What’s Inside The Hoover Dam?
The Hoover Dam is one of man’s most amazing engineering achievements. If you’ve never been to see it, get it on your bucket list. It really is a wonder to behold and the science involved in designing and creating the dam is often mind-blowing.
Construction on the dam began during the Great Depression in 1931 and was completed in 1935. The dam sits on the border of Arizona and Nevada and created Lake Mead — the largest reservoir in the US.
Thousands of unemployed men and women swarmed the site and labored day and night pouring concrete by the bucket until its completion. It generates power for public and private utilities in California, Nevada, and Arizona.
The U.S. Department of the Interior gave us an exclusive tour of the dam — from the inside! The first thing we did was take an elevator 500 feet down to the ground floor of the dam. After walking through a few tunnels we made it to the main generator room filled with giant turbines.
Two million watts of energy are produced every year in this generator room. The water comes from above and travels into the turbines which spin (creating electricity) and then water is emptied out the other side into the Colorado River.
There are 17 total turbines (8 on the Nevada side/9 on the Arizona side) and within four seconds they can start creating energy. Pretty amazing. Inside of each turbine is a 1.2-ton copper structure that encapsulates magnets that spin and create energy.
Inside the turbine sits a massive metal structure consisting of mini “buckets” which scoop and spin water around inside. That energy then allows the magnets inside to spin and create electricity. It’s such a cool piece of machinery. So powerful — yet elegant.
Further beneath the dam lies the inner workings of a power plant with its massive structures for pumping and circulating water in and out of the turbines. Each turbine has its own dedicated 13-foot pipe rushing water to and from. A series of tunnels lead us to the area directly below the “penstocks” or the massive pipes which circulate all of the water into the dam.
One of the many amazing facts we learned about the dam is that the entirety of the Colorado River passes through the penstocks and the turbines.
The power the dam generates allows for it to be self-sustaining. In other words, the sale of the energy allows the dam to function as well as for the repayment of the construction costs associated with building the structure.
Nearly 30% of the energy created by the dam is sent to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California with 23% going to the state of Nevada and 19% going to the state of Arizona
The Hoover Dam is a modern marvel and really speaks to the ingenuity and creativity of our nation during a time of severe need.
To see our full tour of the Hoover Dam, see our YouTube video here:
