Nikola Tesla Books
IN SEARCH OF NIKOLA TESLA tem. Transmission towers would be built all over the world and begin a global system of communication through telegraph and an invention that had all the characteristics of modern radio. This system would also be used to supply homes with electricity. It was part of this original vision that some of this broadcast electrical energy would be produced by the Niagara Power Company for his 'wireless transmission'. In the first power plant, which I have been designing for a long time, I propose to distribute ten thousand horsepower under a tension of one hundred million volts, which I am now able to produce and handle with safety. When set beside Tesla's later pronouncements his original plans for how this electrical energy would be used are curiously modest. One of its chief uses will be the illumination of isolated homes... Another valuable application will be the driving of clocks or such other apparatus... The idea of impressing upon the earth American time is fascinating and very likely to become popular. There are innumerable devices of all kinds which are either now employed or can be supplied, and by operating them in this manner I may be able to offer a great convenience to the whole world with a plant of no more than ten thousand horsepower. Tesla stood at the crossroads of our century yet, his considerable imagination and predictive powers notwithstanding, he was unable to foresee the rapid way in which the world would grow dependent on electrical energy. His first plans for wireless transmission were predicated upon such modest domestic needs as low-power illumination and clocks showing American time. He had not yet anticipated washers, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, ranges, microwave ovens, water heaters or even homes heated by electricity. The average power requirement of a North American home has increased dramatically since Tesla's day. Today a nation's demands for electricity would be far beyond the capacity of a single generating plant. But 49
