megawatts by microwave

In 1914 the Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Reclamation, investigated the possibilities of developing the Columbia River. Thousands of arid but potentially fertile acres needed only water to become the Imperial Valley of the Northwest. Locked in the mountain ranges were valuable ores awaiting electricity to turn them into needed metals. Two years later the State engineer of Oregon urged the development of the Bonneville site as a national-defense measure: he saw in the proposed power project a source of fertilizer in time of peace and nitrates in time of war. The dam also would completely drown out the Cascade Rapids and extend slack-water navigation some 40 miles eastward to The Dalles. The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1925 directed the Secretary of War, through the Corps of Engineers, United States Army, to prepare and submit to the Congress an estimate of the cost of surveys, examinations, and investigations of all navigable streams and their tributaries where power…