with children with a view of the road behind.
The car was purchased for about 130 thousand dollars and reflected a discount in the Canadian dollar.
The Tesla Corporation had a half billion dollar cash infusion from the US Government, the owner also recovered a 5 thousand dollar incentive from BC hydro, he charged his car with out cost at the 500 amp charger at Voght and Merritt Ave, here.
On this Day: May 21 1937
The Soviet Station North Pole 1 becomes the first research station on polar drift ice.
Poles in place for the 130 KV line from the Merritt Substation to the Highland Valley
Photo KDG
1917 diploma from NVGH , Nurse training
Photo KDG
The calendar has brought to light a number of items from history in the Nicola Valley, 100 year anniversaries of the drill hall, and the center piece of the the town ” the Coldwater Hotel” indicate a great effort by a small population. The approximate 700 people of Merritt at the twentieth century produced a lot of “golden age ” construction on the coin of three coal mines but may have often suffered from a sense of abandonment from time to time with the draw of events like World War 1 .
An accounting of 2000 men working on the Kettle Valley Rail Way, resulting after construction in a local Doctor becoming an engineer,brakeman and passenger may be a personality quirk of those that wanted a future here or real abandonment. One of the signatures of the local doctors on the nurses qualification went on to be the local MLA after antics like ” riding a boxcar” down from the Kettle Valley as a mode of transportation.
At this writing a electric co gen plant is under construction on in the area of the ruins of ” Merritt Light and Power” a progressive project of the people of the era at the turn of the twentieth century as well. That activity certainly suffered from abandonment more then once in its completion. According to John Chase, a local official the present plant is a huge partnership with two other similar projects in BC, (one at Fort Saint John). They are too big to suffer abandonment.
Editors Note: The recent 500 KV lower mainland transmission project and its completion as well as Teck corporations mine expansion projects in the billions give a sense of security . However kudos to those who have found the joy of risk in a reasonable way that have resulted in expression and spiritual joy. For those that found themselves in frontier with or without abandonment or even risked modern travel or invention, the trying of something new, good on you and we hope some of it spills over on us.
On this Day: April 7th 1890
The completion of the Lake Biwa Canal:
hose
A pole waits to be installed at the edge of the Extra foods parking lot,Merritt BC to bring co-gen power to the Highland valley.
Photo KDG
On this day: February 4rth 2004
The social media site Facebook is created.
Helicopters doing work can be an overhead hazard
File photo KDG
The 130 KV transmission line from Merritt to the Highland Valley is under way. A legal notice from BC Hydro put in the local paper says that helicopters will be stringing rope lines for the line for less then a week and be finished by mid December. Sources say that the line is a two wooded pole “H style” construction.
The project is slated to finish in 2015.
Today in History: December 2nd 1970, December 3rd 1997
Helicopters doing work can be an overhead hazard
File photo KDG
The 130 KV transmission line from Merritt to the Highland Valley is under way. A legal notice from BC Hydro put in the local paper says that helicopters will be stringing rope lines for the line for less then a week and be finished by mid December. Sources say that the line is a two wooded pole “H style” construction.
The project is slated to finish in 2015.
Today in History: December 2nd 1970, December 3rd 1997
A crane drives piles at the 200 million dollar cogen facility in Merritt BC
Photo KDG
Today the hydro news letter is saying another increase in generating ability is being done on the 40 year old WAC Bennett dam on the Peace river in north eastern BC. The Gordon M. Shrum Generating Station is getting attention :
“There’s nothing else like it,” says Gammer. “There are lots of other dams and generating stations in the province, of course, but this is the biggest one we have.” Keeping GMS operational at all times is critical to maintaining provincial power reliability. That’s the thinking behind continual maintenance programs that aim to keep dam and generating station equipment in good working order. Staff work year-round to maintain the day-to-day reliability, but as with all facilities, the time comes when regular maintenance just isn’t enough. “GMS is more than 40 years old and large parts are starting to wear out and need replacement,” says Gammer. One way to think of it, he says, is to think of maintenance on your home. Good maintenance like repairing cracks, cleaning gutters and updating appliances is necessary all the time, but eventually, he says, you’re going to need to do major repairs, such as replacing your roof. “And we did that very thing at Peace Canyon.” There’s a lengthy and complex capital program underway at GMS and W.A.C. Bennett to complete these major repairs. Along with maintaining the critical reliability, these heritage facilities are benefiting from the improved technology and equipment available today. Just like you’ll get more out of a laptop manufactured today compared to a computer manufactured in the 1980’s, new equipment such as transformers and turbines perform more efficiently today compared to those installed when GMS first went into service.
Replacing transformers at GMS. Transformers increase the voltage at the station to 500,000 volts to efficiently carry electricity over long distances, and 12 of the 30 transformers at GMS have been replaced over the last five years.
Replacing five turbine runners at GMS. Through the power of falling water, the turbines rotate at 150 rpm, spinning the connected equipment in the generator to produce electricity. This multi-year project will wrap up in 2017.
Upgrading the control system for the generating station. The unit controls on all 10 generating units needs to be replaced. Work is already underway on the second unit in this multi-year project.
Rip-rap upgrade on the outside of the dam face. Large rock (rip-rap) protects the upstream face of the WAC Bennett Dam from wave erosion. The current plan is to start rip-rap replacement in the summer of 2016, after obtaining all permits and regulatory approvals.
Spillway Chute Upgrade. Upgrades and repairs are required to improve the condition of sections of the spillway, which is 680 metres long and 30 metres wide. source http://www.bchydro.com/news/conservation/2014/gm-shrum-generating-station.html?WT.mc_id=c-14-11_upgrades
Four and a half million people in BC get some power from the station and as a lot of hydro infrastructure, it needs attention, and hydro is going strong on projects about the province. Pick up trucks and crews are out and about all over here and from replacing cedar poles with pine treated poles with arsenic and copper to new 500 KV lines electricity is big stuff here. BC hydro power and authority has a legislated monopoly on every drop of water in the province for power generation and has had difficulty in recent years in licencing out some of that ability ( the run of the rivers sub licencing) and keeping the cost of that cogeneration down. A co generation project here in Merritt will see a green energy project ( burning green wood waste ) use the public electric grid to sent that recapture into the grid. But at what price we wonder. Missing here are wind turbines ( wrong kind of wind, to gusty) and solar energy capture. We are on the EV charging station grid and hope it is more then just public relations. The most successful public relations program Hydro ever had in our view was the `it works like a dam `conservation project and to the prudent it should still be in the mind of all rate payers in the province. The production of hydro power while attractive in its lack of smokestacks does not add to the nitrogen cycle as properly managed petro chemicals do. Fertilizer for crops and stirred up nutrients for food chain are important as well. Toxic substance should be removed and carbon sinks of large crop lands enhanced as well as conservation. Thrift in waste is an economic opportunity as shown in places like California in recent years.
Today in history: November 5th 2003:
Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway pleads guilty to 48 murders.
Nissan Leaf
At 500 volt 120 amp charging station
Photo KDG
The 500 volt 120 amp DC charger is getting use on Voght street, the owner of this car stopped the charge at 86 percent as he said that’s” better for the battery”. He had charged up in Hope about an hour to the west of Merritt. The approximate 1/2 hour charging stop, was on his way to Salmon Arm, ” I also use the 2 hour charger at my home”
One year ago, electric vehicle drivers in British Columbia would have been hard pressed to find a public charging station to top up their battery. Today, they have access to nearly 500 electric vehicle charging stations located throughout the province: source : One year ago, electric vehicle drivers in British Columbia would have been hard pressed to find a public charging station to top up their battery. Today, they have access to nearly 500 electric vehicle charging stations located throughout the province. source: http://blog.wwf.ca/blog/2013/11/14/charging-bc/
Charging stations have a number of capacities needing more or less time and attention:
New Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
UVic’s two new electric vehicle charging stations come into operation the week of April 2nd. These level 2 (240 volt), 60 amp stations from Sun Country Highway are available for use by the campus community and guests 24/7 outside the Campus Security Building in parking lot #2. They are located in metered parking spaces for a fee of $1.50 per hour (a $.25 premium over our regular parking rates) for a maximum of 2 hours. Funding for these stations has been provided by the BC government’s Community Charging Infrastructure Project, an incentive program that has funded over 500 electric vehicle charging stations across BC. Find out more about the program at the Plug In BC website.
Also note that the province recently announced an extension of the its Clean Energy Vehicle Incentive Program which provides BC residents with up to $5,000 off the pre-tax sticker price of qualifying new battery electric cars. source: http://www.uvic.ca/sustainability/home/news/current/EV%20Charging%20Stations.php
Editors note: The quotes above are dated. However this week sees the arrival of the BMW version of electric vehicle to the Vancouver market. The E1 is being sold as a mid range EV. The Province paper is reporting that it is a carbon fiber body usually only available at ” bank account breaking prices.” The BMW website is promoting a turbo charge cord as a quick and easy way to charge an EV. The cord has an adapter that can access 120 and 240 volt house wiring, Electric ranges and dryers have a 240 volt capacity, the 240 volt system depending on the amperage can increase charging conveinece by bringing time down to about 2 hours. It appears that the cord can be brought on trips where access to friends outlets may be available. There is no free power from private homes and they are metered in the normal way. The charging net work of public access remains free to users.
Access to some charging stations may require a key fob, particularly in the US, some universities are adding 25 cents an hour to the parking fee for charge stations. Key fobs are available at a monthly rate on AV sites and a visit rate.
Sun Country, EV
Photo KDG
Sun Country Electric Hyway is the business that is most seen in operations in Canada. The roadster seen is a discontinued Telsa model, its production was taken over by the Tesla model S with a range up to near 500 kilometers. A jaguar model Ev up to near 1.5 million is coming in the fall of 2015. the sun country website lists numbers of EV models from numbers of companies: https://suncountryhighway.ca/evfinder/
Sun country has an EV with a 1.5 liter gasoline charging engine that can be driven for hundreds of KMs and the vehicle used to run electric tools.
The Tesla model S has been involved in a couple of fires, the all aluminum body is flammable at high heat.
Watch out for proprietary adapters especially on Tesla roadsters, The Sun Country network 30 to 90 amp chargers are only accessible with an adapter, not free, for some Tesla products.
For the record, there were 187,500 “highway vehicle fires” in the US in 2011 (the last year for which data is available), according to the National Fire Prevention Association. But there was a fire yesterday that is starting to catch some attention, and we’re pretty sure you all know why. Electric vehicle fires – whether they be in China or the US, started while moving or stopped – often become comment fodder, even when we learn after the fact that the electric part of the powertrain has nothing to do with with the blaze. source:http://green.autoblog.com/2013/10/02/tesla-model-s-fire/
Today in history: June 17th 1994
OJ Simpson is arrested for the alleged murder of his ex-wife and boyfriend, after a slow speed chase.
Hey Merit what do you say?
Kevin Griffiths
percypaschal
The Proprietor Review 