Constructing overhead electric transmission on new rights-of-way across private property using lattice towers is officially an antique.
I know this because, in my travels last week, I found it in an antique mall.
I know this because, in my travels last week, I found it in an antique mall.
Who is Paul Lumnitzer, and how did his antique, cutsie-poo toy transmission tower award end up on a dark, dusty, lower shelf at an obscure antique mall?
I can answer the first question... the second shall remain a mystery... or perhaps a sad lesson is the disbursement of our treasured belongings after we leave.
Paul Lumnitzer was an executive at Pennsylvania Electric Company (now Penelec) during the earlier decades memorialized on his excessively large, heavy and clumsy desk decoration. He was also Chairman of the Steering Committee for "Project UHV," an Electric Power Research Institute initiative in the 1970's that performed research and wrote reports about ultra-high voltage AC electric transmission. I'm going to guess the UHV transmission used lattice towers just like the ones appearing on his award.
Pioneer, it says. Thanks a lot, Paul. What he pioneered 50 years ago is still being built today.
Where are this generation's EHV pioneers? They're at Direct Connect Development Co., where they're pioneering a new kind of electric transmission... DC transmission buried on existing rail rights-of-way. I wonder if someone is going to give CEO Trey Ward a commemorative desk decoration depicting a train running through an undisturbed farm field? They should, but I would recommend they pay attention to size, weight, and descriptive plaques that may not mean anything to anyone 50 years from now.
We need to put overhead transmission on lattice towers in the history books, or on a shelf at an antique mall, where it belongs and celebrate today's transmission pioneers by abandoning Paul's magnum opus in favor of today's possibilities.
If you're a transmission company who's still celebrating Paul's work by designing the kind of transmission he pioneered and would like to claim this item to use in your new advertising campaigns, let me know. I'll tell you exactly where to find it, and the price of owning such a random and overly-personalized "antique." It's probably going to be there for a long, long, long time. It no longer has any relevance whatsoever.
I can answer the first question... the second shall remain a mystery... or perhaps a sad lesson is the disbursement of our treasured belongings after we leave.
Paul Lumnitzer was an executive at Pennsylvania Electric Company (now Penelec) during the earlier decades memorialized on his excessively large, heavy and clumsy desk decoration. He was also Chairman of the Steering Committee for "Project UHV," an Electric Power Research Institute initiative in the 1970's that performed research and wrote reports about ultra-high voltage AC electric transmission. I'm going to guess the UHV transmission used lattice towers just like the ones appearing on his award.
Pioneer, it says. Thanks a lot, Paul. What he pioneered 50 years ago is still being built today.
Where are this generation's EHV pioneers? They're at Direct Connect Development Co., where they're pioneering a new kind of electric transmission... DC transmission buried on existing rail rights-of-way. I wonder if someone is going to give CEO Trey Ward a commemorative desk decoration depicting a train running through an undisturbed farm field? They should, but I would recommend they pay attention to size, weight, and descriptive plaques that may not mean anything to anyone 50 years from now.
We need to put overhead transmission on lattice towers in the history books, or on a shelf at an antique mall, where it belongs and celebrate today's transmission pioneers by abandoning Paul's magnum opus in favor of today's possibilities.
If you're a transmission company who's still celebrating Paul's work by designing the kind of transmission he pioneered and would like to claim this item to use in your new advertising campaigns, let me know. I'll tell you exactly where to find it, and the price of owning such a random and overly-personalized "antique." It's probably going to be there for a long, long, long time. It no longer has any relevance whatsoever.
RSS Feed