Portland observer., April 19, 1979, Page 4, Image 4

Page 4 Portland Observar Thursday. April I t . 1979
L.H. Latimer: Contributions to light
The celebration this year o f the
Centennial o f Light, marking the
100th anniversary o f Thomas Alva
Edison's invention o f the incandes­
cent electric light bulb, brings to the
forefront again the contributions to
electric power o f Lewis How ard
L a tim e r, a Black in ve n to r best
known for patenting a process for
making carbon filaments.
Latimer was one o f the original
Edison Pioneers, that select group of
28 o f Edison's friends and fellow in­
ventors. He came fro m hum ble
beginnings and had little form al
education, yet he became a respected
inventor, draftsman, and engineer.
Also, he was an author, poet and
musician.
W illia m
H.
M e adow croft,
historian fo r the Edison Pioneers
and Edison's secretary, wrote upon
Latimer's death in 1928 at the age of
80: "W e hardly mourn his inevitable
going so much as we rejoice in plea­
sant memory at having been asso­
ciated with him in a great work for
all peoples under a great m an."
Lewis Howard Latimer s contributions to the electric power industry
are being recognized during the centennial celebration of Thomas Edi­
son s invention of the incandescent light bulb. Latimer was best known
for patenting a process for making carbon filaments.
Latim er, the son o f an escaped
slave, was born on September 4,
1848, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He
read voraciously as a lad, wrote short
stories, and taught himself how to
draw. Later, as an office boy in a
Boston patent office, he taught him­
self the principles o f drafting and
was rewarded by bang made a drafts­
man for the company.
Soon he was ch ie f draftsm an,
preparing drawings o f inventions
which were submitted to the U.S.
Patent Office in Washington. One of
his most famous submissions at that
time in his career was drawings for
Alexander Graham Bell's telephone.
It was not long before Latimer
began drawing diagrams for his own
inventions. In 1873, he received his
firs t patent fo r an im proved
washroom fo r railroad passenger
cars, which won him recognition and
a position with Hiram S. Maxim, the
inventor o f the machine gun, at the
United States Electric Lighting Com­
pany, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
That was in 1878. During this time
Maxim was claiming he invented the
incandescent lamp, but eventually he
lost in court.
While there, Latimer invented and
patented an improved process for
making carbon filam ents in light
bulbs. He also assisted in installing
the lighting systems in New York,
P hiladelphia and Canada, and
helped establish the firs t Maxim-
Weston electric light bulb factory in
London, England.
In 1884, he joined the Edison Elec­
tric Light Company, as a draftsman
and engineer.
By this time, Latimer had become
an expert electrical engineer. And, in
1890, he published the first technical
electrical engineering book, "In ca n ­
descent Electric Lighting — A Prac­
tical D escription o f the Edison
System.”
Later, he transferred to the legal
department o f the Edison General
Electric Company, where he served
as an expert witness on Edison pa­
tents in various patent law suits
brought by and against Edison.
When Edison General merged with
Houston Electric Company to create
the General Electric Company, and
the latter developed with Westing-
house a Board o f Patent C ontrol,
Latimer was appointed a full-tim e
consultant.
Latimer, like most o f the Edison
Pioneers, was hired because o f a par­
ticular expenise. Edison recognized
in each o f the Pioneers not only a
special talent, but an indefatigable
ability to get things done and make
things work. Lewis Howard Latimer
fit that mold perfectly.
Conference explores utility rates, impact on poor
A conference scheduled for Satur­
day, A pril 21st in Portland will bring
together poor people, seniors, en­
vironm entalists, union members,
policy makers, energy activists, rep­
resentatives of helping agencies and
utility ratepayers to discuss the prob­
lem of rising utility rates and the par­
ticular impact o f this problem on
poor people.
Entitled ‘ ‘ U tility Rate Relief: Op­
tion for Low Income People," the
day-long conference poses the ques­
tion “ Can we have enough money at
a price that even poor people can af­
ford without losing jobs or environ­
mental quality?” A morning panel
discussion w ill focus on specific
energy options such as lifeline and
other rate restructuring, energy cou­
pons, direct assistance, conservation
and renewable resources, and the
form ation o f people’ s u tility dis­
tricts. P articipants in the option
panel w ill be Cary Schaye, o f Fair
Share; Lorrie Jones o f Community
Dynamics; Beulah Hand, form er
state legislator; John Bartels o f the
Eugene Water Board; Roy Heming­
way o f the P ublic U tility C om ­
m ission; and M argie H a rris o f
Western SUN.
An afternoon panel w ill present
the view o f different interest groups
on energy questions, and the various
values to be considered in weighing
rate relief options. Participants in
this panel will be Terry Fasthorse o f
Urban Indian Council; State Repre­
sentative Rick Bauman; M a rjo rie
Parker o f the Gray Panthers; Bob
Baugh o f International W oodwork­
ers o f America; and Janet Gillespie
o f the Eugene Future Power Com­
mittee. Throughout the day, con­
ference participants w ill be involved
in question and answer sessions and
small group discussions.
Keynote speaker for the conference
Paul Garver, w ill give a national
overview o f rate relief. Garver, a
steering committee member o f the
Pennsylvania Alliance for Jobs and
Energy, is also senior staff represen­
tative o f Service Employees Inter­
national Union Local 585. He is a
lecturer in labor economics at the
C om m unity College o f Allegheny
County and former national chair of
the Energy Commission o f the New
American Movement.
The A pril 21st conference is spon­
sored by the U tility Action Center of
Multnomah County Legal Aid and
more than 25 community orgamza-
-, tions. Follow ing the form al con­
ference, many o f these groups will
sponsor organizing meetings to edu­
cate participants about their work
and enlist new members in their pro­
grams.
There is no charge for conference
attendance, although a donation at
the door will be appreciated. Child
care w ill be provided at the con­
ference site, the Sunnyside United
Methodist Church, 3520 S.E. Yam­
hill in Portland. Further information
is available by calling the U tility Ac­
tion Center at 222-9311,
Geothermal energy: Power source for West
The Far West has fa r greater
potential for the development o f geo­
thermal energy resources than the
eastern parts o f the U.S.
And the Northwest has some par­
ticularly promising places fo r geo­
thermal prospecting, says an Oregon
State University scientist who has
been honored for his leadership in
locating earth energy resources.
Gunnar Bodvarsson is the 1979
recipient o f the citation given by the
Oregon Academy o f Science for sig­
nificant scientific contributions. He
is using some original mathematical
and geophysical concepts in the search
for energy from the innards o f the
earth.
"T he geology o f the West — from
about U tah, W yom ing and New
Mexico this way — is more varied
and recent than is the case with the
older, more geolog ically stable
eastern areas. Volcanoes were active
over a large part o f the Far West in
relatively recent geologic times. Gey­
sers and hot springs are evidence o f
the energy that might be tapped from
the depths o f the earth,” Bodvarsson
observed.
“ Geyser area in northern C alifor­
nia was put to use fo r the produc­
tion o f electricity some 25 years ago,
for example. It has become a very
large power resource.”
Bodvarsson is a native o f Iceland
where geothermal hot springs are
used to heat thousands o f homes.
For eighteen years, he was head of
the department o f earth heat for the
N a tional Energy A u th o rity o f
Iceland.
“ W ith its abundance o f hot
springs, Iceland is one o f the w orld’s
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most favorable areas for geothermal
development,” he noted. “ But the
potential exists in many other places
if the deposits can be located and
tapped.”
Dry steam is relatively inexpensive
to convert for energy purposes, he
added. "There are more difficulties
in harnessing some hot water re­
sources.”
In one o f three research projects
he has underway, Bodvarsson is
looking at the possibilities o f d rill­
ing holes in selected spots and pump­
ing cold water down for heating in
the hot rock o f the earth. Then the
heated water would be pumped back
to the surface and used for home and
building heating, fo r agricultural
greenhouses, etc.
“ This is called forced geoheat re­
covery,” Bodvarsson noted. The
project is now in the “ conceptual
stage” where applied mathematics
and engineering are involved along
with geophysics (the science o f the
earth). Bodvarsson and OSU
engineer Gordon Reistad hope to get
to field trials and then drilling tests
early in the 1980s.
The area where the corner boun­
daries o f Oregon-Washington-Idaho
touch is seen as one likely spot for
the drilling o f boreholes. Thousands
o f cracks in the earth’s crust there
were filled with thin vertical platelike
intrusions o f volcanic rocks (dikes).
“ Deep earth water may move up and
around the dikes,” Bodvarsson ex­
plained Other possibilities for forced
geoheat recovery drilling arc the Kla­
math Basin, the Willamette Valley
and along the coast.
In two other projects, funded by
the U.S. Department o f Energy and
the N ational Science Foundation,
Bodvarsson is working on complex
scientific measurements as ways to
help locate geothermal energy re­
sources in the earth.
Measurements o f the “ breathing”
o f the earth — in response to the
strain o f moon-sun tidal forces —
are being planned as a way to help
find geothermal deposits.
Bodvarsson also is looking at the
possibilities o f locating hot water or
molten material deposits by listening
for their sloshings with sophisticated
instruments.
“ W ater in earth fractures and
magma (m olten rock) in magma
pockets can oscillate or slosh, just as
water in a deformable container such
as a thin plastic jar or in a balloon.
Rock walls have some e la sticity
to o ,” he points out.
Bodvarsson has worked on the de­
velopment o f earth heat in nearly a
dozen other nations.
“ Geothermal heat from the earth
w ill be used extensively in the future,
when the need is sufficient to justify
the costs involved and when ex­
ploring and engineering methods for
recovering it are perfected,” he says.
Interested in current books
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