This wasn’t just any field trip. On Thursday, school kids visited the out-of-the-way laboratory in Hazel Dell where lightning lives.
They saw it unleashed in a cavernous high-voltage lab. After the lights were turned off, a crackling bolt of electrical energy lit up the pitch-black space, accompanied by the boom of man-made thunder.
The youngsters were touring the Bonneville Power Administration’s Ross Complex during Take Your Child to Work Day. At a series of labs and shops, scientists and engineers demonstrated some of the characteristics of electricity. Others explained how BPA employees keep the power running along the grid.
That’s why “We’re going to make lightning inside a building today,” electrical engineer Jeff Hildreth told his guests.
“All the power-system equipment is outside, and it’s struck by lightning all the time,” Hildreth said. “It’s my job to make sure that everything keeps working. We can test the equipment with lightning to make sure it keeps working.”
While Ross Complex is a secure federal facility, it is open one week in the fall and one week in the spring in conjunction with Take Your Child to Work Day, administrative assistant Kelly Payne said.
She was planning for 560 visitors Thursday, with programming geared toward students.
“It’s a good way to stimulate their minds and get them interested in careers” in science and engineering, Payne said.
“I really like all types of learning and science,” said Shilo Lawrence, a sophomore at Vancouver’s Skyview High School. “The people who gave the presentations made it easily understandable.”
Turner, 16, said she is thinking about a future in the biomedical field or in technology.
But you didn’t have to be a tech-head to enjoy Thursday’s show.
“This is not exactly my passion,” Jake Heinrich said after the tour. Still, the 8-year-old said: “It was amazing! Loud and amazing!”
The thunder-and-lightning show in the high-voltage lab wasn’t the only display that lit things up. Electrical engineer Mick Johnson demonstrated an effect called a corona — an electrical field that can form around lines and towers. It provides a dazzling show in a darkened lab, but it can cause an annoying buzz, and interfere with radio and TV reception.
A corona also wastes power, Hildreth said during his presentation.
“We have 15,000 miles of power lines in the BPA,” Hildreth said. If they didn’t deal with the corona problem, the outcome of an entire power plant could go to just “making a buzzing, annoying sound.”
