Authorized Personnel Only - Kickstarting A Hydroelectric Turbine

My grandfather loved showing off his Hiawassee Dan with it's pair of reversible turbines that could also suck water up from the river below the dam and fill up the reservoir during the day when so much power wasn't needed, to run back thru via gravity in the night. That said, the "suck zone" in the forebay was a awe-inspiring thing to witness at 5 years old and Gramp's tales of its terrible power gave me a serious phobia of unseen intakes lurking in any unfamiliar body of water.

More modern dams use a volute around the wicket gates to remove the chaos of water entering the wicket gates. The water rotation going into the wickets improves efficiency by reducing turbulence. Instead of water entering a square room, from the side, the water enters a round spiral room from the side, spinning the water into the turbine.

These are the things we'd never get to see without youtube

Man that is moving a insane amount of water. I know you said that it did before but seeing it go is something else. Terrifying and impressive at the same time.

Wow... That's like a hundred times more terrifying than I thought it would be. That water has so much force and if you fell in (thank God for that tether you had!), There's almost no chance of getting back to the surface. Awesome video!

Why am I only discovering this now? I love this kind of stuff! I also like how the phrase to start the turbine is “jiggle the handle!”

Wow that's awesome, it's cool to hear the sound of the turbine revving up.

This is the kind of channel that Youtube was made for.

I love your hydroelectric plant videos. This stuff is normally hidden from the public so I find it all very interesting. Great stuff.

'charging the gravity battery', I will now see rivers, lakes and dams in a completely different way, thank you.

😮👍OMG! Thank you for posting this video; I’ve always wondered what goes on deep in the concrete walls and valves! Gives even heightened more respects and props to everything that goes into lighting our homes and cities! Thanks to all!

I was a crane operator on a Snake River dam. Turbines a bit bigger, I think the scroll case was about 20' across. Well the turbine blade and hub weight was 120 tons, five blades each at 15 tons per. My brother in law is on the Missouri in MT at Holter Lake and the turbines are similar to that but appeared to be older. They had wood stop logs still, crazy! I remember dropping the stop logs in our project and each was 30' wide and 8' tall, 4 went in each slot and 2 slots.

Greetings from central Germany. My wife pushed to have a turbine installed in our local reservoir, and although it was we never got a chance to see it in operation. Thanks for showing how you started it and the amazing pressure of the water. Excellent video!

This series should get a million views or more. Folks should learn about the muck and grime and dirty water that powers their devices that let them complain about hard their white collar jobs are

Hey man, I really enjoyed your videos I am watching out here! My dad worked for Nebraska for power at the Hydro plant my entire life until it got washed away two years ago on the Niobrara river. I spent my entire childhood in and out every which place of that plant I even went down the hole, you name it. Kick offs, synchronizing taking reading the whole works. That was my life what's the PowerPoint and I don't know exactly how everything works and it was refreshing to see your videos. The average person can totally get it from these videos. Bravo. Impacts of the switches and gauges were exactly the same. Spencer Hydro is NO MORE, but it lives on in my memory. It was quite tragic how it ended, water is a very powerful thing. And so is ice. Thanks for posting. I sent this channel to my dad and he is watching eagerly as we speak. I have a magically enhanced day man. 😎🌈🌏👏😁😉🚬✌️ Dewey lauridsen....

And this is why I have a pretty decent fear of being in water- especially opaque water -with machinery nearby. If you fell in there, it’d be curtains for you. Excellent stuff! I love seeing this sort of thing in action and natural forces are just so awe-inspiring!

Check out my other Hydro Dam videos here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-3Y2XexL9dRz9zskedt9ve… If you like what you see here, I'd appreciate your help to continue making free, educational videos for all: ko-fi.com/captainboden

That was an amazing video. Regular people never get the opportunity to see anything close to that. I love these kind of videos. Please keep up the awesome work.

So great, I remember visiting a hydroelectric plant during a school trip and was disappointed because I thought we would see the turbines in action. Now I have seen them

Just like the turbo charger on my 65 Austin-Healey. Now seriously, I worked on an Un-Watering pump below Bagnell Dam once, I was about 110 ft under the surface of the lake with water leaking in. It was seriously spooky to know if the concrete let loose you had zero chance. This is just a few feet of head, imagine 100 ft.