Tesla's Tower Of Power 鈥?Damn Interesting

In 1905, a team of construction workers in the small village of Shoreham, New York labored to erect a truly extraordinary structure. Over a period of several years the men had managed to assemble the framework and wiring for the 187-foot-tall Wardenclyffe Tower, in spite of severe budget shortfalls and a few engineering snags. Though it was far from completion, it was rumored to have been tested on several occasions, with spectacular, crowd-pleasing results. The ultimate purpose of this unique structure was to change the world forever. Tesla鈥檚 inventions had already changed the world on several occasions, most notably when he developed modern alternating current technology. He had also won fame for his victory over Thomas Edison in the well-publicized 鈥渂attle of currents,鈥?where he proved that his alternating current was far more practical and safe than Edison-brand direct current. Soon his technology dominated the world鈥檚 developing electrical infrastructure, and by 1900 he was widely regarded as America鈥檚 greatest electrical engineer.

This reputation was reinforced by his other major innovations, including the Tesla coil, the radio transmitter, and fluorescent lamps. In 1891, Nikola Tesla gave a lecture for the members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York City, where he made a striking demonstration. In each hand he held a gas discharge tube, an early version of the modern fluorescent bulb. The tubes were not connected to any wires, but nonetheless they glowed brightly during his demonstration. Tesla explained to the awestruck attendees that the electricity was being transmitted through the air by the pair of metal sheets which sandwiched the stage. He went on to speculate how one might increase the scale of this effect to transmit wireless power and information over a broad area, perhaps even the entire Earth. As was often the case, Tesla鈥檚 audience was engrossed but bewildered. Back at his makeshift laboratory at Pike鈥檚 Peak in Colorado Springs, the eccentric scientist continued to wring the secrets out of electromagnetism to further explore this possibility.

He rigged his equipment with the intent to produce the first lightning-scale electrical discharges ever accomplished by mankind, a feat which would allow him to test many of his theories about the conductivity of the Earth and the sky. For this purpose he erected a 142-foot mast on his laboratory roof, with a copper sphere on the tip. The tower鈥檚 substantial wiring was then routed through an exceptionally large high-voltage Tesla coil in the laboratory below. On the night of his experiment, following a one-second test charge which momentarily set the night alight with an eerie blue hum, Tesla ordered his assistant to fully electrify the tower. Though his notes do not specifically say so, one can only surmise that Tesla stood at Pike鈥檚 Peak and cackled diabolically as the night sky over Colorado was cracked by the man-made lightning machine. Colossal bolts of electricity arced hundreds of feet from the tower鈥檚 top to lick the landscape. A curious blue corona soon enveloped the crackling equipment.

Millions of volts charged the atmosphere for several moments, but the awesome display ended abruptly when the power suddenly failed. All of the windows throughout Colorado Springs went dark as the local power station鈥檚 industrial-sized generator collapsed under the strain. But amidst such dramatic discharges, Tesla confirmed that the Earth itself could be used as an electrical conductor, and verified some of his suspicions regarding the conductivity of the ionosphere. In later tests, he recorded success in an attempt to illuminate light bulbs from afar, though the exact conditions of these experiments have been lost to obscurity. In any case, Tesla became convinced that his dream of world-wide wireless electricity was feasible. In 1900, famed financier J.P. 150,000 to relocate Tesla鈥檚 lab to Long Island to construct a pilot plant for this 鈥淲orld Wireless System.鈥?Construction of Wardenclyffe Tower and its dedicated power generating facility began the following year. In December 1901, a scant few months after construction began, a competing scientist named Guglielmo Marconi executed the world鈥檚 first trans-Atlantic wireless telegraph signal. Tesla鈥檚 investors were deeply troubled by the development despite the fact that Marconi borrowed from seventeen Tesla patents to accomplish his feat.

Though Marconi鈥檚 plans were considerably less ambitious in scale, his apparatus was also considerably less expensive. Work at Wardenclyffe continued, but Tesla realized that this his competitor鈥檚 success with simple wireless telegraphy had greatly diminished the likelihood of further investments in his own, much grander project. 鈥淎s soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. In essence, Tesla鈥檚 global power grid was designed to 鈥減ump鈥?the planet with electricity which would intermingle with the natural telluric currents that move throughout the Earth鈥檚 crust and oceans. At the same time, towers like the one at Wardenclyffe would fling columns of raw energy skyward into the electricity-friendly ionosphere fifty miles up. To tap into this energy conduit, customers鈥?homes would be equipped with a buried ground connection and a relatively small spherical antenna on the roof, thereby creating a low-resistance path to close the giant Earth-ionosphere circuit.