 The next
engineering innovation
that I want to uncover is
the crucial invention that
turned steam into movement.
It's an invention that was
so efficient and so effective
that a hundred years
later, it's still being
used in modern power plants.
It's a steam turbine.
Buck had six of them,
and they're a huge.
[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]
Three months in, and
they're next on the list
for destruction.
The team is preparing to cut
them apart and recycle them.
The turbine casing alone
weighs around 10,000 pounds.
For the salvage team,
that could mean $20,000.
What I'm excited about are
the huge circular elements
revealed inside.
They're the turbine
blades, and they're really
clever pieces of engineering.
A turbine works on
an ancient principle
that by moving one
large wheel connected
to the other small wheels,
you can convert thermal energy
into mechanical
energy, using moving
water or air to turn a wheel.
Romans employed the technique
to grind corn as early as 70 BC,
and windmills were invented
over a thousand years ago.
Both are ancestors of
Buck's huge turbines,
which use steam
instead of air or water
to turn giant fan blades.
These fan blades are
mounted on a central shaft.
The high-pressure
steam from the boiler
is pumped into the
turbine casing.
As it's forced over
the fan blades,
the steam spins the blades
and drives the shaft.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
The earliest turbines produce
just under eight kilowatts
of power, but the
genius of that invention
was its ability to scale up
dramatically, here at Buck,
by a factor of 10,000.
Those turbines produce 80,000
kilowatts of power each.
