loren@pixar (Loren Carpenter) (09/24/86)
In article <808@aicchi.UUCP> dbb@aicchi.UUCP (Burch) writes: >In article <22100001@uiucuxa> pax@uiucuxa.CSO.UIUC.EDU writes: >> >>Can anyone explain in simple terms why broadcast power isn't used? >>I have supposed that it must be inefficient, have undesirable >>side-effects, or make billing impossible, but I'd like to know specifically. >>The reason I ask is that it would eliminate a lot of cords, there are a lot >>more than there used to be, in an office or home if there were a way to >>use it on such a small scale. > >Broadcast power intensity decreases as one moves away from the transmitter >by the ratio of the square of the distance. Newton discovered this law when >he was examining universal gravitation, but it works for all broadcast energy. > >Nicolai Tesla had built a broadcast power setup, and it worked, but the waste >of power was such that nobody could afford to use it. In another context, >broadcast power (confined to tight beams) is being considered today for space >operations. Spies use broadcast power to re-charge spy devices which they >cannot get physical access to. It is the method of choice where wires cannot >be run, and where stored enery of self-generated energy are not possible. !!!!! Nikola Tesla (please note the spelling) did NOT, I repeat NOT, build a "broadcast", i.e. inverse square, power system. The principle was totally different and it worked and it wasn't terribly inefficient. It probably wouldn't be practical today as it would interfere with a lot of our electronic systems. Ok, then, what was it??? Well, for the frequencies he was working with (~1-200 khz) the earth is a conductor, the air is an insulator, and the ionosphere is a conductor; relatively speaking. So what one has is a BIG spherical capacitor. Also, any real physical system has a mix of capacitance, inductance, and resistance. This "capacitor" (the earth) has a resonant frequency determined by its capacitance and its inductance. This frequency, he wrote, was in the ~150 khz range. The idea is to pump power into the "capacitor" at its resonant frequency, thus making it available anywhere over the earth, including in the air, with NO INVERSE SQUARE LOSSES. He found the resonant frequency by tuning into the decaying ringing following a lightning stroke. He demonstrated the "transmission" of power in Colorado 90 years ago by lighting several kilowatts of lightbulbs miles away from his "transmitter". Why didn't it succeed? Well, would you invest in a system where somebody in Tanganyika could suck out most every kilowatt-hour you put into it? Not even the U.S. Government would fall for that. It's all there in the patents and articles. Loren^ {sun,ucbvax}!pixar!loren