Nikola Tesla FBI Files - Page 109

DESIGN NEWS

Fusion energy: will experiments in ball lightning provide the key?

Paul Snigier, Associate Editor

In the vast and empty hangar where the first atomic bomb was assembled, a man-made lightning storm is now being unleashed. The voltages of these lightning bolts-20 million volts-are the highest discharge voltages ever produced by man.

        Project Tesla, headed by Robert K. Golka and Dr. Robert W. Bass, is an attempt to artificially duplicate one of nature's rarest and most terrifying phenomena--ball lightning. The experiments are based upon the unpublished notes of Nikola Tesla, who, in 1899 at his Colorado Springs laboratory, used a secret magnifying transmitter to produce 1.5-in. lightning balls that floated for 30 sec.

The energy surplus

        Many physicists, including the eminent Dr. James Tuck, founder of the U.S. fusion program, believe that the lightning ball holds the key to a fantastic, cheap and endless energy source-fusion power, or the energy source used by the stars and sun. The fuel is deuterium, or heavy water, that can be inexpensively extracted from ocean water to provide mankind. Highest voltage continuously oscillating damped-wave lightning generator (ever produced by mankind) creates a current of 1100A at 12.5 MV! Subsequent improvements raised this to a peak current of 2200A at 20 MV. Further improvements could conceivable produce bolts that exceed natural lightning (100 MV)!