How Tesla destroyed our cities with Alternating Current (AC) electricity ⚡️steemCreated with Sketch.

in #tesla2 years ago (edited)

Lots of people say that Tesla was a Genius for his many inventions.

Free Power and blah blah blah.

Well one invention of Tesla’s set us back many hundreds of years.

Alternating Current (AC) and all his wires that fill the sky.

Do you ever look up when you’re walking in the City ? Ever notice all those ugly hydro wires strung from pole to pole to bring Electricity to every home ?

Yeah ? Ugly eh. That was Tesla’s invention.

If we would have stuck with Thomas Edison’s Direct Current (DC) Power we would not have any of these ugly wires. Every home would have been powered by its own Offgrid Power plant…. Solar, wind, hydro, Dynamo, Fusion.

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Source: https://www.istockphoto.com/search/2/image?phrase=hydro+lines

Here is the story:

Starting in the late 1880s, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla were embroiled in a battle now known as the War of the Currents.

Edison developed direct current -- current that runs continually in a single direction, like in a battery or a fuel cell. During the early years of electricity, direct current (shorthanded as DC) was the standard in the U.S. But there was one problem. Direct current is not easily converted to higher or lower voltages.

Tesla believed that alternating current (or AC) was the solution to this problem. Alternating current reverses direction a certain number of times per second -- 60 in the U.S. -- and can be converted to different voltages relatively easily using a transformer.

Edison, not wanting to lose the royalties he was earning from his direct current patents, began a campaign to discredit alternating current. He spread misinformation saying that alternating current was more dangerous, even going so far as to publicly electrocute stray animals using alternating current to prove his point.

The Chicago World’s Fair -- also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition -- took place in 1893, at the height of the Current War.General Electric bid to electrify the fair using Edison’s direct current for $554,000, but lost to George Westinghouse, who said he could power the fair for only $399,000 using Tesla’s alternating current.
That same year, the Niagara Falls Power Company decided to award Westinghouse -- who had licensed Tesla’s polyphase AC induction motor patent -- the contract to generate power from Niagara Falls. Although some doubted that the falls could power all of Buffalo, New York, Tesla was convinced it could power not only Buffalo, but also the entire Eastern United States.

On Nov. 16, 1896, Buffalo was lit up by the alternating current from Niagara Falls. By this time General Electric had decided to jump on the alternating current train, too. It would appear that alternating current had all but obliterated direct current, but in recent years direct current has seen a bit of a renaissance.

Today our electricity is still predominantly powered by alternating current, but computers, LEDs, solar cells and electric vehicles all run on DC power. And methods are now available for converting direct current to higher and lower voltages. Since direct current is more stable, companies are finding ways of using high voltage direct current (HVDC) to transport electricity long distances with less electricity loss. So it appears the War of the Currents may not be over yet. But instead of continuing in a heated AC vs. DC battle, it looks like the two currents will end up working parallel to each other in a sort of hybrid armistice. And none of that would be possible without the genius of both Tesla and Edison.

Source: https://www.energy.gov/articles/war-currents-ac-vs-dc-power

I’m very interested in running everything from 100 watt solar panel and a battery like the Jackery 240…

https://amzn.to/40MWpca

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Interesting topic covered

I’m very interested in running everything from 100 watt solar panel and a battery like the Jackery 240…

https://amzn.to/40MWpca

09CB92E9-56CB-4981-9BA0-51A89A2385F1.jpeg

3BD29188-0B5C-457A-B559-5BF385D3451C.jpeg

Yup, those wires are in fact ugly (in Europe, they mostly put them underground, so it doesn't look as bad). Today it is hard to find information, but I did read that Nicolas Tesla (the real Tesla) actually was able to make electricity travel without the use of any wires (a wireless grid), but sadly it was not adopted nor went further. Too bad, it would of been perfect.

As far as I know, Tesla was just working on transmitting electricity wirelessly over long distances. Such technology existed before him.

Either he was ahead of time, or someone really didn't want to promote his ideas...

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