I’m just home from a very interesting  VoMIT (Vermont’s Own MIT) club meeting.   VoMIT is my faorite collection of geeks and nerds in the state.. no make that the whole world.  Every couple of months we get together and do something really geeky. This  meeting was at Green Mountain Power’s hydro generation plan on the Winooski River near the IBM plant. I’ve been driving by this place for nearly 30 years and never really looked at it. I got there tonight around 6 and drove down the long driveway to the generation station . Walked in .. the nosie was deafening..

There were abotu 20 of the VoMIT members collected on a narrow stage overlooking the generator floor..

It was incredibly cool and beutiful.. About 30 feet below on the gleaming wooden floor were four of the cutest turbine’s you ever did see.. Each of them humming along merrily as it pumbed out 2 megawatts of electricity.  (For the record, the 8 megawats the plant puts out  is roughly 1/50th of the nominal power required to run the state of vermont.. or even more sobering.. it’s about 1/7th the power needed to run IBM just across the street)

What was so amazing is that these machines datedd from 1915 (!) and
were still pumping out power ! It looked like soemthing out of an old
scifi movie.. kinda steampunk .I just loved it..

Note the patents on this werefrom 1899 !

Here’s one of the four penstocks that carry the water to teh turbine… It was huge !

here are the carbon brushed that feed the power to the armature.

Here’s the governor that regulates the speed and power output.

Here are the new backup generators used to fill in demand when the water is low.

GMP  ex-CEO and Chairmon fo the Board Chris Dutton was out host. he gave us an excellenthistory of the place and an overview of Vermonts energy past and futre. He ws a great speaker and great host. I sat across from im at dinner and really enjoyed speaking with him and his wife.

Here’s Gary. a GMP tec whos’s been workign in this plant for more than 37 years !.. He explained all the technical details of the pant to us..

After the tour we all went our to dinener.. it was a really fun and relaxing night. Well. my gneerators running a bit low now.. so I’ll sign off.. nite folks.. Nite Sam
-me