Скачать или смотреть Enlightenment | World's First Water Powered House

To understand how the Three Gorges Dam in China can produce so much power we need to travel back in time to 19th century Britain and a modest stream in Northumberland – the power behind the world’s first hydroelectric dam.

In the 1800s when Britain was at the heart of the industrial revolution this Victorian house was the last word in modern living. Dubbed the ‘palace of a modern magician', it belonged to Lord William Armstrong, a maverick entrepreneur and obsessive inventor. He fitted Cragside House with state-of-the-art technology, including central heating, and mechanical devices that drove elevators, laundry machines, and roasting spits. But there was one place in the house where modern technology was sadly lacking, his picture gallery. What Armstrong needed was electric light and a source of power.

Armstrong built an earth wall nearly 10 metres high which transformed his trickling stream into a deep lake. This mass of water pushed down, increasing the pressure at lower depths. Armstrong channelled this high pressure water down through a pipe to the bottom of his dam. Here he injected it into a Thompson vortex turbine where the torrent spun the rotor, which in turn rotated a shaft linked to a generator that produced 4,000 watts of electricity.

For Armstrong this was only the first step to enlightenment. He needed to get the electricity from the turbine house at the bottom of the Debdon Dam, all the way to his picture gallery over a kilometre away. Armstrong connected two strands of thick copper wire to the generator to carry the electricity up to his mansion. He used 5 tonnes of copper to power a single light bulb but created a world first – a house lit by the power of water.

Watch the complete documentary here –    • Mega Dams – Hydroelectric Evolution – Big ...  

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