A New Twist Near the Old LC&M

Now, I'm very technical-minded, and yet, I can't figure out how this thing works. Seems like the proverbial perpetual motion machine. Seeing as it involves an old customer of the D&H I thought it might bear some discussion. How might this technology benefit Lyon Mountain?



From today's Plattsburgh Press Republican Newspaper Website Business Section

Hydropower proposal

Firm eyes old Moriah mines for power-generating plant

By LOHR McKINSTRY, Staff Writer

MINEVILLE — An Albany firm has plans to build a hydro-electric generating plant inside Moriah’s old iron mines. The $38.5 million project would produce electricity by recirculating water in three mineshafts and selling it to Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.

Albany Engineering has proposed putting seven generating turbines more than 1,000 feet below the surface, in upper and lower reservoirs connected by seven 96-inch-diameter penstocks.

The Mineville Pump Storage Project, as it’s being called, would take 30 months to build once the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approves it.

A public informational meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 15, at the Mineville Veterans of Foreign Wars Post.

James Besha, the engineer on the project, said the mines being proposed were closed in the 1970s by Republic Steel.

"The Mineville Pumped Storage Project will utilize the existing Harmony, Old Bed and New Bed mines.

"Interested parties can view the project development site (at the meeting) and discuss Moriah Hydro’s proposal for the project."

The Harmony Mine would be the principal shaft for the project. The three mines have filled with ground water, which the firm proposes to pump out to create the reservoirs.

Moriah Town Supervisor Thomas Scozzafava supports the Mineville Pump Storage Project.

"It’s a good use for those mines," Scozzafava said.

"With the energy crunch we’re in, it’s a good project. It would create one or two new jobs."

Scozzafava said the project would greatly increase the value of those mines.

"It would certainly increase the tax base."

Albany Engineering has created a local company, Moriah Hydro Corp., for the project. Financing is expected to be from long-term private bonds.

Land would be leased from Rhodia Corp. of Cranbury, N.J., the successor to Republic Steel, and X-Earth of Elizabethtown, the company that has subsurface mineral rights to the property.

It sounds like the water is fed thru the various turbines and then is sent somehow back to the start (presumably with pumps) I guess if your energy costs to pump the water back each time (there has to be a LOT of water in there) are low enough compared to the amount generated it would be worth while. Since at least some of the shafts to send the water thru are all ready in place you would save money in the construction costs as well.

As for anything this would do for the D&H etc, perhaps shipping in parts, I really don't know.

I live in Mineville... you guys have no idea how VAST those mines were and now those immense caverns have now filled with water. I doubt that this scheme will fly. Since the mid-80's, Mineville and Witherbee have been suffering 'earthquakes', basically the unstable shafts shifting and filling with water. I recommend a great article from the October 1999 issue of Adirondack Life (called 'the hole story'), this is a really great insight into adirondack mining and the aftermath.

So basically, what I am getting at is how many millions of gallons are underground. What does make me nervous is all the contaminants that were left down there. I don't think that anyone knew how harmful PCB's were in 1972, and I doubt very highly that Republic Steel removed ALL of their equipment upon the final closing in 1973. So who knows WHAT was in that water. And the geniuses that run the town here wanted to pump drinking water out of these mines??? Jeez.

Even though I doubt this will fly, it will be interesting to see how far they take it.

Ghost

Pumped power storage works like this: At night, when electricity is least expensive, the turbines/pumps use power from the grid to pump water up to the highest reservoir. Then as power demand rises during the day, water is released from the upper reservior, turning the turbines by gravity and returning power to the grid at the higher daytime price. Sort of like a giant storage battery. A simple 'value added' scheme. There are losses in the system but these are easily offset by the higher price. The only thing that goes wrong with these schemes is that everytime one comes online, electricity costs for the consumer goes UP instead of down like promised. New York State has one of the best systems for generating clean power in the nation, but political and even criminal actions result in us paying some of the highest costs in the nation.

The water used in this type of system would remain underground, being recycled up and down. The only water needing to be removed would be the water filling space at or above the turbine house and discharges. I doubt there would be enough pollutants to seriously contaminate the billions of gallons of water down there anyway. Parts per trillions, parts per billions? Municipal sewage is discharged into rivers above other cities fresh water intakes at actual and probable higher levels. Remember that anything taken DOWN a mineshaft costs money, which would have to be justified to the money managers, and anything easily salvaged would have been hauled out. If ground water is so plentiful in the area, a seperate wellshaft would make more sense than pumping the mines empty. A secondary concern might be collapse of poorly supported shafts being drained and refilled repeatedly.