Power October 2022 + 140th Anniversary Supplement - S39

Tesla and the War of the Currents
3 Technologies tested to circumvent troublesome
aspects of increasingly poor quality
and expensive coal were installed at the
40-MW Lakeside Power Plant in St. Francis,
Wisconsin. When it began operations in
1921, Lakeside was the world's first plant to
exclusively burn pulverized coal. Courtesy:
WEC Energy Group
Station in Wisconsin in 1919 vastly improved
coal combustion, allowing for
bigger boilers (Figure 2). In the 1920s, another
technological boost came with the
advent of once-through boiler applications
and reheat steam power plants, along
with the Benson steam generator, which
was built in 1927. Reheat steam turbines
became the norm in the 1930s, when unit
ratings soared to a 300-MW output level.
Main steam temperatures consistently
increased through the 1940s, and the
decade also ushered in the first attempts
to clean flue gas with dust removal. The
1950s and 1960s were characterized by
more technical achievements to improve
efficiency-including construction of the
first once-through steam generator with
a supercritical main steam pressure.
Unit ratings of 1,300 MW were reached
by the 1970s. In 1972, the world's first integrated
coal gasification combined cycle
power plant-a 183-MW power plant for
the German generator STEAG-began
operations. Mounting environmental concerns
and the subsequent passage of the
Clean Air Act by the Nixon administration
in the 1970s, however, also spurred
technical solutions such as scrubbers to
mitigate sulfur dioxide emissions. The decade
ended with completion of a pioneering
commercial fluidized bed combustion
plant built on the Georgetown University
campus in Washington, D.C., in 1979.
The early 1980s, meanwhile, were
marked by the further development of
emissions control technologies, including
the introduction of selective catalytic
reduction systems as a secondary
measure to mitigate nitrogen oxide
emissions. Component performance
also saw vast improvements during
October 2022 | POWER Supplement
Today, most people recognize the name
Tesla as a company that makes electric
vehicles, but the real genius behind the
name is not Elon Musk-it's the Serbian-American
engineer and physicist
Nikola Tesla. Tesla, for all intents and
purposes, was the man who pioneered
today's modern alternating-current (AC)
electricity supply system.
Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan,
Croatia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire at the time. He
studied math and physics at the Technical
University of Graz in Austria, and
also studied philosophy for a time at the
University of Prague in what is now the
Czech Republic. In 1882, he moved to
Paris and got a job repairing direct-current
(DC) power plants with the Continental
Edison Co. Two years later, he
immigrated to the U.S., where he became
a naturalized citizen in 1889.
Upon arrival in the U.S., Tesla found a
job working for Thomas Edison in New
York City, which he did for about a year.
Edison was reportedly impressed by
Tesla's skill and work ethic, but the two
men were much different in their methods
and temperament. Tesla solved
many problems through visionary revelations;
whereas, Edison relied more on
practical experiments and trial-and-error.
Furthermore, Tesla believed strongly
that AC electrical systems were
more practical
for large-scale power
delivery; whereas, Edison championed
DC systems in what has since come to
be known as the " War of the Currents. "
Tesla left Edison's company following
a payment dispute over one of Tesla's
dynamo improvements. After his departure,
Tesla struggled for a time to
find funding to start his own business.
When he finally did get his company
going, Tesla moved quickly, and over
the span of about two years he was
granted more than 30 patents for his
inventions, which included a whole
polyphase system of AC dynamos,
transformers, and motors.
Word of Tesla's innovative ideas
spread, leading to an invitation for him
to speak before the American Institute
of Electrical Engineers. It was here
that Tesla caught the eye of George
Westinghouse, another AC power pioneer.
Soon thereafter, Westinghouse
that period to the 21st century. Among
the most recent major milestones in
coal power's history is completion of
www.powermag.com
2. Westinghouse Electric Corp. exhibit of
electric motors built on Nikola Tesla's patent,
and demonstrations of how they function,
at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
(World's Fair) in Chicago, Illinois. Also
exhibited (front, center) are early Tesla Coils
and parts from his high-frequency alternator.
Courtesy: Detre Library & Archives,
Heinz History Center
bought the rights to Tesla's patents and
momentum for AC systems picked up.
Perhaps the most important battle
in the War of the Currents occurred
in 1893 during the World's Columbian
Exposition, the official name of the
World's Fair that year, held in Chicago,
Illinois. Westinghouse's company won
the bid over Edison's company to power
the fair with electricity, and it did so
with Tesla's polyphase system.
Among the exhibits (Figure 2) displayed
at the fair were a switchboard,
polyphase generators, step-up transformers,
transmission
lines,
stepdown
transformers, industrial-sized
induction motors and synchronous
motors, rotary DC converters, meters,
and other auxiliary devices. The
demonstration allowed the public to
see what an AC power system could
look like and what it would be capable
of doing. The fact that power could be
transmitted over long distances, and
utilized even to supply DC systems,
opened many peoples' eyes to the
benefits it could provide and spurred
movement toward a nationwide
AC-powered grid.
In addition to his electrical inventions,
Tesla also experimented with
X-rays, gave short-range demonstrations
of radio communication, and
built a radio-controlled boat that he
demonstrated for spectators, among
other things. Although Tesla was quite
famous and respected in his day, he
was never able to capture long-term
financial success from his inventions.
He died in 1943 at the age of 86.
the first large-scale coal-fired power
unit outfitted with carbon capture and
storage technology in 2014 at BoundPAST,
PRESENT & FUTURE 39
http://www.powermag.com
Power October 2022 + 140th Anniversary Supplement

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