Edison Publicly Tortured Animals To Discredit AC Power - KnowledgeNuts KnowledgeNuts Edison Publicly Tortured Animals To Discredit AC Power By Andrew Handley on Saturday, October 19, 2013 “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.” — Thomas Edison In A Nutshell In an effort to showcase the dangers of alternating current (AC) and discredit Nicola Tesla, Thomas Edison held public demonstrations in which he electrocuted animals—dogs, cats, horses, and even an elephant—in front of an audience. The Whole Bushel The bitter rivalry between Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla is now the stuff of legend, and it all came to a head during the War of the Currents. On the one side, Edison felt that direct current (DC) was the wave of the future. On the other side, Tesla believed that alternating current (AC) was more efficient for transmitting power over longer distances. Edison launched a massive public campaign to discredit AC, while Tesla partnered with financial mogul George Westinghouse in an attempt to convince power companies to switch over to AC using Tesla’s patented AC induction motor.

By this point, the two inventors were old acquaintances, although there was nothing friendly about their relationship. When Tesla moved from France to New York in 1884, the penniless immigrant got a job at the Edison Machine Works as an engineer. Within a year, he was already solving technical problems for the company, and Edison approached him with the task of redesigning the DC generators for the entire company. He famously offered Tesla $50,000 if he could make the generators more efficient, and a few months later, Tesla came back with an improved design. But when he asked for his money, Edison laughed and said, “When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke.” Since Tesla had redesigned the generators while working for Edison, he had no claim to the patent, and essentially got nothing out of the agreement (although Edison offered him a raise of $10 per week. Tesla resigned on the spot). A few years later, Tesla built his AC induction motor, and the War of the Currents began. Edison’s main campaign strategy was to prove that AC, which used much higher voltages than DC, was simply too dangerous to use in homes.

And to prove that, he went to ruthless extremes. Most famously, he organized demonstrations executing stray dogs and cats, and later cows and horses. One of the first demonstrations took place in 1888, with the electrocution of a large dog named Dash. Edison first sent 1,000 volts of DC through the dog to prove that he would be—if not unharmed—still alive. Then, he hooked the dog up to 300 volts of AC and smoked the pup into oblivion. And he was just getting warmed up. In 1903, Edison created his largest demonstration yet: He sent 6,600 volts of AC through a circus elephant named Topsy while 1,500 people stood by and watched. The execution was filmed and later released under the name Electrocuting an Elephant. The real test came in 1890 though, and it was no ordinary animal: The victim was a convicted murderer named William Kemmler. Edison campaigned for the opportunity to create a “more humane” method of capital punishment and, still in the midst of the War of the Currents, he opted to create the electric chair with AC.

After all, what better way to prove the dangers of AC than by killing a man with it? And he couldn’t have asked for a more visceral demonstration: The first charge burned through Kemmler’s insides for a whole 17 seconds, after which he was still gasping for breath. The second charge lasted four minutes, and Kemmler burst into flame before finally dying. Show Me The Proof Edison vs. Westinghouse: A Shocking Rivalry | History | Smithsonian Edison vs. Westinghouse: A Shocking Rivalry The inventors' battle over the delivery of electricity was an epic power play October 11, 2011 George Westinghouse. Photo: Library of Congress Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. They were genius rivals: two American titans who transformed the technology industry and lived to see their visions of computers and electronic devices in billions of homes and offices around the world. Still, their philosophies and personalities were as different as night and day, or Macs and PCs, and over the years, they could not resist needling and antagonizing each other as they staked their claims in the global technology marketplace.

“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste,” Jobs famously said in 1996. “They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture to their products.” In 2006, when Apple released its popular Mac vs. PC ads , wherein a hip young Jobs-like character interacts with a bumbling, back-office, brown-suited Gates type, Gates was clearly irritated. “I don’t know why acting like it’s superior. I don’t even get it,” Gates said. “If you just want to say, ‘Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along,’ that’s fine.” Thomas Edison. Photo by Victor Daireaux Yet despite the barbs, (and occasional lawsuits) and despite the obvious competition, both Jobs and Gates were smart enough to know that there was room in the consumer market for Apple and Microsoft to coexist, and over the years, neither was too proud or too stung by the other’s words to stop them from entering into various partnerships along the way.

(In fact, in 1997 Microsoft infused Apple with $150 million in cash at a time when Jobs was brought back by the board of directors to serve as interim CEO, as Apple was suffering crippling financial losses.) The same, however, cannot be said for Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, who, more than a century ago, engaged in a nasty battle over alternating and direct current, known as the “War of Currents.” Both men knew there was room for but one American electricity system, and Edison set out to ruin Westinghouse in “a great political, legal and marketing game” that saw the famous inventor stage publicity events where dogs, horses and even an elephant were killed using Westinghouse’s alternating current. The two men would play out their battle on the front pages of newspapers and in the Supreme Court, in the country’s first attempt to execute a human being with electricity. After Edison developed the first practical incandescent light bulb in 1879, supported by his own direct current electrical system, the rush to build hydroelectric plants to generate DC power in cities across the United States practically guaranteed Edison a fortune in patent royalties. But early on, Edison recognized the limitations of DC power.

It was very difficult to transmit over distances without a significant loss of energy, and the inventor turned to a 28-year-old Serbian mathematician and engineer whom he’d recently hired at Edison Machine Works to help solve the problem. Nikola Tesla claimed that Edison even offered him significant compensation if he could design a more practical form of power transmission. Tesla accepted the challenge. With a background in mathematics that his inventor boss did not have, he set out to redesign Edison’s DC generators. The future of electric distribution, Tesla told Edison, was in alternating current—where high-voltage energy could be transmitted over long distances using lower current—miles beyond generating plants, allowing a much more efficient delivery system. Edison dismissed Tesla’s ideas as “splendid” but “utterly impractical.” Tesla was crushed and claimed that Edison not only refused to consider AC power, but also declined to compensate him properly for his work.

Tesla left Edison in 1885 and set out to raise capital on his own for Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing, even digging ditches for the Edison Company to pay his bills in the interim, until the industrialist George Westinghouse at Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, a believer in AC power, bought some of Tesla’s patents and set about commercializing the system so as to take electric light to something more than an urban luxury service. While Tesla’s ideas and ambitions might be brushed aside, Westinghouse had both ambition and capital, and Edison immediately recognized the threat to his business. Within a year, Westinghouse Electric began installing its own AC generators around the country, focusing mostly on the less populated areas that Edison’s system could not reach. But Westinghouse was also making headway in cities like New Orleans, selling electricity at a loss in order to cut into Edison’s business. By 1887, after only a year in the business, Westinghouse had already more than half as many generating stations as Edison. The concern at Edison was palpable, as sales agents around the country were demoralized by Westinghouse’s reach into rural and suburban areas. But Thomas Edison had an idea.

Surely Westinghouse’s system must be more dangerous, what with all that voltage passing through the wires. “Just as certain as death,” Edison predicted, “Westinghouse will kill a customer within 6 months after he puts in a system of any size.” In November 1887, Edison received a letter from a dentist in Buffalo, New York, who was trying to develop a more humane method of execution than hanging. Having witnessed a drunk man accidentally kill himself by touching a live electric generator, Alfred P. Southwick became convinced that electricity could provide a quicker, less painful alternative for criminals condemned to death. Perhaps the Wizard of Menlo Park might have some thoughts about the best electric current “to produce death with certainty in all cases.” Edison, who opposed capital punishment, at first declined to get involved with Southwick’s project.

But when the dentist persisted, Edison, recognizing the opportunity that had landed in his lap, wrote back to say that although he would “join heartily in an effort to totally abolish capital punishment,” he did have some thoughts about electric currents in which to dispose of “criminals under sentence of death.” “The most effective of these,” he wrote, “are known as ‘alternating machines,’ manufactured principally in this country by Mr. Geo. Westinghouse, Pittsburgh.” In June 1888, Edison began to demonstrate the lethal power of alternating current for reporters. He rigged a sheet of tin to an AC dynamo and led a dog onto the tin to drink from a metal pan. Once the dog touched the metal surface, it yelped and“the little cur dog fell dead.” Sketch of the execution of William Kemmler on August 6, 1890, using alternating current. Image: Wikipedia Electricity will kill a man “in the ten-thousandth part of a second,” Edison told one reporter shortly after the demonstration, and he was quick to remind him that “the current should come from an alternating machine.” The battle of the currents had begun.

Westinghouse recognized what Edison was up to and wrote the inventor a letter, stating, “I believe there has been a systemic attempt on the part of some people to do a great deal of mischeaf and creat as great a difference as possible between the Edison Company and The Westinghouse Electric Co., when there ought to be an entirely different condition of affairs.” Edison saw no reason to cooperate, and he continued his experiments at varying levels of voltage with dozens of stray dogs purchased from neighborhood boys in Orange, New Jersey at 25 cents each. Edison’s research was soon proving that alternating current was, as he said, “beyond all doubt more fatal than the continuous current.” By the end of the year, Edison arranged a demonstration before a New York State committee impaneled to investigate the use of electricity in executions. At his West Orange laboratory , the inventor wired electrodes to several calves and a horse; even though the animals’ deaths were not quick, the committee was impressed. New York State expressed a desire to purchase “three Westinghouse alternating-current dynamos,” but Westinghouse refused to sell them for the purpose of what was now being described as “electrocution.” It did not matter.

An electricity salesman named Harold Brown was commissioned by the state to build an electric chair, and Edison was paying him behind the scenes to use alternating current in his design. Somehow, Brown got his hands on some AC dynamos. When New York State sentenced convicted murderer William Kemmler to death, he was slated to become the first man to be executed in an electric chair. Killing criminals with electricity “is a good idea,” Edison said at the time. “It will be so quick that the criminal can’t suffer much.” He even introduced a new word to the American public, which was becoming more and more concerned by the dangers of electricity. The convicted criminals would be “Westinghoused.” Westinghouse was livid. He faced millions of dollars in losses if Edison’s propaganda campaign convinced the public that his AC current would be lethal to homeowners. Westinghouse contributed $100,000 toward legal fees for Kemmler’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was argued that death in the electric chair amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Both Kemmler and Westinghouse were unsuccessful, and on August 6, 1890, Kemmler was strapped into Harold Brown’s chair at Auburn prison and wired to an AC dynamo. When the current hit him, Kemmler’s fist clenched so tight that blood began to trickle from his palm down the arm of the chair. His face contorted, and after 17 seconds, the power was shut down. Arthur Southwick, “the father of the electric chair,” was in attendance and proclaimed to the witnesses, “This is the culmination of ten years work and study. We live in a higher civilization today.” Yet behind the dentist, Kemmler began to shriek for air. “Great God! He’s alive!” someone shouted. “Turn on the current! Turn on the current instantly!” another screamed. “This man is not dead!” But the dynamo needed time to build its current, and Kemmler wheezed and gasped before the horrified witnesses as the electricity began to course through his body. Some witnesses fainted while others vomited, as it appeared that Kemmler was on the verge of regaining consciousness. The back of his coat briefly caught fire.

Minutes passed until Kemmler finally went rigid. The current stopped and he was pronounced dead by Dr. Edward Spitzka, who predicted, “there will never be another electrocution.” Westinghouse was horrified by the reports of Kemmler’s execution. “It has been a brutal affair,” he said. “They could have done better with an ax.” Topsy the Elephant was electrocuted by Thomas Edison's technicians at Coney Island before a crowd of thousands. Photo: Chicago Tribune Thomas Edison believed that future executions by AC current would go more smoothly, “without the scene at Auburn today.” To further demonstrate the lethal nature of alternating current, he held a widely attended spectacle in Coney Island, New York, where a circus elephant named Topsy was to be executed after she was deemed to be too dangerous to be around people. The elephant had killed three men in recent years—one a trainer who had tried to feed Topsy a lit cigarette. Edison had Topsy fitted with copper-wire sandals , and before a crowd of thousands, an AC current of 6,000 volts was sent coursing through the elephant until she toppled to her side, dead.

Despite all of Edison’s efforts, and despite his attempts to persuade General Electric otherwise, the superiority of the AC current was too much for Edison and his DC system to overcome. In 1893, Westinghouse was awarded the contract to light the Chicago World’s Fair , bringing all the positive publicity he would need to make alternating current the industry standard. For his part, Edison later admitted that he regretted not taking Tesla’s advice. Sources Books: Mark Essig, Edison & The Electric Chair, Walker and Company, 2003. Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1999. Gilbert King, The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder, and the Search for Justice in the American South, Basic Civitas Books, 2008. Articles: “”Wait Till the NEXT One!” Newsweek, February 11, 2007. Creating Jobs” by Steve Lohr, New York Times, January 12, 1997. “Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: It’s Complicated” by Jay Greene, CNET News, Microsoft, August 24, 2011.

“Coney Elephant Killed” New York Times, January 6, 1903. Like this article? DC Power and the Utility of the Future Comments 4 IdeaXchange experts share their thoughts on what role DC power will play in the utility of the future. Anyone who is familiar with the early history of the utility industry in the U.S. knows that a battle raged over whether the electric grid should be Direct Current (DC) or Alternating Current (AC) ( ). Thomas Edison and General Electric favored DC while Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse thought AC would be best. Ultimately, AC power won out because of the ease of changing voltage levels with a transformer and use of polyphase induction motors. Today, with few exceptions, the electric grid is predominately AC. However, it appears that DC power grids may be on the verge of a comeback of sorts. Digital equipment, solar PV, storage batteries, electric vehicles and other end-use devices all require DC power. Data centers are chockfull of such devices and for several years there has been a movement toward DC data centers ( ). Additionally, others are calling for our houses to embrace DC power, as well ( ).

Some say there is a larger role for DC power on our grids to improve stability and enhance reliability. With the growing deployment of DC power and the ongoing advances in power electronics, the question is: What will be the role of DC power in the Utility of the Future? DOUG HOUSEMAN: Tesla, Westinghouse and Edison were three giants in the industry who fought a battle for which standards to use. An elephant died in the pursuit of a single standard for the grid (killed in an attempt to show that AC power was inherently dangerous). Eventually, it was an electric motor that made the difference. Today the difference may be simple silicon-based devices. No elephant will likely die in the process, but the outcome may be very different than it was over 100 years ago. In the scenario where a home has photovoltaic (PV) on the roof and an electric vehicle (EV) in the garage, the overall efficiency of the system is much higher if the electricity from the roof never is converted to AC. Put a battery in the middle and a pure DC system between the roof, battery and the EV is much more efficient than going DC-AC-DC-AC-DC. Just the conversion losses alone sap the energy out of the system.

The question is not whether DC will have a role in the system moving forward, the question is where and how fast. EMerge, an industry alliance that is focused on DC systems in buildings, has completed DC standards and has certified more than 400 products that are DC related to go in commercial and industrial buildings. In the case of commercial buildings, the use of 24-V DC for lighting makes business sense because any maintenance worker can run 24-V lighting systems, removing the need for an electrician to be called to do the wiring in an office move. Add that the LEDs used in the lighting systems are much more efficient than the fluorescents typically used in offices and doing conversion of AC to DC makes business sense. Other devices may not be as useful in the office when the power is delivered as AC to the building, but as Walmart and others begin to put large PV arrays on most buildings, the use of DC makes more business sense. DC data centers are a reality where there is little or no AC in the whole facility. AC to DC conversion from the grid is done outside the building to limit the amount of heat released from the conversion in the building.

Some are on the drawing board that will exceed 1 GW of DC power in the data center, most are much more modest facilities. The backup generation and batteries that provide the reliability for the data centers are wired directly into the DC infrastructure of the building. In the case of homes, it is surprising how many devices use DC as their primary form of electricity, from microwaves to some washers/dryers and refrigerators, DC is becoming the choice for many appliance manufacturers. In the IEEE’s DC@Home activity, more than 1,000 different appliances that are popular have been characterized by the research team. DC@Home has membership from over 400 companies, universities and government agencies covering more than 50 countries. The team is working on draft phase I reports that are due by the end of 2015. In the meantime, EMerge has started a standards effort for DC devices in homes. The National Electric Code needs no changes to support low-voltage DC wiring in the home, to the point that Next Energy in Detroit has a DC home that is up and running as a test lab. The home has PV on the roof, batteries, EV chargers, LED lighting, an all DC kitchen and entertainment system.

In fact, almost anything you could want in a home is available in DC. Obviously, when one looks at the transmission system DC is alive and well in the links that bring hydro-electric power from Québec to the northeastern U.S. and in the grid in ERCOT, as well as new transmission design in countries like China. In discussions of microgrids, at least in the IEEE paper submissions, DC as a power choice is winning over AC as a power choice. The IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) has a draft specification for an energy router, a device that can on the output side send out either AC or DC power (or both) and on the input side take AC power. Companies like GridCo Systems already have energy routers in the field being tested by investor-owned utilities, not only to deliver DC to customers but to assist with voltage management, power quality and other localized issues on the AC front. Rumor has it that at least one very large equipment manufacturer is testing DC-related distribution equipment in the field. Utility-scale renewables, in many cases, have a DC output and then are converted to AC after the power is generated.

The question in the distribution grid will be not one of AC or DC, but what the right mix of both is over the next 20 to 40 years. It may start slow and close with a solar farm delivering DC power to a building across the street to run fast chargers, or a solar farm being built at a rest stop to provide charging for EVs. From there, it may turn into a college campus or a commercial development getting some or all of their power delivered from a combination of rooftop and terrestrial solar via DC. Eventually, there may be a mix of AC and DC delivered into neighborhoods. What we don’t know is will that power be delivered on new infrastructure, on existing infrastructure, via battery on trailers or what. The other question is given the issues with switching, routing and breaking DC, will we attempt to mix AC and DC on the same wires, on parallel wires, or in complete separate infrastructure owned potentially by different owners? There is a lot of movement on DC today from the lowest to the highest voltages. There are more questions than answers from a distribution utility point of view.

At the highest voltages, we have solutions the same can be said for the lowest (3, 5, 12 and 24 volts) in between is the space that will take work to figure out. The industry is changing. What role are you going to play? MICHAEL HEYECK: The macro-grid (actually three grids) in the U.S. is predominantly HVAC and will continue as such. But HVDC will make inroads for long distances as fuels for electricity transform over the next several years, and for undersea and underground advantages (e.g., aesthetics, cable technology, and no short-circuit contribution headaches for already very strong urban networks!). Having said that, the grid in aggregate will remain with an HVAC dominance because of the legacy systems and high degree of interconnection (mesh) already in place. Of course, the three grids of the U.S. may choose to interconnect further, requiring high-capacity HVDC to maintain their asynchronous attributes. For other areas around the globe where the "mesh" may not be as "dense," HVDC has and will have greater penetrations to connect new resources to load centers, to interconnect strong national and regional grids, and to connect offshore resources.

In the micro-world however, DC has made significant inroads in the U.S. and around the globe. End-use devices are ubiquitous these days with AC to DC conversions for each of them. This begs the question: Why endure the multiple conversions from distributed resources to end-use devices? Should we have separate DC networks built into new construction and retrofitted to accommodate more direct connections from distributed resources to end-use devices? In summary, the macro-grid grows slowly and incrementally, so HVDC will have a slow but growing penetration. The real revolution is at the micro level with distributed resources and ubiquitous end-use devices. Will the next step be to lose the ubiquitous tethers, i.e., the multiple layers of spaghetti connected by hard wire to outlets? MATTHEW CORDARO: With solar power generating DC electricity, it is obvious there would be benefits in avoiding the losses associated with converting to AC, especially when many electronic devices in the home run on DC anyway. Such benefits would be even further enhanced if DC could be used directly in lighting, charging electric vehicles and in appliances designed to run on DC, among other things.

To make this a reality, however, conversion services would have to be supplied by a utility over the grid to supplement and back up locally generated DC electricity. The big questions are can this be done economically, and if so, could it produce additional profits for utilities and manufacturers? If the answer to these two questions is yes, then where does the impetus come from to get things started? Are government subsidies needed or is there enough money in this to encourage industry to invest substantially? Although signs of the journey back to DC are appearing, it will be interesting to see how it all unfolds and at what rate progress is achieved. MANI VADARI: DC or AC – Can we all get along? All electrical engineers and many others are very familiar with the historical significance of AC versus DC, the battle royal between Edison and Tesla/George Westinghouse. We also know that AC power won mainly because of the ability to transform voltages, which was necessary to transmit power over long distances and the need to reduce losses. For a long time, it was certain that the battle and the war was over, and the future of the world was with AC. This is far from what is actually happening.

The onset of electronics, PV, storage and others have brought a resurgence of DC-based supply and consumption. In addition, several advances in DC motors have made them almost as robust and efficient as AC motors. This is causing a problem with the current AC grid because everything needs to be converted back into AC. Every electronic device in the house has a converter that converts the incoming AC to DC before the device consumes it. Most distributed energy sources also generate in DC, requiring converter mechanisms to convert them back into AC. This is not good. First of all, it is inefficient because all of these smaller converters are not designed to be energy efficient, and more importantly, there are just too many of them in a house. We need to move to something that allows both to coexist. And here is a scenario that permits just that. The future electric grid that ties the centralized generation sources to the load centers may still be AC-based, but not everything else needs to be AC. To start with, the houses can be pure DC-based. This is okay because much of the house works off of one single voltage level.

Each house can contain one single converter to convert the incoming AC power to DC, and everything inside the house can be DC – right from the kitchen appliances to the electronics. In addition, the renewable sources of energy such as PV and other storage mechanisms can all continue to be DC-based and feed into the house. The main converter into the house can be two-way so that excess power can be converted back into AC and fed back into the grid. The physical separation between the two systems will also allow each homeowner to make their own energy decisions, and be better energy customers and better stewards of the environment as they feel appropriate. Lastly, reducing the number of converters in the house will also make the electronics simpler without the need for bulky and energy-inefficient conversion devices. A future as described above allows us to create the perfect symbiotic relationship between the two systems by taking advantage of their respective strengths. RICHARD LADROGA : The electric power industry has historically remained largely unchanged since the pioneering days of Tesla. Yes, of course there have been major improvements in virtually all aspects of power delivery, including interconnected grids, insulation materials, transmission voltage levels and system efficiencies, but the basic principles are still in use today.

The beauty of the AC system lies in the transformer and its ability to manipulate voltage levels throughout the process, from generator terminals to the outlets in your home. Based on the past history of relatively slow change in the industry, I do not foresee any rapid change on the horizon, at least in the area of generation and bulk power transmission within the confines of a mature U.S. market. While DC transmission may prove to be an overall better solution over an AC system in certain applications (sub-sea transmission, asynchronous AC interties and lower bulk transmission losses), the economic justification associated with modification or conversion from existing AC systems to DC technologies is generally not considered a viable option. I do think that we will see more use of DC technologies for transmission applications in the U.S. in the future as demand increases and existing resources reach capacity, but I would expect this to occur sporadically over quite a long period of time. Having said that, growing markets such as China, India and Africa are among a group of prime candidates for bulk DC transmission technologies. DC transmission is the optimal method for long-distance transport of bulk power. With regards to the burgeoning demand caused by the massive influx of digital devices, such as computers, cell phones and tablets, there may be a compromise solution.

I could foresee the use of add-on DC power distribution centers in a commercial facility, and perhaps even in the home, to create a type of “hybrid” energy design. I personally already make use of such devices, such as DC power “bricks,” to power dc electronics. However, I do not believe that it will go much farther than that. Without having the benefit of a study to draw reference from, I think it is a reasonable assumption to state that the costs associated with a commercial or residential retrofit from AC to DC would be prohibitive. Utilities will have to adapt to accommodate new “green” technologies that continue to emerge into society. Elon Musk has announced his aggressive plans to build vast numbers of electric vehicles for the marketplace. As these vehicles become more commonplace, utilities will need to meet the demand by installing DC charging stations throughout their service territories. I do not foresee a change to DC grid distribution to handle this new need. While there are intrinsic losses relative to the use of electric vehicles, it remains doubtful that utilities will implement any type of DC transmission and distribution systems to support this endeavor. Existing generation facilities will not be impacted initially, but as demand continues to increase, so will the need for generation.

Perhaps a fair amount of this energy will come from the modern-day renaissance of green generation sources such as wind and solar power, but except for special cases, I would expect that these will interconnect with the AC grid as they have been traditionally, for the foreseeable future. JOHAN ENSLIN: HVDC has a very important role to play in transmission networks and is an economical viable option at ultra-high voltages (800 kV) in several regions in the USA. These DC links need to operate as hybrid HVAC and HVDC networks for integrating and controlling remote renewable resources, and they are well established to interconnect asynchronous areas. At the relative low capacity factors of wind (40%) and solar PV (20%) power production, HVAC networks are not utilized at an economic level for integrating these intermittent resources to the load centers, especially over long distances or with submarine cables from a relative weak remote AC network. HVDC is clearly the better option, especially the newer voltage source converter technologies. For no or very limited additional cost, two STATCOMs are added on both sides of the HVDC link. These STATCOMs are excellent to interconnect the remote power from relative weak networks to the load centers.

Multi-terminal HVDC networks and hybrid HVDC imbedded into HVAC networks are already commercialized and implemented in Europe and will provide the additional capacity to the transmission network in the USA. Furthermore these hybrid networks will at the same time increase the transmission capacity with reduced right-of-way (ROW) requirements. A HVDC link can transmit three to five times the power in the same ROW when compared to HVAC networks. At the same time, financing these new HVDC links is easier than traditional HVAC lines under merchant line agreements, since full control of the power flows can be guaranteed between remote resource and load center. It is not a question of AC or DC but both, especially in the high-voltage and ultra-high-voltage transmission networks. To join the DC power conversation, please comment in the box below. Rajendra Singh on Feb 12, 2015 Every sector including residential, commercial, industrial, transportation and defense will benefit from the use of low voltage dc power in place of ac power. However, since this article is focused on Data Centers, I will deal with Data Centers.

One has to remember that the traditional centralized generation of large base-load AC power and its long-haul distribution via high-voltage transmission followed by conversion to lower voltages is expensive because huge losses of energy occur. Based on 2011 data, globally approximately 70% of electricity produced is lost in generation, transmission, and distribution. At the rate of $0.1/kWh, the annual loss of 142 quadrillion BTU (= 41 trillion kWh) of energy amounts to about $4.1 trillion. The conversion of AC current (generated by centralized power stations) before entering into the Data Center to Direct current does not provide the principal benefits advocated by Thomas Edison. It is the generation of local dc power (e.g. photovoltaics used for power generation) that must be used in the Data Centers to realize the full potential of Direct Current. Local generation does not mean the roof of Data Center. Solar farms nearby to Data Centers can provide local dc Power. ( ) There are a number of technical and economic reasons why local dc power is needed .We have organized IEEE First International Conference on DC Microgrid ( June 7-10, 2015 , Atlanta, GA) .

A forum such as ICDCM is necessary to support the development of dc electricity infrastructure. All are welcome to attend. The conference web-site is Log In or Register to post comments Arthur Grant (not verified) on Feb 17, 2015 Mr. Baker are you aware of / familiar with ADC Energy in Cerritos California. They already have a system in place and installed that allows 24V DC to run over installed AC lines in commercial buildings without damage to the AC / System. Much as you can run phone and ASDL on the same phone line, a review of the wiring will show AC and DC current flowing at the same time. The stand alone DC micro grid is not required. Log In or Register to post comments Advertisement Umesh on Mar 5, 2015 From the perspective of the overall efficiency of the energy system, the approach needs to be more prudent rather than Either -Or selection. We have to come out of the limited views focusing on the limitation of each system i.e. ac or dc . There is a radical change required in accepting the realities , leaving aside various limitations or difficulties that may be encountered in changeover . There are two main criteria .

1) Coversionability from ac/dc and vice versa and 2) Control- ability . In years to come, Renewable energy will grow to be at par with Conventional energy . considering dc-ac-dc cycle , ac stage can be eliminated or can be retained as Standby. ac system may remain as a backbone dc will be the main distribution solution . Anti-Open Source lobbyists need love, too | Linux.com | The source for Linux information Anti-Open Source lobbyists need love, too - By Robin "Roblimo" Miller - I felt bad for Ken Brown of the Alexis De Toqueville Institution (AdTI) last week. There he was, on a panel in a room full of Open Source advocates and people interested in learning more about Open Source. Even though Mr. Brown spoke as eloquently as a storefont gospel preacher he didn't seem to grasp that his message was missing its mark. But it took an unplanned lunch encounter to show me why Mr. Brown and his crowd have so much trouble grasping the concepts behind the GPL, and behind Open Source in general.

First of all, you need to understand that Washington "think tanks" like AdTI do "sponsored studies." That is, they get grants that pay for research in particular areas. Up until 2000, AdTI displayed no interest in software licensing. Their sponsors -- mostly ultra-rightist groups -- were more interested in other policy areas. Media Transparency attempts to track "the money behind the media" in an effort to expose the sponsors of studies by apparently independent research "institutes" like AdTI whose works are often published on newspaper op-ed pages, and whose spokespeople often appear on talking-head TV shows or are quoted as "experts" by reporters who don't know (or don't care) that they are flacking for their backers, not doing independent scholarly research. Media Transparency has records on AdTI from 1998 through 2000 , and if you follow the links to AdTI donors, you'll find that they are generally on the right (even far right) wing of the American political spectrum. More recently -- you never would have guessed this -- Microsoft Corporation has provided financial support to AdTI .

The first big blast of anti-Open Source FUD unleashed by AdTI came in the form of this press release last May. After that AdTI's notoriety spread though the Open Source community, although (thankfully) few media outlets outside this tight little circle seemed to notice AdTI's views on Open Source. Just to show you how credible AdTI's research is, a 1994 AdTI paper entitled "Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination" is often held up as a supreme example of " junk science " used by tobacco companies and anti-environmentalists in their attempts to alter public policy in their favor. But we were talking about software. Or were we talking about Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla? I mentioned an impromptu lunchtime conversation with AdTI president Ken Brown.

That's where he told the old story about how Thomas Edison, in an attempt to market his DC power generating systems over Tesla's technologically superior AC systems in the 1890s and the first years of the 20th Century, sponsored demonstrations of animals -- even an elephant -- being electrocuted with AC, and invented the electric chair -- powered by AC -- to prove how dangerous AC was, presumably so that utility companies would choose Edison's DC. Brown used this story as an example of Edison's brilliance and business acumen. He talked of Edison in glowing terms as the "winner" of the AC/DC battle with Tesla -- and of how Edison and his backers later "bought out" Tesla and his backers' AC patents and business and used them to dominate the electric power marketplace. The only problem is, Edison and his backers did not buy out the Tesla camp. Tesla's primary financier, George Westinghouse, bought Tesla out -- in a deal that was not considered fair to Tesla by most observers, but still left Tesla well-off by the standards of the time -- and went on to build a huge company that made AC motors and generating plants. Those pesky facts! Well, they're not important, are they?

Imagination and marketing prowess and competitive ability, those are what make America great! Guys like Tesla, mere engineers and scientists, are tools. They're the kind of people who believe in all that GPL gobbledegook, you know. They talk about "the common good" and other such twaddle, not about profits. I felt like an imbecile, sitting there in my casual clothes with my thoughts about software users and their needs, at a table with Ken Brown and two of his AdTI compatriots, all dressed in well-tailored dark suits, talking about the dangers of those pesky users not being willing to keep making software titans richer and richer, forever and ever, and about how that GPL nonsense must be stopped or no one will ever make any money writing software ever again, and even other Open Source licenses are dubious. I mean, you let just anyone look at your source code, and the next thing you know terrorists will know all your secrets and hack into all your computers and make your air traffic control system stop working so all the airliners run into each other, right? Or something.

I was almost scared, after that dose of propaganda, to go home and sit down in front of my computer full of Linux and other Open Source programs. I was relieved when no terrorist hand leapt from the screen and grabbed me by the throat. Even now, a week later, I worry that terrorists may have infested Bluefish, the GPL-licensed program I am using to write this article. Are my words being twisted even as I type them? Wouldn't I be better off using something safer and more American (Bluefish is developed by a team of programmers all over the world) like ... MS Word? Or at least WordPerfect, a fine proprietary program written by freedom-loving Canadians? Brown and his cohorts at AdTI are good at their job, which is to convince you that what's good for their sponsors is good for America and, indeed, the entire world. EPA? Phah! Teacher's unions? Why, without them, teachers would probably earn as much as doctors. Defense? Spend more! Lots more! But keep taxes low and flat while you do it. High taxes are bad, you know. And everyone should be taxed the same, no matter how much they earn.

(AdTI has graphs that prove this improves the economy.) Open Source and Free Software activist Bruce Perens recently sent us a Call for Donations to try to counterbalance the "findings" of "think tanks" like AdTI. I've been hanging around the Washington, D.C., area for a good number of years now. I've watched the professional lobbyists in action, and they get the big bucks because they're good at what they do. But there are a lot more of us than there are of them. We have seen that Open Source activists can make a difference if enough of us make the right calls (and send the right emails and faxes) to the right people. Bruce is 100 percent correct when he says, "Free Software is no longer 'under the radar.' Our electronic freedoms -- even our right to program -- are under a very well-funded and vicious attack. We must actively defend ourselves now, or the good that we've created will be erased." It takes money, time, and effort to advance the causes we hold dear. Often the effort seems futile. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the endless wear-you-down tactics and resources the people on the other side enjoy.

But the alternative is to simply walk away and let them have their way, and that simply won't do. Category:

Question: Who electrocuted an elephant in an effort to show that AC power was unsafe?
Answer: Thomas Edison