Wireless Electricity

[TH]

Tesla had a working wireless power transmitter that drew power from the earths magnetic field, and was able to power lights 25 miles away.

[Jeff Wisnia]

Cite please?

Jeff

[Jeff Wisnia]

The current theme seems to be that large scale electricity production from wind power suffers from the variability of winds and the lack of cost effective ways for storing large amounts of excess energy produced during off peak hours.

However, I recently read that the Swiss are using elevated artificial lakes in the mountains into which water is pumped by excess wind power. The water is allowed to flow back down through hydroelectic generators when direct wind power generation is lacking.

Jeff

[TH]

What, are you unable to use the internet? Not hard just google "tesla wireless power".

[Douglas Johnson]

Detroit Edison built such a thing ca. 1970 in Lundington Michigan. It is used to "store" power from their nuclear plants.

see:

?id=31

-- Doug

[bud--]

The "power transmitter" was a huge Tesla coil. It was powered by the Colorado Springs power utility.

There is a great picture of Tesla reading a book inside the coil with arcing all around him. Unfortunately it is a double exposure.

[bud--]

It is "pumped storage". IIRC some of the Niagra power uses pumped storage.

[Dave Martindale]

The large pumped storage ponds are clearly visible in Google Earth, about halfway between Niagara Falls itself and Lake Ontario. They are used to store water at night, when electrical demand is lower and more water can be diverted from the falls. During the day, the water is released and flows through the pond's pump/turbines, then through the main powerhouse turbines.

Dave

[Jim Elbrecht]

There's another here-

It's halfway to NY City from the falls- but the power from the falls is what pumps the water back up at night.

Jim

[Dave Martindale]

Interesting; I hadn't heard of that one before.

The Blenheim-Gilboa installation seems to be a pure energy storage project. It converts electrical energy into water potential energy when electricity is available and cheap, then converts the water back into electrical energy when electricity is scarce and expensive. What you get out is less than what you put in.

For the Niagara Falls reservoirs, the lift into the reservoirs is very small, so it doesn't take much energy to store water and you don't get much back when you release it. The main benefit is from storing water

*before* it passes through the main plant's turbines, at inlet head. This extra water can then be used during the day, when the generating utilities are not allowed to draw enough water from the river above the falls to operate the main plant at full capacity.

Dave

[Jeff Wisnia]

I've read many references about Tesla and wireless power transmission, but I've always been skeptical about that Colorado Springs lighting of numerous bulbs at a distance of 25 miles.

Tesla's character appeared in the 2006 movie "Prestige". David Bowie played Tesla.

Jeff

[Cam in Toronto]

Plug in to a Currant bush

Cam

[David Nebenzahl]

On 7/17/2008 9:35 AM Jeff Wisnia spake thus:

You're right to be skeptical here. Tesla's *genius* is somewhat overblown, and he was something of a "mad scientist", kind of like Wilhelm Reich (of orgone energy fame).

[Mike S.]

There is a large ( 400 MW) pumped storage facility in New Jersey as well, I often drive through it on the way into our local boy scout camp.

[terry]

Interesting troll!

Reminds that there was a newspaper article some 60 years ago, about someone living very close to a radio broadcasting station (AM Band) who constructed a large loop in his shed at the end of his garden and adjacent to the transmitting antenna. He tuned the loop to the frequency of the transmitting station and was able to extract at the range of a few hundred feet enough energy to light a very small bulb. Which he used occasionally to light his shed.

The downside and reason it got into the press was that he was prosecuted and fined "For theft of electricity"! Seemed like rather humourless response to an ingenious idea. But guess you can't have people soaking up all those transmitted radio waves and using anything other than a few micro-watts to operate their radio?

Comes to mind though; if the individual had also attached a pair of head phones and a detector diode he could have perhaps have claimed it was no more than a large 'crystal' radio? All of which can operate without batteries or external power of any kind.