Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Nah, I just want to shut down the generators and give 'em a taste of Hatfield's and McCoy's 'Murica.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority

In the 1920s, a major battle erupted over building an electric power system in the Tennessee Valley, based on the World War I federal dam at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would generate electricity and produce fertilizer.[6] Senator George Norris of Nebraska blocked a proposal from Henry Ford in 1920 to use the dam to modernize the valley.

Norris deeply distrusted privately owned utility companies. He did get Congress to pass the Muscle Shoals Bill, but it was vetoed as socialistic by President Herbert Hoover in 1931. The idea behind the Muscle Shoals Bill in 1933 became a core part of the New Deal's TVA.[7]

Even by Depression standards, the Tennessee Valley was economically dismal in 1933. Thirty percent of the population was affected by malaria, and the average income was only $639 per year, with some families surviving on as little as $100 per year.

Much of the land had been farmed too hard for too long, eroding and depleting the soil. Crop yields had fallen along with farm incomes. The best timber had been cut, with another 10% of forests being burnt each year.[6]

During World War II, the U.S. needed greater aluminum supplies to build airplanes. Aluminum plants required large amounts of electricity. To provide the power, TVA engaged in one of the largest hydropower construction programs ever undertaken in the U.S.

By early 1942, when the effort reached its peak, 12 hydroelectric plants and one steam plant were under construction at the same time, and design and construction employment reached a total of 28,000. In its first eleven years, TVA constructed a total of 16 hydroelectric dams.[10]

The largest project of this period was the Fontana Dam. After negotiations led by Vice-President Harry Truman, TVA purchased the land from Nantahala Power and Light, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alcoa, and built Fontana Dam. Also in 1942, TVA's first coal-fired plant, the 267 megawatt Watts Bar Steam Plant began operation.[12]

The government originally intended the electricity generated from Fontana to be used by Alcoa factories.[citation needed] By the time the dam generated power in early 1945, the electricity was directed to another purpose in addition to aluminum manufacturing, as TVA also provided much of the electricity needed for uranium enrichment at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as required for the Manhattan Project and the making of the atomic bomb.