Hello Tesla group...I was doing some editing on the website, and
re-read a great classic article appearing in "Pearson's Magazine"
1899, "The New Wizard of the West," "An interview with Tesla, the
Modern Miracle-Worker, who is Harnessing the Rays of the Sun; has
Discovered Ways of Transmitting Power without Wires and of Seeing by
Telephone; has Invented a Means of Employing Electricity as a
Fertilizer; and, Finally, is Able to Manufacture Artificial Daylight."
By Chauncy Montgomery M'Govern

From Pearson's Magazine, May 1899

Here's the part that caught my attention - pay particular attention to
Tesla's version of a Solar Concentrator -

"Oh, pshaw! These are only a few play- things," Nikola Tesla replies
when the visitor puts into words the astonishment he has experienced;
"none of these amount to anything--they are of no value to the great
world of science. But come over here and I will show you something
that will make a big revolution in every business and home as soon as
I am able to get the thing into working form," and then he leads the
way through a forest of queer-looking discs and mysterious coils of
copper and steel, until the party reaches a raised wall of masonry, on
which reposes a long cylinder of glass filled with water, and
surrounded by a circle of large mirrors. The roof over this apparatus
is of glass, and as the sun pours its rays through this, the rays
strike the mirrors and are reflected again towards the glass cylinder,
magnifying glasses intensifying the heat of the rays before they
strike the cylinder. [Nikola Tesla, advertisement of the day, below, left]

"This is the experimental model of the apparatus with which I hope
some day to so harness the rays of the sun that that heavenly body
will operate every machine in our factories, propel every train and
carriage in our streets, and do all the cooking in our homes, as well
as furnish all the light that man may need by night as well as by day.
It will, in short, replace all wood and coal as a producer of motive
power and heat and electric lighting."
The plan of Nikola Tesla to harness the rays of the sun to do man's
bidding is probably the boldest engineering feat that he or anyone
else has ever attempted. Though the idea is so great, its principle is
so simple that a schoolboy can readily comprehend it. It consists of
concentrating the heat of the sun on one spot (the glass cylinder) by
the series of complicated mirrors and magnifying glasses until the
resulting heat is something terrific.

This manufactured heat is directed upon the cylinder filled with
water. This water is chemically prepared so that in a short time the
water has evaporated into steam and has passed from the cylinder
through a pipe and into another chamber, In the latter place this
sun-made steam is made to operate a steam-engine of ordinary
construction, the horse-power of which will be determined by the size
of the apparatus by which the sun generates steam in that spot. This
steam-engine is used to generate electricity. And this electricity can
be either used at once or else stored up in storage batteries to be
used on days when there is no sunlight.

It will be seen that the object of this plan of Tesla is to do away
with coal, wood, or other fuel, in the manufacture of steam. The
remainder of his invention calls for the use of this sun-made
steam-pressure, as steam-pressure made from coal is at present in use,
throughout the world. The advantage of this Tesla invention is that
the cost of manufacturing steam to generate electricity, which would
propel say one hundred tram cars, would be infinitely smaller than the
cost of the coal required to produce the power to do the same work.
The cost of manufacturing the electricity to operate these one hundred
tram cars by the Tesla plan, when once the sun station has been
completed, would only be a sufficient amount to pay the salaries of a
few engineers in charge of the sun-station.

"In this way electricity will be so cheapened," says Mr. Tesla, "that
it will be possible for the poorest factory-owner to use it as a power
at a smaller cost than steam. Electricity will in this way supplant
steam as a motive power on all railways and -- in the shape of storage
batteries -- on all water vessels. And the humblest citizen will
profit by the new system of producing electricity; for he can have it
in his home to do all his cooking and lighting and heating. and it
will be even cheaper for him than coal, wood, or petroleum."
It is, of course, not the intention of Mr. Tesla that one sun-station
will provide all the electricity for the whole world. His scheme is
that in every city and town the local authorities shall build one or
more of these sun-stations by public taxation for the use of the whole
population, just as these cities now have waterworks and gas plants.
Each factory and home will then get its supply of electricity from the
nearest sun-station by ordinary electric wires.

Any person can appreciate the big boon that Tesla will confer on
humanity by the early completion of this master task. Among other
things it will solve a question that has been occupying the minds of
scientific men for a long time, viz: As the supply of coal in the
earth will be exhausted in about: thousand years, what are we going to
do for fuel? " It was when Tesla first thought about the question that
he turned his mind to the invention of some form of making power that
would not depend upon coal. The plan to harness the sun's rays is the
result...

The entire article is on my website, and I encourage you all to read
through it. Note: my "bandwidth" limit has been reached for the
remainder of July, so, unfortunately, you will have to wait until
August 1st to access it. Sorry.

My questions to the group, besides pointing out the fact that Tesla
had the system operational - in 1899 (!) - are the following:
1.) We all are familiar with Solar Concentrating Systems - but - it
would seem that Tesla added a fairly (uncommon in current conventional
systems) twist. Tesla used MAGNIFYING GLASSES along with reflective
mirrors, and, a special formulation of chemicals added to the water -
it also is of note that as of 1899, Tesla had not, as yet, come up
with the Bladeless Disk Turbine (patented in 1911, as we all know) so
imagine the Turbine combined with this system.
2.) I am curious as to the total output of this system, as, according
to the article, the electrical power available was almost instantaneous.
Might just be something to take another serious look at. Thoughts?

Frank Germano
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