1940: Water Power

Reports received through the United States Geological Survey with regard to water power developments in foreign countries, from the Dominion Water and Power Bureau on developments in Canada, and from the Bureau of Reclamation, the Corps of Engineers, United States Army, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Public Works Administration, and the district engineers, United States Geological Survey, on developments in the United States, show an increase, made up of capacities reported installed during 1940 and of capacities not previously reported, of about 3,400,000 horsepower, making the total reported capacity of installed water wheels in the world about 69,400,000 horsepower as of Dec. 31, 1940, on the basis of the most recent report by the United States Geological Survey.

No reports have been received from Belgium, Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Ostmark (Austria), Poland, or Sweden, and several of these did not report last year, doubtless because of war conditions. Both the increase and the total shown above will, therefore, probably be considerably enlarged when the capacities of water wheels installed in those countries during the past two years are made known.

The United States has continued to lead the world in water-power utilization with an increase of 537,650 horsepower during 1940, making about 19,000,000 horsepower in total capacity of installed water wheels.

Several countries have reported extensive developments in progress, notably the United States, which has a total of 8,058,000 horsepower in water-power plants that are now in various stages of construction, largely at governmental expense. The striking differences in the utilization of water power in those countries which have valuable water-power resources, arise from several possible causes — differences in availability of water-power sites, in costs of development, in distances from power sites to power markets, in transportation restrictions whether physical, military or political, in competition with fuel-generated power, in legal restrictions, in climate, in number and character of the citizenry, and in the stage of its development in the sciences and arts. The Kongo basin, Africa, has within its borders more than a quarter of the water-power resources of the world, but relatively little use is made of them because of the low stage of development of the majority of its people and the resulting lack of opportunity for the use of mechanical or electric energy. Although the United States has, in addition to its excellent water-power resources, great supplies of coal, oil and gas that are largely utilized in the generation of energy and with which water-generated energy competes, the development and utilization of hydraulic power continues to increase, in part because of the great development of industries but largely because its utilization is coordinated with that of fuel-generated power by uniting them into great systems of power plants and electric transmission nets in which the peculiar valuable characteristics of the energy derived from each source supplement those of the other. These great power systems tend to promote industrial expansion and to stabilize industrial activities. The utilization of water power in this country appears to accord with both good engineering and sound national policy and to justify the use of public funds in development.