In Search of Nikola Tesla Page 70

CHAPTER SEVEN sketched a doodle in front of him. 'No, I don't like it. You're talking about sending a great deal of power on a continuous basis; pumping energy thousands of miles in some sort of magnetic tunnel. These charged layers depend on a very delicate equilibrium. The number of ions in the upper atmosphere could fluctuate. You get magnetic storms on the sun which have a big effect on the upper atmosphere. I really don't see how you could ever send large amounts of power in this way even if it were possible, I don't see how it could be more efficient than conventional transmission cables.' I looked at him for a while. 'Then you're sceptical?" I asked. 'Definitely,' he said. I thanked him, took the equations and sketches he had made and began to get up from the table. He looked up and hesitated for a moment. 'There is something which may interest you.' 'Yes,' I said. 'You may have read about it in one of the scientific magazines. It is a very interesting effect.' 'Go on,' I encouraged, 'tell me about it.' 'Well, some experiments on one of the charged layers showed that it was oscillating at sixty times a second.' 'Really,' I said. 'Well, what else oscillates sixty times a second?" 'Ordinary electrical-current power lines,' I said. 'That's it. It turned out that these oscillations were caused by the power lines which are stretched across the Province of Quebec. They carry highvoltage current at sixty cycles a second. It seems that this is enough to induce similar oscillations in the charged layers in the upper atmosphere.' 'So, if someone built a Tesla tower and operated it with a great deal of high-voltage current – if they pumped out enough power – then it would pulse the particle layers in the upper atmosphere?" I asked. - 'Well, I suppose it's possible. Yes, I think it could happen. But to go from there to a waveguide which allows tremendous power to be transmitted without loss well, that's far too big a jump.' 70 70