Nikola Tesla Writes (Additional Comments on Electro-Static Generators)

Editor, Scientific American:

Engineers attach no importance whatever to static electricity generated by belt friction or otherwise. They are apt to dismiss it with the thought that the energy is infinitesimal. That is true. A little water pumped through some joint in a big low-pressure main is of no consequence, but in a pump designed for an extremely high pressure and very small delivery it is all-important. Exactly so in the electrical case. The belt or equivalent device is simply a pump capable of forcing the minute quantity of electricity produced into a condenser against a pressure and increasing the power up to a limit of working capacity of the means employed. Thus mechanical energy, in any desired amount, can be transformed into electric energy yielding direct and constant currents of many millions of volts.

Besides its value as an instrument of research, the Van de Graaff generator will be helpful in stimulating the interest in this neglected field of science and engineering which is of great promise. My comment upon it (Page 132, March, 1934, Scientific American. — Ed.) was based on publications in which the device was described in its primitive form. No signal improvements were suggested or mention made of the classical methods for increasing the output. According to the latest report, the normal performance is now 20 kilowatts, from which I infer that the belts are run in a medium under pressure exceeding that of the atmosphere. This is evident since at 10 kilowatts per unit, the density of the charge on the belt, conformably to my calculations, must be about 16.66 at the spraying and 24.27 at the sucking points, which is too high for ordinary conditions. In all probability, an absolute pressure of 30 to 35 pounds per square inch is used to prevent leakage of the moving charge. This method was first resorted to by Hempel in 1885 and more thoroughly investigated by Lehmann in 1891. Other experimenters confirmed these early findings and showed that the output of a static generator is proportionate to the pressure of the gas in which it is operated.

A still better way, also known for many years, is to employ a high vacuum for the same purpose. Both of these methods have their disadvantages. Compression increases proportionately the windage loss, while the vacuum is destructive. The real limit, however, is found in the mechanical strength of the belt and even under the best conditions the performance of such a machine, considering its size, will be small although, by the employment of a Diesel drive, the efficiency might be raised to a satisfactory figure.

The generator, operating with 10,000,000 volts, will accelerate a particle, as the electron, to a speed of 3.662 x 10⁹ centimeters, equal to about 0.122 times that of light, but if projectiles 1800 times heavier are used, as proposed, their striking speed will be only 863 kilometers which is utterly insignificant as compared with that of the cosmic rays.

Nikola Tesla
New York, February 8, 1934