Alternating current made it practical to change voltage for transmitting electricity over long distances and delivering it for local use. Krishna Choudhary and Lester Nare discuss Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse, and the development of the electrical grid, including the Chicago World's Fair and Niagara Falls power project.
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Transformers allow AC systems to raise voltage for transmission and lower it for use.
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High-voltage transmission reduces the current needed to deliver a given amount of power.
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The discussion follows AC through major public demonstrations and power projects.
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26:21>> might not be that great or that white, you know. >> Yeah, exactly. But, um, still one one of one of the journals that I'd like to get a paper out um, in my career. We still have a lot of time here. We're moving to 1893 through 1896, the triumph of alternating current AC and the birth of the modern electrical grid. >> Yeah. So, we covered Thomas Edison. He was a big fan of direct current which is this idea of I just establish a voltage difference and the electrons go from high voltage to low voltage or maybe the other the current you you know what I mean Benj thank Benjamin Franklin for that but the current goes from high voltage to low voltage and it powers
27:01some device. Um Tesla said that's a really bad way to transport electricity from where I'm producing it to where I want to use it. So Tesla came up with alternating current and his sponsor George Westinghouse got the contract to light the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois. That's the bottom right photo over there. That was a very big deal because that was the first time that the general public and investors and everyone else saw that the AC could do wonders. >> It works. >> It works. It's safe. Because Edison was doing all these things with like he was making an electric chair out of AC current and being like it's going to kill you,
27:41>> right? Um and Tesla was like no you cuz you designed the an electric chair like what are we talking about? So um this was a decisive victory over Thomas Edison's direct current. It's a system that established the modern grid because later on on the top right hand side we see the Niagara Falls hydroelect electric power plant which is using giant turbines at the time to create AC current. It's the first modern electric grid where we have a central station that's creating a bunch of electricity and then it's powering homes, businesses, industry all over in its vicinity. Um, later on JP Morgan,
28:22>> who was who was trying to back Thomas Edison, realized that DC is >> it's not the way >> is not the way. And he basically blackmailed Westinghouse and a bunch of the AC guys who had patents and was like, I'm just going to litigate you into the ground unless you form a partnership. They formed a partnership and created General Electric. And this is how the business of business is done. Biology 1896, the introduction of scientific crop rotation and chemy. Chemy. Yeah, I think so. Chemy. Um, this is George Washington Carver. He introduced the idea of scientific crop rotation at the Tuskegee Institute in
29:04Tuskegee, Alabama. It was effectively to