Nikola Tesla gave us the electric motor, long-distance electricity
transmission, radio, robots, and remote control – the very foundations of our
modern economy. Perhaps less well known is that he also was a clean-energy
pioneer, and he remains an inspiration to today’s solar and battery
entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk, who views him as a hero and contributed $1
million to help restore Tesla’s laboratory on Long Island.
Tesla marked his clean-energy leadership with a 1900 article in The Century –
then the nation’s largest-circulation periodical. Published 118 years ago, “The
Problem of Increasing Human Energy, with Special References to the Harnessing of
the Sun’s Energy” was one of the earliest, detailed looks at capturing power
from the sun and wind.
At his core, Tesla appreciated efficiency and hated energy waste, complaining
that we “do not utilize more than 2 percent of coal’s energy” to make
electricity. “The man who should stop this senseless waste would be a great
benefactor of humanity,” he declared.
Tesla, of course, thought big, sometimes unreasonably so. One of his grander
proposals was to send artificial lightning into the ground, take advantage of
the planet’s electric charge, and prompt resonance in order to allow everyone
around the world to plug into the earth and obtain essentially free electricity.
As the world faces major challenges – from climate change to pervasive poverty,
Tesla, who
died 75 years ago, remains particularly relevant. We need inventors —
people willing and able to see the world differently — and Tesla epitomizes the
inventive spirit. Commenting on the excitement of discovery, he wrote: “I do not
think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by
the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success. Such
emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”
While most of today’s innovations are developed by teams within universities,
federal laboratories and corporate research centers, Tesla demonstrated the
power of what he called cerebral engineering. He claimed to be able to visualize
inventions in his head, where he would test alternative configurations, and he
claimed, with some exaggeration, that he could “give exact measurements to the
workmen without having made even a sketch.” He envisioned his revolutionary
electric motor, for instance, while walking through a Budapest park and quoting
Goethe’s Faust.
While Thomas Edison the entrepreneur developed new products in order to make
money, Tesla – although he certainly enjoyed his lavish meals at Delmonico’s and
his fancy room at the Waldorf Astoria — believed that technology transcended the
marketplace and that invention should not just be tied to profits. He wrote:
“The desire that guides me in all I do is the desire to harness the forces of
nature to the service of mankind.”
Tesla, as noted before, gave us motors, robots, and radio, but he kept
imagining. Many of his designs – including sonar, smart watches, and death rays
– would inspire great minds for generations.
Noting today’s risk- and innovation-averse electricity industry, we could
benefit greatly from Tesla’s selfless, out-of-the-box thinking. He’d probably be
envisioning ways to send power wirelessly, to generate it without pollution, and
to provide drudgery-reducing energy to everyone, including the two billion
people around the world still without access to electricity.
No doubt Tesla aimed high, perhaps higher than any other inventor. He worked
tirelessly to offer electric power freely to the world and to build robots that
would reduce life’s drudgery. He was, in short, driven by inner forces that made
sheer creation the most important thing in his life. And we are the better for
it.
Richard (Dick) Munson, a senior director at Environmental Defense Fund, is the
author of Tesla: Inventor of the Modern, which Kirkus, in a starred review,
called “a lucid expertly research biography of the brilliant Nikola Tesla.
(Readers) will absolutely enjoy (Munson’s) sympathetic, insightful portrait.”
More reviews, speaking engagements, and order information can be found at
www.tesla-book.com
This article was originally posted online at:
https://energynews.us/2018/05/18/midwest/commentary-new-book-explores-nikola-teslas-clean-energy-vision/