The journey to Nikola Teslas dream of free energy for everyone.

Adam Milton-Barker | May 3, 2015 | Disruptive Technologies | 15179

 

Nikola Tesla, otherwise known as "the man who invented the 20th century" was born in 1856 in Croatia. One of Tesla's many life changing discoveries included the rotating magnetic field in 1882 which gave the world AC electricity which is still in use around the world today. In 1884 Tesla moved to New York to go and work for Thomas Edison and quickly attracted a lot of attention and his own financial backing which allowed him to set up his laboratories. One thing that Tesla truly believed in was providing free energy to the world and much of his life’s work was geared towards doing just that. In 1899 Tesla made a break through when he wirelessly transmitted 100 million volts of electric power over a distance of 26 miles and lit up 200 light bulbs and powered an electric motor. Tesla received funding of $150000 from JP Morgan to finance the building of the Wardenclyffe Tower (The Tesla Tower) in 1900. The tower was 187 feet high and was built with the aim of transmitting electricity around the world as well as telephone messages and military communications. When JP Morgan found out that Tesla was to provide free energy, he sabotaged the project by pulling funding which resulted in the abandonment of the project in 1905. In 1931 Tesla announced in The Brooklyn Eagle that he could harness the energy that powers the universe and use it to give free energy to the masses. "I have harnessed the cosmic rays and caused them to operate a motive device. More than 25 years ago I began my efforts to harness the cosmic rays and I have succeeded. Electric power is everywhere present, in unlimited qualities. This new power for the driving of the world's machinery will be derived from the energy which operates in the universe, without the need for coal, gas, oil, or any other fuel." You can imagine how this statement upset many people, if the world did not need coal, gas or oil, then the corporations that were making millions from selling them would be out of business. Tesla went through a number of patent battles, many of his patents were "lost" and many of his ideas were sabotaged due to the fact that they would of destroyed corporations that were making millions from charging society for energy. Tesla was pushed into poverty, he was labeled as the Mad Scientist and the powers that be made it their mission to ensure that his work did not become publicly known. In 1943 Tesla died at the age of 86, the government confiscated his notes and hid them from the world. Many years later, in 2003 a company named Tesla Motors was incorporated by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Named after Nikola Tesla, the company was to commercialize electric vehicles using an AC motor which was built on the foundations of a design that Nikola designed in 1882. In February 2004 Elon Musk, co founder of PayPal, invested in Tesla and became the Chairman of the company. Tesla Motors have created several electric cars all of which save on energy costs and help the environment by producing zero emissions. Instead of gas stations, Tesla cars can be recharged by using any of a number of FREE charging stations, Tesla owners can simply plug their cars in and in around 20 minutes completely recharge their car, shaking up the motor industry and upsetting fuel providers. More recently the journey to Nikola Teslas dream of free energy for everyone, has come to another major checkpoint. Recently Elon Musk announced Tesla Energy, a battery system that stores electricity from solar panels and can power homes and businesses. There are two products, the Powerwall and the Powerpack. The Powerwall comes as a 10kWh or 7kWh unit and can create networks that can be used to store redundant power or ultimately enable homes to eliminate the need to be connected to the power grid. The Powerpack is on a larger scale aimed at businesses, again the Powerpack can make up networks that can completely eliminate the need for existing energy grids. The Powerpacks are 100kWh units that when connected can as a network can be anything up to and above 10MWh. During a press event Elon Musk stated that with 160 million Powerpacks he could power the entire United States and with 2 billion he could power the entire world. This announcement is no doubt upsetting many corporations, the technology will obviously revolutionize how we power our lives and reduce the cost of powering our homes and businesses to next to nothing. We now live in an era where tech companies and developers are starting to change the way our society works in the interests of the public, instead of taking from their communities they are developing the tools that will really enhance the quality of life for millions of people. Free internet, free energy, a healthier environment, these are all things that we can look forward to over the following years. As Musk said, “This is within the power of humanity to do. We have done things like this before. It is not impossible.”