Re: Wireless power transmission

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>

"Original poster: "Paul B. Brodie" <pbbrodie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Malcolm,
Yes, it is hard to imagine the environmental impact of transmitting all
the
worlds electrical power through the earth!!!
Paul Brodie"

	See below.  If you believe Tesla was not lying in his patent
applications (some "true believers" have suggested he was, to "confuse
his enemies" and that his real plan was "secret"), his plan was to
transmit power through an ionized part of the upper atmosphere, with
return circuit through the ground.  A "two-wire" scheme where one wire
was in the sky; similar transmission systems have been rather widely
used, replacing the sky with a wire on poles and using an earth ground
return circuit with accompanying problems with interference.  Bottom
line - he didn't really propose to transmit power through the earth
alone (in spite of what he said about "driving currents into the
ground").

	Unfortunately, the proposed system has innumerable faults and could
never have worked as proposed.  I've pretended that I was going to build
such a system and "worked out the numbers", which show how absurd his
idea was.  Too long to post here but would be glad to send it to any
challengers.  The only reasonable explanation for his claims has to be
that he got carried away with his imagination and never bothered to
design such a system, something of which he was perfectly capable based
on the examples of calculations he did in CSN.  If he had I'm sure he'd
have realized it was impractical and abandoned the idea.  For whatever
reason he didn't.

Ed

EXCERPTS FROM PATENT #645,576
 ("Dr. Nicola Tesla, Complete Patents")

"Expressed briefly, my present invention, based on these discoveries,
consists then in producing at one plint an electrical pressure of such
character and magnitude as to cause thereby a current to traverse
elevated strata of air between the points of generation and a distant
point at which the energy is to be received and utilized."  Lines
114-121, page 313.

"In the transmitting apparatus the Coil A constitutes the high-tension
secondary and the coil C the primary of much lower tension of a
transformer.  - - - One terminal of the secondary is . . . led by a
conductor B to a terminal D ... maintained . . . at an elevation
suitable for the purposes of transmission, as described."  Lines 2-13,
page 314.

	This is clearly and undeniably the description of a system for
transmitting power by producing a high voltage between a ground terminal
and the conducting elevated strata, and transmitting it by means of a
conducting path through the earth and a path throw the "elevated
strata".  No mention of "longitudinal waves" or ground waves.