Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Creek Power!

It was a representative from Rocky Mountain Power, of all people, who first gave me the idea.  "Did I ever tell you about the fishing lodge I went to up in the Idaho wilderness that was powered completely by a nearby stream?", he tells me with a wink.    Then he went on to tell me that it will cost somewhere around a 1/4 million dollars to bring power lines up to the camp.  That was enough to get me doing some research.  A year later, thanks to a generous donation from the folks at Blue Source and the innovation and engineering from the folks at Garner Engineering, I am proud to say that our camp is now completely powered by a micro-hydro generator from Big Canyon Creek.   Although it doesn't generate a massive amount of instantaneous power, it is stored in a battery bank and provides up to 90 kilowatt hours per day.

First we created a small retention pond

IMG_2402-1    

 

A 15' concrete dam captures the water

IMG_2407-1

 

This screen filters the water and draws it into a 6" buried pipeline

IMG_2415-1

 

1000 feet downstream the pipe enters this concrete vault where the turbine is housed.  After it goes through the turbine all the water enters back into the stream.  As you can see, although it is not a particularly large stream it has a very consistent flow year round.

IMG_2424-1

 IMG_2445-1

 

My son, Caleb, takes time out of his busy hunting schedule to check the turbine for me.

IMG_2428-1

IMG_2434-1

 

A buried powerline almost 1 mile long then enters this mechanical room in the back of our lodge and feeds this system which steps down the voltage, turns it into DC, stores it into a battery bank, and then inverts it back to AC as needed.  Pretty cool.

DSC08816

DSC08814

 

 

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Blast from the Past Part III

 

June 15, 2007

Cement Pumper  ready and waiting for the cement truck.

IMG_4160

IMG_4172

 

Doing the final preparations before the cement arrives.

IMG_4168

 

The cement truck finally arrives and here comes the cement.  The guy on the left is the pump controller.  See his belt?  That is how he directs the pumper where to go and how much to pump out.  That is pretty cool.

 IMG_4206

 IMG_4195

 

The Workers 

All of these men and children are volunteers (except for the pump controller).  They came to Big Canyon first thing in the morning.  Got the job done and went to their paying jobs.  Awesome! 

IMG_4201       IMG_4269

 

IMG_4315      IMG_4215

 

 IMG_4294        IMG_4239

 

IMG_4258      IMG_4323

 

    

Done!

IMG_4394

 

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Blast from the Past Part II

For those of you just tuning into the Big Canyon Blog, these Blasts are to take you back to see the things and progress that has taken place at Big Canyon...

 

In the last post you saw that we got the area cleared.  Now Aaron B. came on the weekends and volunteered to move the earth so we could put in the footers for the foundation.

IMG_2905

 

IMG_2904     IMG_2901

 

Dale and Danielle (our daughter) digging the trench, for water pipes, from the Lodge to the well.

IMG_3287 

IMG_3289

The Trench

IMG_3555

A Group of men from Grace Community Bible Church came up and helped with clearing more brush for the trench to the water tanks and also putting in the footers.

The Clearing Team

IMG_3178    IMG_3186

 

The Footer Team

IMG_3147    IMG_3144

IMG_3149     IMG_3151

 

IMG_3213-1

 

Everything is dug, leveled and the footers are in!

IMG_3558 

Ready to pour!