Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!rochester!rit!ultb!jdb9608
From: jdb9608@ultb.UUCP (J.D. Beutel)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: wireless electricity
Message-ID: <759@ultb.UUCP>
Date: 2 May 89 18:08:12 GMT
References: <913@snjsn1.SJ.ATE.SLB.COM> <652@netcom.UUCP> <8YLFbSy00WB9I=ga9t@andrew.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: jdb9608@ultb.UUCP (J.D. Beutel (713ICS))
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Information Systems
Lines: 28


The library here was missing its book on Tesla, but a previous posting
reminded me that there are periodicals too.  Turning to the trusty
_Reader's_Guide_, I found an article in _Omni_, March '88, (wop):

>In the meantime Golka had become interested in the application 
>for which Tesla had intended the coil.  Tesla knew that the
>ionosphere, the upper layer of the earth's atmosphere rich in
>charged particles, is a natural conductor of electricity.
>He theorized that if he could beam up electricity to the 
>ionosphere in 8-second pulses (8 seconds being the time required
>for an electron to circumnavigate the earth), then he could
>set in motion a continuous electron wave of tremendous amplitude
>that could be transmitted anywhere on the globe without wires
>and with an efficiency of 90 percent. [vs. copper wire ~ 70%]

Golka is a researcher (crackpot?) working in MA now.  The article
mentioned another, more respected, researcher who was considering
the same idea on behalf of some oil company that's got a lot of
natural gas up in Alaska with no method of distribution.

Getting the electricity back out of the ionosphere was tricky.
I think laser beams were suggested, I suppose in order to 
ionize the nearby air, producing a conductive pathway from the
laser to the ionosphere.

-- 
11011011 ___jdb9608@ritvax.BITNET or @ritcv.UUCP___ "I am, therefore I am."