Atop a small mountain in Colorado Springs sat the small, makeshift laboratory of Nikola Tesla. He chose this location because the air was thinner, and therefor more conductive. Tesla had come to believe that he could use the Earth as a conductor, and use it to send electrical power without the need for wires. Though some facts are forever lost, it is said that on a clear, moonless night, Tesla flipped the switch that fed millions of volts into a large coil that towered high into the air. He cackled maniacally as an eerie blue corona formed around the crackling instruments, while some 200 florescent bulbs began to glow over 25 miles away.
A magnificent feat took place in the hills of Colorado that night. A feat that surely would change the world in how it harnessed electricity. A feat that if brought to its full potential, could provide wireless power to every point on the globe. A feat that took place almost one hundred and twenty years ago…
J.P. Morgan, who was locked in a battle with John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie to see who had the largest private parts, probably cared little about the implications of Tesla’s big idea of wireless power transmission when he contacted him. After reading a page out of Century Magazine about the experiment, Morgan took interest in its profitability and offered Tesla some much needed funding.
This brings us to the well known Wardenclyffe Tower, which was built on Long Island, NY in 1901. Tesla told Morgan that he could transmit information all the way to Europe. Long story short – it didn’t work. Some guy across the pond by the name of Guglielmo Marconi, while making use of some 17 of Telsa’s patents, made the worlds first functioning radio. And at a cost far cheaper than Tesla’s tower.
So here we are, a century later, and two Russian engineers want to do what Nikola Tesla could not. What we want to know is: is it possible. They claim that it is, of course. They’ve already made some headway with a small amount of funding. Now they want to build it. Build it again. They want to build another “Wardenclyffe Tower” with modern technology, including an Arduino. The original tower was over 60 tons. Theirs will only be two tons. They say they can put these towers all over the world, and get wireless power to the global population. But will it work?
So break out your calculators and physics books. We want to know – is it possible?
Filed under: Ask Hackaday, classic hacks, Crowd Funding
