Harness Hydro Power With A Trompe
Using water pressure to make free compressed air.
by JOHN R. HUNT
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The trompe. Its use dates back to the beginning of the Iron
Age, and yet—like many good ideas involving the
manufacture of power—the trompe concept has been all
but forgotten in the recent stampede to mine, refine, and
consume readily exploitable supplies of fossil fuels.
For the homesteader or farmer with a small waterfall or a
good-sized stream on his property, the trompe is a natural.
It offers a virtually inexhaustible supply of free
compressed air . . . cool, dry air that can be
used to operate a forge, drive machinery, or aircondition a
house or barn in hot weather.
What exactly is a trompe? Very simply, a trompe
(sometimes spelled trombe ) is a device that uses
the energy of falling water to pressurize air. This
pressurization is achieved by means of a standpipe or shaft
down which a column of water is allowed to fall. As it
drops, the water draws air through small inclined orifices
(see the accompanying diagram) and carries it to a
submerged plenum or reservoir, where the air separates from
the water and is held under pressure. (The
water—meanwhile—continues to flow to an exit
pipe, the end of which is high enough to balance the
pressure in the reservoir.) The pressurized air can then be
drawn off through a tuyere—or escape nozzle—to
be used as needed.
Many large-scale trompes—or hydraulic air compression
plants—were built at the turn of the century to
supply mines with fresh air. One of the biggest of
these—and probably the last one still in use—is
the Ragged Chutes plant on the Montreal River near the town
of Cobalt, in northern Ontario's silver mining country.
At Ragged Chutes, water falls down a shaft 351 feet deep
and nine feet across to generate the compressed air that
supplies the area's mines. The Ontario Hydro Electric
Commission engineers who operate the plant are said to view
the giant trompe with some disdain, since—except for
a simple water-flow control—it has no moving parts,
relies on no computers, makes no noise, and doesn't pollute
the environment. So far, however, the mining companies have
successfully resisted attempts to have the plant replaced
with something more "modern".
