Alternative Electric Transmission

As I recall from my reading the project failed. Tesla got a little wacky toward the end of his life. Who's to say that he might have been onto something but perhaps was way too ahead of his time on that one. Not to mention, who would support such a system that would be very difficult to control with regard to anyone "tapping" the broadcast energy. I thing one of his most powerful contribution is the AC induction motor that he conceived of working in a field in his native country before he ever came to the US. It is relatively unchanged today and powers virtually everything that moves in our home and industry. Very impressive!

Ok so I wasn't dreaming ,maybe he was. I think about it every time I uncoil an electric cord . I wonder if it's mechanically possible to make a version that would plug into an outlet and eliminate cords .Without electrocuting the cat .Until then battery powered tools are advancing and power cells seem close to developement .

His frequencies were too low, and the wave length too long. Whats needed is a way of beaming the energy. We now have this in the form of highly directional antennas / dishes, etc. The problem is, when beaming KW to GW of RF around, something / somebody is bound to intercept the beam and get micro waved! Hey, radar techs have accidentally gotten fried this way. Also, the conversion efficiencies make it un economical. (AC to uW - 50%) x (uW to AC - 50%) = 25%, Ugh! Probably why you will never see the solar power sat system. Ya know, copper aint so bad after all! What we really need is a storage battery as dense as a tank of gas.

I've been looking at alternate energy and methanol seems to be the "tank of gas" your looking for currently developed it takes a lower combustion liquid and converts to electrical energy .It is in competition with Hydrogen cells but from what I've read is the way to go. My understanding is the metal needed to run a fuel cell is exspensive (platinum?) but it works and there is a big move to make it commercialy availible .The whole area of methanol vs. ethanol and hydrogen is very interesting to follow .I think it has a lot of politics involved rather than what's the best concept and how it can be controled and profited .I like methanol check it out see what you think .

The latest stuff I've seen on Catalysts is platinum will not be needed for either Ethanol or Methanol. Ethanol has the advantage of low toxicity, several alcohols are renewable. Try some of the specialised Globalspec sites or try key words like "AC traction" or "Fuel Cell" or "Biodiesel" some marvellous stuff pops up.

I seem to recall Tesla's approaching a major industrialist for funding for the venture and being asked "so how do we charge people for it then?" Funding not forthcoming, of course.

Actually, the solar power satellite concept has a few gimmicks that avoid the main losses. First the power is sent into a large field of small antennas ("Phased array") which provide an extremely directional beam, but with low & limited energy density. Thus, no one gets "fried" by the beam even if they inadvertently pass through it. At ground level, a similar field of "rectennas" (small dipoles plus diodes) receives the energy, bringing what is collected over a large area to a frequency converter to provide AC as an output. I know I read that a horizontal test done somewhere in the desert southwest [25 - 30 years ago!] showed an initial efficiency above 60% from solar cell output to AC grid at the other end. Given that the solar energy itself is FREE (no mining, drilling, etc., and the cost of infrastructure for a solar powerplant should be similar to one burning coal to make steam), the transmission loss isn't such a big deal. With better electronics, and suitable development, I'd bet that better total efficiencies can be had. The rectenna fields would normally be located in unpopulated areas; even closer to population centers, there are gravel pits, former strip mines, etc. that could be used. The next safety factor is simple: send a signal back to the satellite to show that the energy is being received, and arrange that the phasing system shuts down if there's no signal; the sending array goes into an omnidirectional mode, so that energy density is negligible everywhere except adjacent the antennas - and it was already set below safe thresholds to begin with. If the beam's direction is compromised for any reason, so that the sent beam is not directed onto the receiving array, the safety signal is stopped since there's no energy to run it, making this fairly fool-proof. A solar power satellite using reflectors to heat a fluid and run "steam" turbines (with no gravitational load on the bearings, in a CLEAN environment) should be long lived. Sunlight at synchronous orbit is several times as intense as that at Phoenix at noon, but it is available more than 90% of the time, minus only eclipses at precisely predictable times. Turbo-generators could be designed to provide the transmitted frequency [or a sub-multiple], rather than 50 or 60 Hz, saving another conversion loss.

Tesla burned out the biggest generator at Niagra Falls with his experiment but no, it never worked. The inverse square law says the vast, vast majority of the power would be simply dissipated. Crackpot theory. By the way, the famous photo of Tesla sitting in a chair while a nearby Tesla Coil throws thunderbolts was faked. As for his multiphase AC motor, the most significant effect was unintended: once power distribution switched to AC, it became possible to use transformers, thus high voltage, long distance power transmission.

Tesla did not burn out any generators at the Niagra Falls station, but did design all the Westinghouse power generation equipment for that plant. During some of his voltage transmission through the air experiments, he DID destroy a generator out in Colorado, maybe Boulder can't remember, but then went in and rebuilt it making it better. His concept was to broadcast high frequency voltage into the atmosphere so you would only need an antenna and a ground connection to make your electrical devices work. Tesla is the man that made Westinghouse rich but died penniless himself after giving up a penny per horsepower contract he had with that corporation. Tesla envisioned and designed the three-phase rotating field AC system that we use today for power transmission. He is the reason we use AC today instead of Edison's DC. A man of hundreds of patents, he caused the only earthquake NYC has seen when experiementing with resonance. Lots of books out there on the man.

I hate to burst your bubble, but it worked. PJ Morgan was a shrewd investor, and there's no way he would have funded Tesla's tower without seeing a working prototype.

of course, PJ Morgan brought some copper mines, so his focus instantly changed to facilitate his newly acquired wealth of copper and thus focused his intent to best exploiting that wealth even more. Hence transmission of AC power down power lines made from his copper.

Interesting answer but my understanding was that JPM having origionaly backed the project destroyed Tesla socialy and financialy because Tesla wanted the system to be free to all, and JPM wanted to charge for it.

Actually, there is a device that sends power throught the air, and converts it to electricity, but not in the application you are thinking about. If anyone has seen so called "cordless" or "passive" cellular antennas, they work on that principal.

The problem is that the metal structure of your car limits the range of cell-phones, especiailly if you are in a fringe area with low coverage or greater distances between cell towers. If you could easily get the signal to an antenna outside your car, you power level would be boosted, or have "gain". The most efficient way to do that, if your phone has an external antenna connector, would be to connect an external antenna through a co-axial cable that exits the vehicle through a window, door, or trunk seal, or even a hole in the sheet metal. However, most modern cell phones do not have an external jack.

The "passive" antenna is actually two antennas. One inside the vehicle is a "dipole" or two-section antenna that receives the radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic energy (including your voice "signal"), converting it to electrical energy. This RF electrical current passes through a "through glass" transformer mounted on a window or windshield. The internal section of the transformer also holds the dipole antenna. The external section of the transformer is connected to and supports the external antenna.

Now, perhaps a similar device could be used to transmit electrical power through the air, with dipole or other antennas to receive the power and rectifiers to turn it into usable DC, or transformers to change the frequency from RF (many MHz) to standard AC (60 Hz). This system might be practical for household use, but extremely inefficient, as compared to cords or even rechargeable batteries. Also, care would have to be taken that a frequency (or frequencies) would be used that were not harmful to humans or animals nor caused interference or damage to other electrical devices. Frequencies above 30 Mhz are condsidered to be VHF (very high frequency) and UHF (Ultra High Frequency). As is obviously the case with microwaves (extremely high frequency), exposure to high-power VHF and UHF energy is very harmful to humans. In fact Amateur Radio Operators, and other services that use these bands, have very strict rules on power levels and distances between antennas and people.

Since by its very nature, this type of cordless device would likely be near people, VHF, UHF, and higher frequencies would need to be ruled out. This leaves MF and HF frequencies (.100 to 2 Mhz and 2 to 30 MHz). However, at these frequencies the wavelengh is very long (10 M to over 3 kM!), as are highly efficient resonant antennas. The answer is to use less efficient inductively loaded antennas to shorten the length. All of this makes the system bulky, inefficent and costly.

In other words, could it be done, yes. Should it be done, probably not!

I like the comments and thanks for the entertainment . People thought going to the moon was an insane idea as well .But I'm happy to see I got you all riled up thats what we Americans need a good challange .I'm challanging us to find Alternate energy ideas .We have become complacent as we did in the 70s and I see a wave of change to develope energy stratagies to end our reliance on imported fuels .

Tesla's project for wireless power transmission had nothing directly to do with Niagara, Colorado etc. it was initially funded by JP Morgan, under the guise (by Tesla) of being a way to transmit power across the Atlantic to Europe, power for which Morgan could charge (the idea being that Hydro Power in the US could be generated and transmitted cheaper than Europeans could produce it locally). The transmission facility, called Wardenclyffe Tower, was built in New York and got to about 90% completion (IIRC) before JP Morgan came to visit the site and realized, after looking at it, that it's transmission would be unidirectional. he reportedly asked Tesla, "Where will I put my meter?" and Tesla came clean about his egalitarian views of sharing power for the betterment of mankind. Morgan held no such view of the world. That, along with Tesla's extreme cost overruns and delays, is the reason why he did indeed pull the plug and stop construction. It sat fallow for years as Tesla attempted to garner funding elsewhere to finish it, but eventually it was dismantled for scrap to pay off his debts.

http://www.teslasociety.com/teslatower.htm

I seriously doubt that JRaef. And the copper mines are far more likely. Also, while Morgan was an astute business man, and would have considered a way to capitalise on the invention before funding the building of it, I doubt it if Morgan had the capacity to realise that transmission was "undirectional", and had he, would have prompted Tesla to make it directional regardless his egalitarian motives.

but fortunately, JP Morgan cancelled the funding. From what we now know, tonnes of electricity transmitting above our heads would have seriously impeded human development.

The part where the war department removed all transmission apperatus from the eastern side of the us in case they where used for sending information back to germany or its alies was nothing to do with it then ?

Not to mention taking all of Tesla's notes for National Security!