Re:Re: Then I guess this doesn't count either....*

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>

In a message dated 2/9/01 4:17:47 PM Pacific Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

Steve Rosenthal stated:

<<  And since then engineers have been educated to
<< think that's all there is, don't even think about anything else, free
<< energy..preposterous!!!! Anyone who even thinks about such an oulanddish
<<  idea is a wacko. And so our old friend Nicola Tesla has been painted for 
all
<< these years as the cheif wacko, his name and memory have been removed from
<< the history books, his good name defamed, and all the rest.  >>

Hi Steve, all,
You bring out some good points and, altough I'm no engineer myself,
I do have a basic comprehension of the physical laws of the universe
regarding energy and matter. All of the complex mathematics of the 
designer Tesla coil programs often leave my poor head spinning, but 
I do have a basic knowledge of the laws of thermodynamics and the 
conservation of matter and energy. Wireless transmission of power is 
already a reality, at least in the laboratory (HAARP), but the bottom 
line is that no matter how power is distributed, it still takes the same
amount of energy or work to generate X amount of power and no one 
or entity is going to be able to generate practical, usuable amounts 
of power without disbursing some funds; and no one or entity can con-
tinue to dig into there own back pockets to freely distribute power to 
the energy starved masses of the world without obtaining some form of 
retribution for their efforts and expenditures.

With communications, the service of communication itself is the commo-
dity that is being provided and not the miniscule levels of energy that are 
being utilized to distribute the commodity of communication, that can ea-
sily be intersected by anyone with the appropriate receiver. With television
and radio, the advertisers are the entities who are footing the bill for the 
transmission of the communiucations on the gamble that the consumers
are going to reimburse them for their expense of advertising by purchasing
their services.

With power distribution, the usuable energy or power itself is the commo-
dity that must be accounted for. Just like natural gas or oil, electrical pow-
er is a definite energy commodity and whether it is transmitted via wires or
the upper atmosphere, it still takes 3412 BTU's or 1.34 horse power to gen-
erate every kilowatt of electrical power. It is obvious that the over head 
would be lower though if power utility companies could do away with the
power grid distribution system (towers, cables, insulators, maint & upkeep,
ect), providing that they could reliably charge and collect for the service of
energy that they were providing. John Couture has proposed a way to do
this on page 26-3 under the "Electrical Energy Billing" paragraph in his Tes-
la Coil Design Manual. Since, as I stated earlier, I am no engineer, I am in 
no way qualified to comment on the feasibility of this idea, or anyone elses
ideas regarding this issue, for that matter, but I think that there is enough 
collective knowledge on this list to work out a plausible solution to this 
pro-
blem. 

In conclusion, I believe Nikola Tesla's dream of wireless power distribution
is a very real possibilty, and I agree the EEs of today need to do away with
that paradigm that wireless power distribution is a pipe dream. However, we
should also realize that it is still not going to be a "free lunch", even if 
we 
figure out a practical way to generate and distribute electrical power without
the bounds of wires.

>From my soapbox,
David Rieben