Bladeless wind turbine - GIF

[mwmkravchenko]

We use ground return transmission all the time for power transmission. It's not that interesting actually. No worse than having electrified 3rd rails for trains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return

I am aware of this. I do not know the entire system dynamics as in the voltage through the ground and the return path in Amperes. I should look this up. Fill in a few holes in my understanding. What I was specifically referring to was the Colorado Springs experiments where Tesla was trying to use the earth as a part of a resonant system that made a lot of people and animals rather uncomfortable due to the millions of volts he was trying to pump into the ground. And yes I understand the basics of how a power generation ground grid is installed at a generator and the return path is indeed the ground. Every house has ground rods or ground plates. I have wired up quite a few homes and understand that end of the system a little more.

The second through the air system was at Wardencliff funded by J.P. Morgan until he found out that Tesla was trying to make electricity free. That's the one that would never really work on the scale that Tesla was hoping for.

Nicola Tesla had his brilliant side for engineering problems. But life in general and concept of profit making was not one of his strong points.

There are enormous qualities of electricity generated high up in the atmosphere by the solar wind magnetosphere interaction. Just not so easy to get it to plug into and be useful. Also some of Teslas presumptions of how the atmosphere would work proved to be totally wrong for large scale through the air transmission of electricity. The ionosphere was unknown for example.

[nova_robotics]

I am aware of this. I do not know the entire system dynamics as in the voltage through the ground and the return path in Amperes. I should look this up. Fill in a few holes in my understanding. What I was specifically referring to was the Colorado Springs experiments where Tesla was trying to use the earth as a part of a resonant system that made a lot of people and animals rather uncomfortable due to the millions of volts he was trying to pump into the ground

Oh sorry I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about ground conduction.

I worked with a man from India years ago and I think he explained it perfectly. He explained that his ideas are like his children, and that he wants to see all of them succeed. At the time he was advocating for some really unwise design changes, but recognized that he had to pull back and stop promoting his idea even though he wanted to see it succeed. You can see that same thing happen all the time. People have an idea, and it may even be a very good one, but they immediately over-apply it as a solution to all of the world's problems because they want to see it succeed. Tesla's genius was induction and resonant systems. Induction is one of the most important developments in human history. It is a tool for a great many jobs, but it is not the tool for every job. Can't transmit power practically with it. Like all fields it drops off exponentially with distance. It's why wireless cell phone chargers only work over a distance of a cm or so, and end up leaking half of their energy to the environment. And Tesla's ground vibrator idea for power transmission was just idiotic. You can't shake the ground then pick up those vibrations with what is essentially a shake flashlight as a means of transferring power. That's insane. Yes it's an extension of Tesla's understanding of resonant systems, no it is not a practical idea that deserves to succeed. Tesla was a genius, but everyone is wrong some of the time. Shaking the ground is one of those times.

I live near Ottawa and yes there are many more Solar arrays then even ten years ago. Trouble is that there is not the true infrastructure to keep it working out to the full possibilities. Utility style batteries are only beginning to be available at realistic prices and capacities. A few in Canada mind you, in Ontario and Alberta. Wind and solar applications. What we could really use is a truly engineered distributed grid. A few full container sized battery packs per so much generation. Possibly it will happen. I certainly hope so.

I totally agree. Energy storage is the biggest problem we're facing right now. All the other puzzle pieces are falling into place. Storage is the main thing holding us back. I worked with a few companies that are pitching solutions to this, but it's all snake oil. They have nothing. Just more investor scams. But unfortunately if you say the right combination of buzzwords investors will shower you with money. I'm about 50% sure these were bad faith companies at the start, but I am 100% sure they are bad faith companies now.

I think high voltage DC interconnects will alleviate a huge part of the storage problem. If you connect your grid to a different grid a few timezones over, you can import solar energy when you don't have it, and export it when the other grid doesn't have it. We're starting to see this, but a few grids (cough, Texas Interconnection, cough) are holdouts for purely political reasons.

[mwmkravchenko]

I worked with a few companies that are pitching solutions to this, but it's all snake oil. They have nothing. Just more investor scams. But unfortunately if you say the right combination of buzzwords investors will shower you with money. I'm about 50% sure these were bad faith companies at the start, but I am 100% sure they are bad faith companies now.

Nothing is different in audio. I consulted for one job for a company in Montreal claiming to be making graphene loudspeaker cones. It was totally smoke an mirrors. The process took hours. Real life it takes seconds. They were an I.P shell game that had 20 patents one of the Phd's I had to explain things to every few hours Only one of the guys a Russian young man with multiple Phd's was truly intelligent and could make things. The rest were with their heads in the clouds and working the system to create patents and make millions on the IPO.