Good Post TheRedNeck.
You are quite correct in saying that it was Westinghouse that crushed Tesla's plans for the wireless transmission of power, however, I do think you
may have extrapolated too much into the situation.
After all, wireless electromagnetic energy transmission was not commonly employed by very many people since by the time Tesla had arrived in Colorado
Springs in 1899. Even Marconi 'perfected' his system in 1901.
(So well indeed did Marconi perfect his world changing system that Tesla had to sue him for copyright infringement in 1915 due to a suspicious
resemblance that Marconi's work bore to Tesla's patent of March 20 1900 for the
System of Transmission of Electrical Energy as you can see from the
New York Times Article of August 4, 1915 ).
But...
To answer N_15L_S01's question.
Unfortunately I suspect you may have grabbed the wrong end of the stick on this one.
Yes, Tesla did propose an experimentally verifiable method for the transmission of power without wires (which he then calculated and tested at his
Colorado Springs lab, to, in my view 'funny as hell' results), but no... It was neither clean or safe.
In effect, it was actually a very simple idea but you should do some reading on the mechanism of action of the 'Tesla Coil' first since the coil
forms its basis
... err OK then.
Simply put, a Tesla coil is in effect a resonating high voltage air core transformer that turns a measly few kilovolts into the slightly more
entertaining range of millions of volts (with which, if you are so inclined, can do amusingly insane things).
It works by taking a 'Pulsed' AC current in one circuit and via inductance creates a sympathetic current in a secondary circuit.
As the charge within the secondary circuit builds it creates and accompanying electromagnetic field.
When the capacitance of the secondary circuit reaches maximum and can hold no more charge, the current in the secondary stops and the magnetic field
within it collapses.
As the magnetic field within the secondary collapses it creates an opposing electromagnetic current equal and opposite to the original current
(created by the inductance from the primary circuit), with its own corresponding magnetic field etc etc.
As long as the primary and secondary circuits are in phase and the circuits are correctly tuned the resonance within the secondary will build as will
its corresponding charge.
Eventually the capacitance of the air around the secondary circuit will break down as the voltage of the capacitor (the classical toroid described by
TheRedNeck) terminating the secondary circuit exceeds the resistance of the air and you will see the classical spark discharge associated with TC's
as the atmosphere itself turns to conductive plasma giving all those lovely electrons somewhere to go..
Basically, it's a straight forward feedback circuit entirely dependent on the resonance frequencies of the circuits involved.
Now...
The Air transmission of power.
Dead Easy.
Tesla wanted to replace his lower voltage primary with a big high voltage coil, i.e.
www.teslasociety.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">the Wardenclyffe
Tower, and use the entirety of the earth as the resonating secondary circuit.
Whenever any individual person on the globe needed electricity all they would need to do was tune any individual circuit to the resonance frequency of
the planet and....hey presto.. more power than you could imagine!
....not energy free of environmental requirement... but energy free of personal cost.
After all, how could you possible charge people for such a thing since you couldn't possibly tell who was using it?
Simple wot?
(TBC)
[edit on 11-4-2008 by Absence of Self]
[edit on 11-4-2008 by Absence of Self]
[edit on 11-4-2008 by Absence of Self]