Page images
PDF
EPUB

the Tennessee Valley Authority, and for examination of estimates of appropriations and activities in the field, $25,000,000: Provided, That this appropriation shall be in addition to and shall be covered into and accounted for as a part of the "Tennessee Valley Authority Fund, 1941," as established by the "Independent Offices Appropriation Act, 1941," approved Apr. 18, 1940- $25, 000, 000 STATEMENT OF THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY IN REGARD TO A SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATION ESTIMATE OF $25,000,000 FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1941

Pursuant to the recommendation of the Advisory Commission to the National Defense Council the President has submitted to the Congress for consideration a supplementary estimate for an appropriation of $25,000,000 to be made available to the Tennessee Valley Authority for the fiscal year 1941.

This appropriation will enable the Authority to start immediate construction on a program to increase the available power supply in the Tennessee Valley area during the present national defense emergency. This program consists of (1) a storage project with power installation at the site, (2) installation of additional capacity in empty stalls at existing down-river projects to utilize the added flow contributed by the storage project, (3) the construction of additional steam electrical generating facilities, and (4) the construction of the new transmission facilities required on account of this added generating capacity. The following is a more complete description of these projects:

1. Cherokee Dam.-A storage_dam and hydroelectric power plant to be built on the Holston River near Jefferson City, Tenn. This project will cost $36,000,000; will have a useful storage capacity of 1,400,000 acre-feet; and will have an installed capacity of 90,000 kilowatt. The supplemental appropriation will provide $11,000,000 for initial expenditure on this project. This amount, together with $19,000,000 in the fiscal year 1942 and $6,000,000 in the fiscal year 1943, will enable the Authority to have the storage from this project available in the spring of 1942 and the generating units at the site on the line in the fall of 1942. The storage and generating units at this project, together with additional generating units at Wilson and Pickwick Dams, as described below, will increase the continuous firm power capacity of the Tennessee Valley Authority power system by 120,000 kilowatts.

2. Generating units No. 11 and No. 12 at Wilson and No. 4 at Pickwick.— The supplemental appropriation will provide $3,500,000 to start installation of two additional 26,000-kilowatt generating units at Wilson Dam, and one additional 36,000-kilowatt unit at Pickwick Dam. This amount, together with $1,800,000 in the fiscal year 1942, will enable the Authority to have these three units with a total capacity of 88,000 kilowatts on the line by the spring of 1942 at which time the storage from the Holston project will be available to increase the low-water flow through all main river projects.

3. Steam electric generating facilities.-The supplemental appropriation will provide $7,500,000 to start construction of additional steam electric generating facilities in the area served by the Authority with an installed capacity of approximately 120,000 kilowatts. This amount, together with $3,000,000 in the fiscal year 1942, will be sufficient to have these facilities on the line by December 1941. The Authority will be assisted in the planning and design of these facilities by a nationally recognized engineering firm specializing in design of steam plants.

4. Transmission facilities.-The supplemental appropriation will provide $3,000,000 to start construction of the transmission facilities needed to tie the generating facilities described above into the Tennessee Valley Authority power system and to carry this power to the market. It is estimated that an additional $6,000,000 in fiscal year 1942 and $5,000,000 in fiscal year 1943 will be required for this purpose.

The total estimated cost of the projects to be started with this supplemental appropriation is $65,800,000. With this expenditure over the next 2% fiscal years, the generating capacity in the Tennessee Valley can be increased by 298,000 kilowatts. The emergency schedule to be followed will make this capacity and the attendant continuous firm power available for use on the following dates:

[blocks in formation]

There is complete agreement among those responsible for national defense industrial development that the Tennessee Valley area is one of the important centers for the production of such essential national defense materials as aluminum and other metals, explosives, phosphorus and other chemicals, and more recently aircraft. Expansion in these directions is under way. A deficiency of power supply is the bottleneck. All existing power installations, both those of the Tennessee Valley Authority and private companies in adjoining territory, are now being taxed to the limit to meet normal demands, and presently scheduled installations will only care for normal growth in demands without regard to the super-imposition of the new demands of national defense. This emergency program is therefore necessary for national defense purposes. The Authority is ready with plans and a seasoned construction force to start work at once on the construction program herein recommended. This program will go a long way toward the elimination of the emergency power supply bottleneck in the Tennessee Valley, which is largely dependent on the Authority as a source of power supply. These projects are all economically feasible whether for emergency or peacetime uses. After the emergency is over, they will fit logically into the normal navigation, flood control, and power program of the Authority. Should the emergency period end in the near future, the power capacity made available by this program will be absorbed within a few years by normal growth in demand.

Summary of estimates.-The following table summarizes the expenditure estimates for this national defense power supply program:

[blocks in formation]

The supplemental estimate of $25,000,000 for the fiscal year 1941 is in addition to the $40,000,000 appropriated to the Authority for that fiscal year in the Independent Offices Appropriation Act, 1941.

GENERAL STATEMENT OF E. R. STETTINIUS, JR.

Are you going to make the initial statement for us, Mr. Stettinius? Mr. STETTINIUS. I am, sir. I shall introduce it by saying it is a great satisfaction to have our associates on the Defense Commission, Mr. Knudsen and his executive assistant, Mr. John Biggers, with us. Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Biggers must go to Aberdeen im

mediately, and I hope you gentlemen can see your way free to excuse them after they say what you would like to have them say, as they have an emergency matter to attend to.

We have associated with us on the Defense Commission Mr. Gano Dunn, who is one of my personal aides in charge of power matters as they affect the whole defense program. Mr. Gano Dunn is a well-known electrical and mechanical engineer and has for many years been president and is now president of the J. G. White Engineering Corporation of New York, one of the oldest consulting and constructing engineering firms in the country, which designed and built the present 60,000-kilowatt steam station of the T. V. Ä. at Muscle Shoals.

Mr. Dunn was the power expert member of the Nitrate Commission of the War Department prior to the World War and at that time made studies of the Tennessee River with reference to its suitability as a source of power for the manufacture of nitrates.

In the lawsuit-this will amuse some of you-in the lawsuit which Wendell Willkie and the Commonwealth & Southern brought several years ago to test the constitutionality of the T. V. A. Act, he hired Mr. Dunn's firm to represent him against the Government. Mr. Dunn has previously been opposed to the Government's policy of entering into competition with private utilities, but he now strongly is in favor of this request of T. V. A. purely from the standpoint of the emergency at hand and the interest of the national defense.

I have been over this matter for approaching 3 weeks now, with Mr. Dunn and the members of our staff, and I am perfectly confident, gentlemen, that from the standpoint of our aluminum production to meet the aviation program which Mr. Knudsen is responsible for, and a great many other developments in the southeastern section, we must have this added power.

Mr. WOODRUM. And you cannot get it from private industry? Mr. STETTINIUS. We cannot, sir, and it cannot be delayed for reasons which Mr. Dunn will bring out in his testimony. Not weeks but days count now, from the standpoint of speeding this work up so that we can get the full effect of the spring floods 2 years hence.

NATURE AND COST OF PROPOSED PROGRAM

With that introduction, Mr. Chairman, I will let Mr. Knudsen tell you about it.

Mr. WOODRUM. The program calls for the erection of a storage dam and hydroelectric power plant to be built on the Holston River, near Jefferson City, Tenn., at a total cost of $36,000,000; then for the installation of steam-electric generating facilities at a cost of $10,500,000; Wilson and Pickwick units, $5.300.000; transmission facilities, $14,000,000-making a total of $65,800,000.

Now you are asking for $25,000,000 in 1941, $29,800,000 in 1942, and $11,000,000 in 1943.

Mr. STETTINIUS. That is correct, sir.

Mr. WOODRUM. And the Council of Defense has been over that thoroughly and regards it as necessary and important, and that time is of the essence?

Mr. STETTINIUS. I do not think I can say "the Commission," but Mr. Knudsen, in charge of production and I from the standpoint of materials, and Mr. Dunn, having jurisdiction of the power to be supplied, all definitely unite in the conclusion that this expansion is justified and must take place to meet the production ahead.

I think it would be very helpful if Mr. Knudsen could add a word, and then Mr. Dunn can answer as to the details.

ALUMINUM REQUIREMENT FOR PLANES

Mr. WOODRUM. Mr. Knudsen, we will be very glad to hear whatever you have to say to us.

Mr. KNUDSEN. I am not a power man; I am a manufacturer. My interest in this project is purely to see that we get aluminum enough or duralumin enough to build the planes with. I suppose you know the average plane takes about 5 tons of this stuff.

Mr. WOODRUM. Five tons of aluminum?

Mr. KNUDSEN. Yes; that is the average, and my interest here in this project is to get aluminum enough for the planes, and the average quantity per plane is about five tons, meaning both in the frame itself and in the parts of the motor that are made of aluminum, such as the crankcase, pistons, and cylinder head. And in this area where the T. V. A. is located, that is outlined by the General Staff as area E. We have areas A, B, C, D, and E which are satisfactory to the General Staff for plant location purposes, being away from the shore, and in this area E, besides aluminum plants, we have some other plants projected, the actual location of which I am unable to give you at this time, because the sites have not been picked; but they are in this area E. So that there will be a call for power beyond what will be required for aluminum.

Mr. WOODRUM. And you cannot get it from private industry?

Mr. KNUDSEN. Well, I do not know; frankly, I am not familiar with that.

Mr. STETTINUS. I think Mr. Dunn can answer that.

Mr. KNUDSEN. The power people will have to tell you about that. I can only testify as to the manufacturing end.

Mr. O'NEAL. How long will it take to get into production with the money being asked for?

Mr. KNUDSEN. That is something Mr. Dunn will have to answer. Mr. WOODRUM. Do you mean power production or aluminum production?

Mr. O'NEAL. I mean with the money spent that is proposed here, how quickly will it bring results?

Mr. DUNN. The steam will be ready in 18 months and the hydro in 24 months, provided you take prompt action; but there is a trigger action in this and, if the appropriation is not promptly provided, then there may be a whole year's delay, because you will miss the spring floods in filling the reservoir and with an empty reservoir you cannot get power even if your machinery is all installed.

Mr. O'NEAL. I know you have looked into the possibility of more rapid development along that line, but I understand at Grand Coulee there is a vast amount of power to be developed, and that can probably be developed in less time than here. Is that correct, or am I incorrectly informed?

Mr. WOODRUM. How about letting Mr. Knudsen finish his statement first, and then ask questions?

Mr. O'NEAL. I thought he had completed his statement.

Mr. WOODRUM. What else do you want to say about that?

Mr. KNUDSEN. I do not know of anything else.

Mr. WOODRUM. That is the whole story?

Mr. KNUDSEN. Unless you want to ask me something.

Mr. WOODRUM. I would like to ask you this general question, if you do not mind: How is the general work of the Defense Commission coming along? Is everything going satisfactorily?

Mr. KNUDSEN. Well, you are a better judge of that than I am because, naturally, I have only been here a month and the time has been spent in getting the schedules for the requirements both of the A schedule, which covers the money appropriated here last month, and the B schedule which is coming up on the Hill here to Congress either this afternoon or tomorrow. We are trying to plan our work so that we can place all the contracts we have got money for now and at the same time we study the capacity or try to study the capacity so that we can handle the second program either with contract authorizations or with cash.

Mr. WOODRUM. But you are finding cooperation, are you, in your work?

Mr. KNUDSEN. Yes, sir; absolutely. We have nothing to complain about.

Mr. WOODRUM. There is no holding back or failure to cooperate on the part of anybody that retards your work?

Mr. KNUDSEN. No, sir. We try to work through the existing agen cies and act there purely on the basis of our experience to give them our judgment of what is right and what is wrong.

Mr. WOODRUM. Referring to aluminum, the proposition is to build another aluminum plant there near this power?

Mr. KNUDSEN. About that, Mr. Stettinius can tell you. We have split our work this way, that he brings the material up to the siding and then I cut it up; so that there is a straight division of our work. Mr. WOODRUM. He has to bring this aluminum up to you before you can make planes out of it; is that the idea?

Mr. KNUDSEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LUDLOW. Is this power needed entirely for the production of aluminum?

Mr. KNUDSEN. No, sir.

Mr. LUDLOW. You are going to use it for other purposes, too?
Mr. KNUDSEN. There are other plants plotted in that area.
Mr. LUDLOW. For what production?

Mr. KNUDSEN. Some of them for munitions, some for other things-for powder.

Mr. LUDLOW. But the major part of it would be for aluminum? Mr. KNUDSEN. That is the thing I am mostly interested in at the moment, because in planes that is the important item; that is the major item in a plane.

Mr. TABER. To what extent are you shy of your supply of aluminum or aluminum-factory capacity that can be operated by the industry existing now?

Mr. KNUDSEN. I think there are some others here, sir, that will give you that information.

« PreviousContinue »