It's winter in the Snowy Mountains and activity is hotting up at the Snowy 2.0 construction sites!
There's already more than 1,000 people working on the massive pumped-hydro project and at Tantangara, 50-t and 25-t excavators are hard at work on the headrace tunnel adit on the TBM portal in rugged, wintry conditions.
At Lobs Hole, major progress has been made at the Emergency, Cable and Ventilation Tunnel portal.
Tunnelling is underway, with the Lady Eileen Hudson TBM on the move. It is more than 30m into the mountainside. It’s the first TBM to be used in the project and it is excavating the 2.6 km main access tunnel.
Last two Snowy 2.0 TBMs Names announced
Snowy Hydro announced the winning names for two of the Snowy 2.0 TBMS: Kirsten and Florence.
Named after ground breaking Australian women from science, technology engineering and maths (STEM), as part of the Snowy 2.0 TBM Naming Competition, astrophysicist Kirsten Banks and Australia's first electrical engineer Florence Violet McKenzie received the majority of public votes.
The three Snowy 2.0 TBMs now all have names, with the first titled Lady Eileen Hudson, in honour of the original Snowy Scheme ambassador and wife of inaugural Commissioner, Sir William Hudson.
Kirsten Banks is an astrophysicist, science communicator and proud Wiradjuri woman. She loves to share her passion for the stars and is well-known for her short and entertaining TikTok videos about space and astronomy. Currently she is doing a PhD in the field of galactic archaeology, studying the stars of the Milky Way to uncover secrets of its formation and evolution.
Florence Violet McKenzie (1890 - 1982) is best known for her contribution to women’s technical education and for creating the Women’s Emergency Signalling Corps during World War II. She taught women telegraphy so they could replace men in this civilian occupation, however, she also trained more than 12,000 servicemen in morse code.
Click here for a video on July updates showing tunnelling progress at the main access tunnel portal works at the Emergency, Cable and Ventilation Tunnel portal and at the main construction site. Click here for more detailed information on the project, here and au/38 for the tunnelbuilder archive and visit https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/. 30/21.
