Why Don't We Have Free Electricity For Everyone?

[Saint_]

I once read about satellites that use big solar panels and transmit the electricity to Earth on microwaves....I wonder what happened to that idea?

[spot]

Saint_;1305401 wrote: I once read about satellites that use big solar panels and transmit the electricity to Earth on microwaves....I wonder what happened to that idea?


Space Energy | A Space Based Solar Power Company SBSP

I don't expect to fill my bath with hot water from their feed any time soon, mind.

[NJ Drew]

Nobody will likely see this post, but I just came across this thread on a google search and was very interested in the discussion.

Tesla theorized that he could, in fact, generate free power by using a series of (I believe that it was) five large osciliating towers positioned around the world. He built an initial one in NY which was blown up (TNT) after funding was pulled by JP Morgan (Tesla's backer) when he realized that there was no commercial value in it and that it would devastate the power creation and generation business.

Basically, power would be delivered wirelessly across the globe so that anyone in the world could access electricity for free. The power itself would be extracted naturally from the ionosphere at no significant ongoing cost (you would likely have to do some ongoing maintenance of the towers) and there would effectively be no need for the current distribution methods that are in place.

While to Spot's argument, this doesn't in fact lead to "free power" as the cost to operationalize these towers would cost between one and two billion US dollars (based on the current value of his funding requirements in the thirties).

So this raises some interesting questions. So, you can see that the challenge that "if it was possible, someone would be doing it" doesn't really hold up as there aren't that many billionaires and even those that are would not likely sink their entire wealth into such an effort (most of which is not liquid enough to fund such a venture anyway). The obvious answer would be the government, as it is chump change. However, there are a couple of serious obstacles: 1) a global energy cartel that would lose untold trillions of dollars and jobs and 2) free energy becomes a great "equalizer" of nations across the globe which may not be something that would be perceived to be in the interest of developed nations.

I think that either of these items on their own would likely lead to suppression of this goal. However, the first is mind boggling. Not only in terms of lobbyists and entrenched power that would fight against it, but imagine that you had hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions when fully considered) of US citizens suddenly unemployed as a result of something like this. This isn't like BP where people could go to another employer if things fell apart... the industry would just be gone and those skills would simply no longer be necessary.

So, if you wonder why there is no free power. Take a minute to think about why there is no free power. If you do some research on Tesla, you will find that there could be free power. But, the odds of it happening in our lifetime is likely zero.

[yaaarrrgg]

NJ Drew;1316176 wrote: Tesla theorized that he could, in fact, generate free power by using a series of (I believe that it was) five large osciliating towers positioned around the world. He built an initial one in NY which was blown up (TNT) after funding was pulled by JP Morgan (Tesla's backer) when he realized that there was no commercial value in it and that it would devastate the power creation and generation business.


That conspiracy theory doesn't make much sense to me. Electricity is a commodity. There is just as much commercial value in cheaply produced electricity as there is in electricity produced by more expensive means. In fact more, since if it costs nothing to produce, you can resell it at an even higher profit margin.

The business-side issue of charging for something has never been the weak point in the capitalistic system. One often can sell nothing at all, and make a good business at it. At the very least, you can charge people for the luxury of not blowing the thing up.

[NJ Drew]

yaaarrrgg;1316278 wrote: That conspiracy theory doesn't make much sense to me. Electricity is a commodity. There is just as much commercial value in cheaply produced electricity as there is in electricity produced by more expensive means. In fact more, since if it costs nothing to produce, you can resell it at an even higher profit margin.

The business-side issue of charging for something has never been the weak point in the capitalistic system. One often can sell nothing at all, and make a good business at it. At the very least, you can charge people for the luxury of not blowing the thing up.


Yaaarrgg, thanks for the response. Two things here.

1) If you do the research, you will find that this is true and not a conspiracy theory. However, as I said, it remains a theory, as the site was never fully constructed and operationalized. So, it may not, in fact, work. However, when you look at what he developed (in the neighborhood of 700 patents and science that scientists 40+ years later were struggling with as part of SDI), I would tend to think that there was a very high likelihood that it would work. Look up Tesla & particle acceleration and you'll find that things that he was working on things in the early 40s that still seem 'futuristic.'

2) I am not sure that you are really grasping the concept here. Do you consider the air that you breathe to be a commodity? Conceptualize this... you could take a vacation to Fiji and bring an electric mixer with you to the beach to mix your frozen cocktails without plugging it in. This is the delivery of wireless electricity without plugs. There is no 'meter' and no account where they track your consumption and charge you accordingly. You build the structures do some ongoing maintenance and that's it. That is my point as to why nobody would do it. Charing someone for 'consumption' here would be virtually no different than trying to charge someone for 'consuming' air. If the US did it and taxed citizens, then the people in Fiji (and everywhere else) would get a free ride. It would literally be everywhere and available to all for free (like air).

[yaaarrrgg]

NJ Drew;1316283 wrote: Charing someone for 'consumption' here would be virtually no different than trying to charge someone for 'consuming' air. If the US did it and taxed citizens, then the people in Fiji (and everywhere else) would get a free ride. It would literally be everywhere and available to all for free (like air).


Imagine, if there were five giant manufacturing plants on Earth that pumped out all the atmosphere we breath. You are saying these plants couldn't charge any money for the air they made? If you can cut off the supply of something, you can charge for it.

I personally would not be comfortable getting hooked on something that could be so easily blown up. Not only do you have to worry about the capitalists, but also every military in the world would be eye-balling those things. He who controls the towers controls the world.

[NJ Drew]

That's an interesting point. Obviously, you coudl build more than five towers (but the price would go up). I suppose that people could make the same argument about nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons, 'weaponized' and other lethal viruses at the CDC and other locations around the world.

As I say, there are innumerable reasons why it will never happen. I think that the biggest is the fact that a huge swath of people would be shockingly unemployed.

To your point about controlling things, Tesla created (what he called) a "death ray." Basically, what it was is a particle accelerator. The concept is that you could supercharge and "shoot" a very small particle at phenomenal speeds and it would be able to cause significant damage. Tesla realized the carnage that could cause and gave parts of what was required to four countries and requiring that they work together to be able to utilize it. This is literally the stuff of SDI ("Star Wars") of the 80s and is in military R&D still today. And, he did this in the 40s. It's sort of stunning. Part of it is the fact that this guy was a genius and way beyond his contemporaries and part is that a great deal of his research 'disappeared' at his death (into the government's files).

[rachard1583]

Well, My demand is electricity for all first, then we think about the free ti all. Since, we people live in third world country, did not have electricity at all. Still under dark, we are forced to do our work in the daytime itself.