From the pastoral to the Promethean: Electric power regimes in the Pacific Northwest and the rhetoric of the electrical sublime

This is a study of the electric power regimes in the Pacific Northwest and the manner in which cultural values interact with technological systems and the utilization of natural resources. The regimes examined include: the large-scale federal hydroelectric development that began in the 1930s and continued through the 1960s; the Pacific Northwest-Southwest Direct-Current Intertie, which allowed for the export of power beyond the Columbia River watershed; the hydro-therma regime, which involved an aborted attempt to build the nation's most ambitious nuclear power network during the 1970s, under the initial auspices of WPPSS, the Washington Public Power Supply System; and lastly, the consequences of the priority given to conservation, renewable energy resources, and fish (mostly salmon) and wildlife protection in the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act of 1980. This inter-state compact mandates widespread public participation in the management of the Columbia River and its tributaries as both an ecological and a technological system.;Themes of regionalism, sectionalism, decentralization, watershed planning, public participation, and natural resource policy are examined. Also discussed are the aesthetic dimensions of electric power, including: the use of electrical spectacle; the promotion of a middle landscape as a consequence of electrical development; and the association of parks and recreational activities with hydroelectric and nuclear power development.;In the Northwest, electric power became strongly associated with regional identity, utopian social ideas, landscape aesthetics, and recreational amenities. An examination of regional histories, newspaper features, Bonneville Power and other Federal agency publications, WPPSS materials, public and investor-owned utility records, including advertising, promotional activities, and corporate reports, reveals a persistent engagement with the rhetoric of the electrical sublime as form of regional narrative. Aspects of the sublime, which had previously been attributed to nature and landscape features, are used to describe electrical technology and its benefits. The electrical sublime is a matrix of cultural values that surfaces as a recurring theme in the region's energy discourse, serving to both inform and inhibit the direction of the region's electric power development and helping to form the regional identity of the Pacific Northwest.