Twins On The Ohio, 1960s

[Music] w [Music] this the Ohio River Pleasant beautiful river which rolls through the middle west and merges with a Mississippi to flow majestically into the South FL the river here at Cheshire in Southern Ohio is already broadening often muddy sometimes good fishing the catfish are biting now and on the banks the always hopeful fishermen know it the country here is friendly and so are the people I know I know them both I've lived here most of my life my name's Fred Carman [Music] this is my home and this is my wife Maxine and [Music] the my mother still lives nearby above the river and I don't think she'd move away from here in the river for anything I can understand that it takes hold of you The River Why I remember playing right here like my boys are and like I hope they do I dreamed along here too I often looked out across the river from my bedroom window and thought about the future but I never dreamed then nor when I was away learning engineering what would happen right here or of my part in it for what happened is this that's the Kyer Creek Power Plant it's right next to door and surprisingly enough I worked on this plant as its construction engineer I was back home but this time as one of a team of thousands of trained men from all over the country it was a job that went beyond the Boyhood dreams of any of us for this power plant and its twin the Clifty Creek Plant some 200 miles down river at Madison in Indiana are the largest in the valley two of the largest in the world and were a very special Project important to free people everywhere they Supply the enormous amounts of electric power needed to produce Atomic material for defense and peace everyone and everything was important on a job like this cooperation teamwork and what for one of a better word we call knowhow that was really the story on this big assignment nearly $400 million big the price of eight Atomic submarines like the Nautilus so big that some people thought it could only be done by the government those people were wrong though the job was done by 15 electric companies who got together and tackled it on their own it was teamwork and knowhow that built them teamwork of the men know how of these companies which were willing to take the considerable risk how did it all happen that story starts back in 1952 Washington DC in early 1952 was the capital of a Nation engaged in two Wars a cold war and a hot one in Korea from high levels came the decision that an increased stockpile of atomic weapons was needed for National Defense this was the job of the atomic energy commission the aec moved quickly the primary need was a new plant where the element u235 be refined in Greater quantities the atomic energy commission favored the location of a billion dooll uranium diffusion plant somewhere in the Ohio River Valley its first problem how to obtain the en orous amount of electric power needed by such a plant almost twice as much power as then used by the whole state of Indiana nowhere was such a source of electric power available without it there could be no increased Atomic stockpile a call went out from Washington for help soon a group of electric utility companies serving the Ohio Valley area sent men to Washington for conferences and studies with the aec could they provide this largest single block of power in the history of the industry could they provide Power in a hurry some almost immediately could the private companies build and maintain such a gigantic power plant or plants needed to do this could they provide lowcost Power around the clock and around the calendar but be ready to discontinue it at any time and permanently if the aec so decided recognizing the emergency and their need their answer was yes thousands of other important decisions followed the aec pinpointed the location of its plant along the scoto river midway between Portsmouth and chilika in Southern Ohio and called it the Portsmouth project hundreds of people in the fields of engineering construction finance and legal matters went to work and one by one the questions were answered and detailed estimates drawn up for the commission to study from the home offices of each of the companies came help and suggestions to make the power Project's operation low in cost high in efficiency to begin with it was estimated $440 million might be needed to finance the power project no small hurdle itself the reputations of the 15 companies and their customer helped though and within the briefest possible time the financing was supplied by insurance companies and Banks and by the sponsors themselves and without any government funds to produce such power steam generated electric power two natural ingredients are necessary and the nearer the better the first is water vast amounts of water the Ohio River solved that one the second is coal this could be delivered at low cost from West Virginia and Ohio from Kentucky and Indiana some $30 million worth of it a year year would be needed to produce so much electricity to be close to the coal fields and yet not too far from the atomic project the 15 private electric companies proposed to build two power plants rather than a single plant one the Clifty Creek Plant to be located at Madison Indiana the other the Kyer Creek Plant to be built at chesher Ohio the two instead of one plan was dictated by other reasons too for sec security two plants would be less vulnerable to enemy attack or floods than one and for Speed two would be faster built than one larger plant the lights and drafting rooms and Engineering departments burned far into many nights in October 1952 a contract was signed by the atomic energy commission and the newly formed Ohio Valley Electric Corporation or o temporary headquarters was soon set up near the future Atomic plant but even before the power plants could be built the aec needed huge amounts of electricity the 15 companies were soon supplying this interim power directly to the aec Portsmouth project for construction on December 4th 1952 after months of constant pressure checking and re-checking meeting and REM meating and yes sweating too work got underway at the SES a crowd like that at a plowing contest at a state fair watched the governor of Ohio pop into an earth mover turned the throttle and break ground for the largest private power project the valley or the world had ever [Music] seen and some plowing contest it turned out to be we figured we'd dirt enough to fill a ditch 6 ft deep from New York City to Salt Lake City and then some and then to set down down a solid base for the foundations we brought sand and gravel spread it out in layers with bulldozers and packed it down [Music] hard there was teamwork and construction too right from the start like this one follow gives another a push up and over every step of the way was checked and double checked like examining our foundation the backfield which I did here and which Earl snotr was doing at Clifty Earl was clift's construction engineer sort of my twin and a friend too on these jobs there was a friendly rivalry to get the jobs done right and ahead of schedule and every step was talked over with the engineers and technicians the engineers to make the plans the technicians to put them in motion Every Day Count it we were up against a rough schedule notgrass crew at Clifty and ours at ker with first Power due for delivery from the new plants in 2 years it takes that long just to build a house sometimes but I think we all knew that the schedu makers met it every job counted too with some 6,000 skilled construction men coming from all over the United States to work together from the East and the west from the north and the South material had to be ordered as much as 2 years in advance so it would arrive when we needed it try patting the top of your head with one hand rubbing your stomach with the other and dancing a jig and you'll get some idea of the job of synchronizing the incoming shipments luckily the ingredients for concrete our first real need came right from the neighborhood but the ingredients went into the mixer by special recipes different mixtures for different parts of the building these recipes had to be followed exactly with no failures allowed like a bride's first [Music] cake before pouring the concrete forms had to be set in place then steel reinforcements welded together to strengthen the [Music] concrete and soon the results began to show [Music] men from Michigan and Kansas steel from Pittsburgh and St Louis Building plants in Indiana and Ohio to build a plant to produce electric power takes machine power plenty of it but more important skilled Manpower the power of men trained in our schools and man who picked up something on the local ball field too nice hand workk and footwork [Music] and sometimes a good kick works wonders we always kept one eye on the weather especially winter weather freezing temperatures meant concrete trouble unless we got the mix to the forms before it hardened so we heated the mix and used power wheelbarrows which scurried back and forth and prevented the concrete from turning into frozen pudding it got dark early now but the work went on we were starting on the stacks they had taken a lot of research and planning Engineers scientists and weathermen had worked together to decide how high the stack should go to dissipate the smoke into the atmosphere and then the stacks Rose and Rose and Rose we were going to new heights all right clift's three stacks to be the tallest in the world each over 100 ft higher than the Washington Monument some transmission towers had to be way up there too as high as 200 ft to carry the power lines to the atomic plant nearly 800 mil of high voltage lines were strung porcelain insulators wiped clean hold the lines up there and well away from the tow so the current won't jump over and hight tail it down to the ground stringing lines isn't Child's Play either it takes alertness and care every action means something a Nick or a scratch in these almost 2in thick lines can mean trouble so we kept the lines off the ground and every splice of the cable which we had to make about every quar mile can mean escaping power unless done exactly [Music] right it's tough work and hot but once in a while you get a break [Music] some Four Towers every mile soon to carry the highest voltage lines in use in our country meanwhile work on the plants went on as scheduled month after month now by Brick Layers Now by welders Now by roofers Now by [Music] insulators every bolt tightened at the right time in the right place every detail watched from the smallest river to the largest railroad car in the world on our own private railroad line finally the first of the stacks was complete a Monumental landmark of concrete and steel up he [Music] goes there wouldn't be any electric power however without the fuel and water coal B by several of the area's major coal companies water millions of gallons each day pass through the plant to condense the steam then return to the river just like we had our own railroad gang we also have our own Navy well that is a tugboat a captain and his crew to dock the coal barges it took over a year to unload coal to fill up the two stock piles each with more than a million tons if you can't visualize a million here's 56,000 tons of coal waiting to be unloaded the coal Reserve is over 3 months emergency supply which would move into the plants if needed with new shipments filling the Gap in the [Music] pile and the boilers 11 of them were being erected each boiler tall as an 11-story building and Blacker inside than coal everyone lined with some 150 Mi of tubing for water the heat in the boiler turns the water to steam and the steam is piped into the turbin at 150° and with 2,000 lb pressure you can bet there wasn't any guesswork in setting the turbin in place just right he he does [Music] it the same went for the generators which actually produce the electricity you see the steam makes the turbines move the turbines make the generators move and the generators make the electricity to make the atomic plant move Mighty important fellow the generator and of course we have to check our fuses too biggest ones you ever saw we call them circuit [Music] breakers you can't store electric power it has to be generated when you need it so you need a nerve center with meters levers and push buttons that's the control room one for each of the 11 units connected by thousands of miles of colored wires to the boiler turbine and Generator and of course to OAC headquarters once set up the controls would be hard for an eneme to knock out because they are right in the bases of the stacks and are bomb [Music] prooof and then on February 15th 1955 the first units at Kyer and Clifty went on the [Music] line the first smoke the first fly ash loosed out the first generator reaching its rated capacity just one generator out of the 11 yet turning out electricity enough to supply every home in a city of a million people that's power we were now really on the beak the growing plants kept beating the original deadlines by more and more time Clifty unit 3 completed July instead of August 55 Kiger unit 4 completed November 55 instead of January 56 Cliff the unit 5 November 55 instead of February 56 and as Kyer and Clifty approached full capacity the sponsor companies were called upon to supply less and less of the interim power they took up their permanent role as backstoppers reservoirs of power in case of emergency electricity at 330,000 volts highest in our nation was now humming over the countryside West from Kyer East from Clifty to OAC headquarters where in another bombproof control room man and meters regulate the load from Clifty and Kiker a load which must keep coming into the Portsmouth project 24 hours a day and Beyond past the final switchyard is the destination a steaming giant the Portsmouth uranium diffusion plant 210 Acres of floor area four years to build using nearly 2 million kilowatt continuously dedicated to the peaceful use of the atom and the defense of the nation sure all of us were proud of our Twins and we were especially proud on dedication day in May 1956 Earl Snodgrass my twin on the o project was over from Clifty where they'd had their dedication the day before my wife and boys were there too and met my boss out from New York I can tell you I felt a little out of place with all this excitement sitting near Governors congressmen top industrialists and representatives from the atomic energy commission they unveiled a plaque and then told about our plans the plants that some people said were too big to be built by private electric companies yet as the speaker said they were built and by free enterprise with investors money in fact they pay money to local state and federal more than $2 million annually in taxes and what else did they say well OAC had outstripped all its commitments to the atomic energy commission the plants were finished N9 unit months ahead of schedule this alone loped some $3 million from the aec's first annual electric bill at the time of completion they were capable of producing 165,000 more kilowatt than originally expected because of design improvements during construction they're the world's most efficient power plants too and in spite of rising costs during construction the unit cost of power to the atomic energy commission is less than originally estimated a savings of more than A5 million annually these plants were called symbols of the challenge which free men can meet the real story behind it all the main speaker said was the cooperation of the 15 electric companies who teamed up to meet this challenge no one of them could have done it alone but 15 working together as one for America did do it and you know I was so close to this that I'd hardly seen the whole picture until now but it's true all right and maybe what was done here will help remind our children what can be done in this country by people who are free to think and dream and accept challenges and make the impossible come true