I recall reading some years ago a reply to a question about broadcast power and whether we had ever worked out how to do it.
The reply was that we had worked it out decades ago, as anyone who had ever built a crystal radio could attest. The problem, said the expert, wasn’t working out how to transmit power, but how to transmit “enough power to light up a light bulb without killing everyone between the transmitter and the receiver.”
It’s been done. Power losses are still high but efficiencies are comparable with some other energy conversion devices that we commonly use. It does have some applications but its chief problem is limited effective distance. It lends itself to in-house wireless powering rater thanb long distance transmission.
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html
It’s been done. Power losses are still high but efficiencies are comparable with some other energy conversion devices that we commonly use. It does have some applications but its chief problem is limited effective distance. It lends itself to in-house wireless powering rather than long distance transmission.
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html
And next time I won’t type with my thumbs.
Slight nit-pick: Tesla didn’t “get cuffed” from his royalties. When Westinghouse ran into solvency issues, Tesla voluntarily ripped up his contract, screwing himself out of millions, if not billions of dollars
I always thought Cecil was a bit harsh with Tesla in this article. The guy was an undisputed genius, even if the whole broadcast power thingy was whack. But when you think of all the things he got right, you have to put him the same category as Newton, who spend a good portion of his time doing astrology horseshit, and in his spare time invented whole new fields of science. Tesla was a bit more crazy and eccentric obviously (ok, probably an order of magnitude more nuts), but cut from very similar clothe.
He’s not in the same category as Newton. Very, very few people are: Einstein, and maybe Archimedes, with Maxwell close behind.
You’re right that his genius should be remembered as well as his insanity. But unfortunately, we can’t forget his insanity entirely, like we nearly do with Newton, because too many people still embrace his insanity. Nobody ever says “Astrology must work, because Newton endorsed it”, but people do still say “Broadcast power must work, because Tesla endorsed it”.
But Tesla built working models to demonstrate his theories.
If it was a choice between broadcast power and nuclear power I think broadcast power looks safer. When you turn it off, that’s the end of it.
Except broadcast power such as Tesla envisioned doesn’t scale up. As Cecil mentioned, I’ve seen demonstrations where someone is able turn on a light held in someones hand from across a room. But attempting to power the average families home via broadcast power? No way.
As to nuclear, it’s one of the safest forms of power generation out there, despite the popular misconception that it’s extremely dangerous. More people die every year from the effects of coal fired power plants than have died in the entire history of nuclear energy in the US. Same goes in Russia, and this despite Chernobyl.
I have to laugh at the idea of practical nuclear power.
Where in the world are you going to find enough pitchblende from which to extract radium to power an average home?
I suppose large enough globes of radium paint could be obtained to provide lighting, which would last forever and have positive vitalizing health benefits. But what about generating enough heat for cooking or to keep the home warm?
Most emerging technologies sound like science fiction.
The difference is nuclear power had thousands of the worlds best scientist working on the fundamental research behind it because they wanted to discover new elements and understand the nature of matter.
Broadcast power just had the one guy with a vision. Engineers already had a practical and efficient method of transmitting power through wires for all the projects they were paid to work on.
[QUOTE=Aquadementia]
I have to laugh at the idea of practical nuclear power.
[/QUOTE]
Uh…right. Tell that to the French. 
Have you heard of these new fangled ‘nuclear reactor’ thingies? They seem to do the job pretty well, especially when they are allowed to be built.
You do realize that Tesla is the guy who came up with a practical way to use those wires to transmit power via AC, right? He WAS the guy who pretty much started the whole thing.
His broadcast power concept, however, was and is impractical, which was primarily why it was dropped. It remains impractical to this day. If it COULD be done, someone would be doing it, since it would cost so much less to simply broadcast power, especially where there is no power infrastructure in place. Unfortunately, reality rears it’s ugly head.
Radium? Radium is used as a radiation source in medicine, and has many other applications, but nuclear power is not one of them. Nuclear reactors use uranium.
Uranium (not radium) is extracted from pitchblende, but pitchblende isn’t that hard to find. It’s mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Australia, Germany, England, and South Africa, and in the United States in New Hampshire, Connecticut, North Carolina, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.
I think Aquadementia’s point is that nuclear power was developed after it was initially conceived, unlike broadcast power. That is, if you look at the ideas for nuclear power way back at the beginning, they would seem unrealistic, as does broadcast power.
To be clear, I don’t think there is any way to make broadcast power realistic at scale.