The current war (sometimes called combat battle ) is a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s. These include commercial competition, the debate on electrical safety, and the growing media/propaganda campaign, with major players becoming the current Edison Light Electricity (DC) and Westinghouse-based Air Freight (AC) -based company. It happened during the introduction and rapid expansion of the standard alternating current (already used and recommended by some US and European companies) and the eventual adoption of a direct current distribution system. Three aspects have been incorporated into "war": open competition involving big power companies and format wars involving their developing systems, a common fear in the public mind about death by accidental electricity from high-voltage AC leading to debate for its safety and regulation, and the behind-the-scenes debate and maneuver related to the introduction of electric chairs.
The introduction of large-scale outdoor arc lighting systems in the mid to late 1870s, some of which were supported by high-voltage back and forth, was followed in 1882 by the "utility" distribution of low voltage DC voltage voltage Thomas Edison designed for indoor business and housing is used as an alternative to gas and oil based lighting. In 1886 George Westinghouse began to build an alternating current system that uses a transformer to increase the voltage for long-distance transmission and then lower it back for indoor lighting, a more efficient and cheaper system that directly competes for the Edison system market is designed to serve. When many other power companies joined and the use of air conditioning spread rapidly, the Edison company made a claim in early 1888 that alternating current was dangerous and inferior to a patented direct current system.
In the spring of 1888, media furor arose over a series of deaths caused by high-voltage poles installed at the poles in New York City and across the country, linked to greed and heartlessness from local air-conditioning companies. In June of that year, a New York electric engineer named Harold P. Brown became famous as opposed to the use of alternating current, claiming that an AC-based lighting company puts people at risk of using high voltage and installing it in a slipshod way. Brown's campaign soon gained the help of Edison and his company, helping Brown in his public electric shock with the AC, trying to claim that AC is more dangerous than DC. Historians take notes, and documents from the period seem to indicate, that there grew collusion between Edison and Brown companies in their parallel attempt to limit the use of AC: helping Brown's efforts to push through legislation to control and severely restrict the installation of air conditioning and voltage (to the point of making it an ineffective power delivery system), provided technical assistance in a Brown test to show the air conditioner would be the best current to power a new electric chair, and collude with major air rivals Brown and Westinghouse, Thomson-Houston Electric Company, to ensure the first electric chair powered by Westinghouse AC generators.
This was a period of industrial consolidation and by 1890 more than a dozen electric companies had merged into three; Edison (now Edison General Electric), Thomson-Houston, and Westinghouse. In the early 1890s, the latter two generated profits long before the DC-based Edison company. During this period Thomas Edison left the power business and the company he founded began adding air-conditioning technology to his system. Edison Electric's institutional opposition to the alternating current ended in 1892 when they joined what had become their biggest competitor, the Thomson-Houston company, a merger that put Thomson-Houston managers into the new company, now called the General. Electricity. The merger of Edison's company (along with a strong lighting patent) with Thomson-Houston (and its AC patent) created a company that now holds three quarters of the US electricity business. Westinghouse won an offer to supply power for the Columbus World Expo in 1893 and won its first contract at Niagara Falls later that year. Their leadership on the field was quickly reduced by contract then split with General Electric.
There are several technical factors that drive the application of alternating current over direct current. Direct current system generates and distributes electrical power at the same voltage as that used by customers' headlamps and motors. This requires the use of large and expensive distribution cables and power plants that are forced to be near the load. With the development of a practical transformer, alternating current power can be sent remotely via a relatively small cable at an easy high voltage, then decreases the voltage used by the customer. Alternating current stations can be larger, more efficient, and distribution cables are relatively cheaper.
The cost of a lower AC power distribution prevails, although the DC system persists in some urban areas throughout the 20th century. While DC power is not used generally for the transmission of energy from home to power plants such as Edison and other intended, it is still common when the distance is small or when isolation between different AC systems is required, known as High-Voltage DC (HVDC). Low DC voltage is widely used in modern electronic devices, including computers, telephones, and automotive systems; Conversely, most electric motors are powered by AC voltage.
Video War of the currents
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The current war grew from the development of two lighting systems; arc lighting runs on alternating current and incandescent lamps running on direct current. Both replace gas lighting systems, with arc lighting taking over large area/street lighting, and incandescent lamps replacing gas for business and residential lighting.
Arc Lighting
The first type of electric light that is widely used is the arc lamp. These lights had existed for much of the nineteenth century but in the late 1870s began to be installed in cities in large scale systems powered by central power plants. The arc lighting system is brilliant and able to illuminate the streets, yards of the factory, or the interior of large buildings. They need high voltage (above 3,000 volts) and some run better on alternating current. Alternating currents have been developed temporarily in Europe with contributions made to the field by Guillaume Duchenne (1850s), dynamo works of ZÃ © nobe Gramme, Ganz Works (1870s), Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti (1880s), Lucien Gaulard, and Galileo Ferraris. The high voltage allows the central generating station to supply a large area, up to 7 miles (11 km) long circuit because the wire capacity is proportional to the square of the current that goes on it, each doubling the voltage allows the same size cable to deliver the same amount of power times distance. 1880 saw the installation of large-scale arc lighting systems in several US cities including the central station established by Brush Electric Company in December 1880 to supply 2 miles (3.2 km) long Broadway in New York City with 3,500 prototype sign-arc lighting systems. The disadvantages of arc lighting are: intensive, buzzing, twinkling, is a fire hazard, really only suitable for outdoor lighting, and, at high voltage used, is dangerous to use.
the DC Edison company
In 1878 inventor Thomas Edison saw the market for a system that could bring electric lighting directly into a customer's business or home, a niche not served by a bow-lighting system. In 1882, an investor-owned company Edison Illuminating Company was founded in New York City. Edison designed "utilities" to compete with established gas lighting utilities, basing them on a relatively low 110-volt current supply to power the incandescent high-incandescent light he created for the system. The direct current edison system will be sold to cities across the United States, making it standard with Edison who controls all technical development and holds all key patents. Direct current works well with incandescent light, which is the main load of the day. The direct-current system can be directly used with storage batteries, providing valuable load-leveling and backup power during generator operating interruptions. The direct current generator can be easily parallelized, enabling economical operation using smaller engines during light load periods and improving reliability. Edison has found a meter to allow customers to be billed for energy proportional to consumption, but this meter works only with direct current. Direct current also works well with electric motors, DC gain held during the 1880s. The main disadvantage with Edison's direct current system is that it runs at 110 volts from generation to final destination which gives it a relatively short transmission distance: to keep expensive copper conductor sizes down the generating generator must be in the center of the population center and can only supply the customer less than a mile from the factory.
Construction of AC transformer in Europe
Beginning in the 1880s, alternating currents gained key advantages over direct current with the development of functional transformers that allowed the voltage to be "upgraded" to higher transmission voltages and then down to lower end user voltages for business and residential use. Using induction coils to transfer electricity between electrical circuits has been around for 40 years with Pavel Yablochkov using them in his lighting system in 1876 and Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs used the principle to make the transformer "down" in 1882, but the design was not very efficient. The prototype of high efficiency, closed-core shunt connection transformer is made by "Z.B.D" Hungary. team (consisting of KÃÆ'¡roly Zipernowsky, OttÃÆ'³ BlÃÆ'¡thy and Miksa DÃÆ' Â ri) at Ganz Works in 1884. Z.B.D. transformers 3.4 times more efficient than the open core bipolar Gaulard and Gibbs devices. The current transformers are designed based on the principles found by three engineers. Their patents include other major related innovations: the use of parallel-connected power distributions (as opposed to connected series). OttÃÆ'³ BlÃÆ'¡thy also invented the first AC power meter. The reliability of this type of air-conditioning technology got a boost after Ganz Works flowed through Rome, a major city, in 1886.
Westinghouse is entering the AC business
In North America, inventor and entrepreneur George Westinghouse entered the electric lighting business in 1884 when he began developing the DC system and employed William Stanley, Jr. to do it. Westinghouse became aware of the new European transformer-based AC system in 1885 when he read about them in the British technical journals Engineering . He understands that AC combined with a transformer means greater economies of scale can be achieved by large centralized power plants that emit very much tension for use in arc lighting as well as low-voltage home and commercial incandescent lamps supplied through a step-down transformer at the far end other. Westinghouse looks at ways to build a truly competitive system, not just building an almost uncompetitive DC lighting system using quite different patents to get Edison's patents. The DC Centers DC centralized Edison DC system with their short transmission range also means there is a patchwork of customers not supplied among Edison plants that Westinghouse can easily supply with AC power.
Westinghouse purchased US patents to the Gaulard-Gibbs transformer and imported some of them and the Siemens AC generator to start experimenting with an AC-based lighting system in Pittsburgh. William Stanley used the design and design of Gaulard-Gibbs from ZBD Transformer to develop the first practical transformer. The Westinghouse Electric Company was formed at the beginning of 1886. In March 1886 Stanley, with the support of Westinghouse, installed the first dual-voltage AC power system, a demonstration incandescent light system, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Expanded to the point where it can power 23 businesses along the main road with very little power loss of over 4,000 feet, the system uses transformers to step 500 volts AC on the way to 100 volts to an incandescent electric light at each location. In the autumn of 1886, Westinghouse, Stanley, and Oliver B. Shallenberger had built the first US commercial air-conditioning system in Buffalo, New York.
Spread AC
By the end of 1887, Westinghouse had 68 alternating current power stations to the Edison DC station of 121. To make matters worse for Edison, Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts (another competitor offering AC and DC based systems) has built 22 power plants. Thomson-Houston expanded their business while trying to avoid a patent conflict with Westinghouse, arranging deals such as coming to an agreement over the territory of the lighting company, paying royalties to use AC Stanley transformer patents, and allowing Westinghouse to use their incandescent Sawyer-Man incandescent. In addition to Thomson-Houston and Brush there were other competitors at the time including the US Lighting Company and the Waterhouse Lighting Company. All companies have their own electrical systems, arc lighting systems, and even the design of incandescent lamps for domestic lighting, leading to constant lawsuits and patent battles between them and Edison.
Security issues
Elihu Thomson from Thomson-Houston is worried about AC safety and is working hard to develop a lightning rod for high-voltage power lines and magnetic switches that can shut down the system in power surges, the Westinghouse system safety feature does not exist. Thomson also worries what will happen with the equipment after they sell it, assuming customers will follow a risky practice of installing as many lights and generators as they can get away with it. He also thinks the idea of ​​using air-conditioning lighting in residential homes is too dangerous and asks the company to withhold that type of installation until a safer transformer can be developed.
Due to the hazards presented by the high voltage power lines most of the cities of Europe and the city of Chicago in the US require them to be buried underground. New York City did not require burial and only a little on the road regulation so that by the end of 1887 the carelessness of the overhead wire for phone thieves, telegraph, fire and burglar alarm systems in Manhattan was now intermingled with an air-conditioning system wire that haphazardly carries up to 6000 volts. The insulation of the power lines is still not perfect, with an electrician who thinks it has the value "as a fabric-covered molasses", and exposure to its elements erodes it over time. One-third of the cables were left behind by companies that died and gradually deteriorated, caused damage, and shortened other lines. In addition to spoiling the scene, New Yorkers were disturbed when a huge snowstorm in 1888 (Great Blizzard of 1888) knocked out a large number of lines, cutting utilities in the city. This spurred the idea that these lines were moving underground but stopped by court orders obtained by Western Union. The legislation to grant all 90 day utilities to move their lanes to the underground channels provided by the city is slowly making its way through the government but it is also being fought in court by the United States Information Company, which claims their AC lines are very safe.
Edison's anti-air conditioner
Since the air-conditioning system continues to spread to areas covered by the DC system, with companies that appear to infringe Edison's patents including incandescent, things get worse for the company. Copper prices rise, adding to the cost of the low-voltage DC system of Edison, which requires copper wires heavier than high-voltage AC systems. Colleagues and engineers Thomas Edison himself tried to get him to consider the air conditioning. Edison's salespeople continue to lose bids in cities that choose cheaper AC systems and Edison's Edison Electric Illuminating Company president Edward Hibberd Johnson points out that if companies get stuck with all the DC systems it will not be able to do business in small towns and even mid- big city. Edison Electric has a patent option on the ZBD transformer, and a confidential report at home recommends the company go to AC, but Thomas Edison opposes the idea.
After Westinghouse installed his first large-scale system, Edison wrote in a November 1886 private letter to Edward Johnson, "Just as Westinghouse's death would kill a customer within six months of entering a system of any size, He has got something new and that will require a lot of experiments to make it work practically. "Edison seems to have the view that the very high voltage used in the AC system is too dangerous and it will take years to develop a safe and workable system. Security and avoiding the bad press of killing customers has been one of the goals in designing the DC system and he is worried that the deaths caused by incorrectly installed air conditioning systems can withstand the use of electricity in general, Edison's understanding of how air-conditioning systems are functioning seems extensive. He notes what he sees as inefficiency and that, combined with the cost of capital in trying to finance an enormous plant, makes him believe there will be very little cost savings in the air conditioning business. Edison also believes that DC is a superior system (the fact that he believes the public will recognize) and inferior air-conditioning technology is used by other companies as a way to get his DC patent.
In February 1888 Edison Johnson's Edison Electric published an 84-page pamphlet titled "Warning from Edison Electric Lamp Company" and sent it to newspapers and to companies that had purchased or planned to purchase electrical equipment from a competitor of Edison , including Westinghouse and Thomson Houston, which stated that the competitors violated the incandescent lamps of Edison and other electrical patents. It warns that buyers may find themselves on the losing side of a court case if the patent is enforced. The pamphlet also emphasizes the safety and efficiency of direct current, with DC claims not causing any death, and includes accidental newspaper accounts of electricity caused by alternating current.
Execution with power
When the arc lighting system spreads, so does the story of how the high voltage involved killing people, usually an unwary lineman, a strange new phenomenon that seems to instantly strike a dead victim. One such story was in 1881 drowsy duck worker after he grabbed a large electric dynamo led by Buffalo, New York dentist Alfred P. Southwick to search for some applications for curious phenomena. He worked with local doctors George E. Fell and Buffalo ASPCA, shocking hundreds of stray dogs, to come up with a method to lull animals through electricity. The Southwick article of 1882 and 1883 on how electricity can be a substitute for hanging, using similar restraints to the tooth chair (electric chair) attracted the attention of New York State politicians who, after a series of failed hangings, were desperately seeking alternatives. An 1886 commission appointed by New York Governor David B. Hill, which includes Southwick, recommended in 1888 that executions were carried out with electricity using an electric chair.
There are early indications that this new form of execution will mix with the current war. As part of their fact-finding, the commission sent surveys to hundreds of legal and medical experts, sought their opinions, as well as contacted electricians, including Elihu Thomson and Thomas Edison. At the end of 1887, when Southwick's death commissioner contacted Edison, the inventor claimed he was opposed to the death penalty and did not want to deal with the matter. After further pushing, Edison hit his main electric competitor, George Westinghouse, in what might be the opening salvo in the current war, declared in a December 1887 letter to Southwick that it would be better to use the current generated by "'Alternating engines,' produced primarily in this country by Geo Westinghouse ". Immediately after the execution by the electric bill authorized in June 1888, Edison was asked by a New York government official what would mean the best way to implement a new form of state execution. "Hire your criminals as a linemen to a New York electric lighting company" is Edison's tongue in cheek answer.
Maps War of the currents
Anti-AC backlash
As the number of deaths attributed to high-voltage lighting across the country continued to increase, a group of deaths in New York City in the spring of 1888 linked to airborne arc lighting triggered a media frenzy against "current lethal-lighting lighting" and apparent lighting firms unfeeling people who use it. The death included a 15-year-old boy who was killed on April 15 by a flashing telegraph line that has been energized by alternating current from the United States Information Light line, an officer killed two weeks later by an AC line, and a midfielder of the Electrical Company The brush was killed in May by the AC line he cut. The press in New York seemed to shift from news of electric light vs. gas lighting to the "death by wire" incident, with every new report that seemed to stir up public resentment against high-voltage air conditioners and power lines over dangerous cities. Harold Brown's Harold Brown
Harold Brown Crusade
At this point, an electrical engineer named Harold P. Brown, who at that time seemed to have no connection with Edison's company, sent a letter June 5, 1888 to the editor of the New York Post claiming the root of the problem was an alternating current system -backs (AC) used. Brown argued that the AC system is inherently dangerous and "damned" and asked why "the public should be subject to the continuous danger of sudden death" so that utilities can use the cheaper AC system.
At the start of the attack on the AC, Westinghouse, in a letter June 7, 1888, tried to defuse the situation. He invited Edison to visit him in Pittsburgh and said, "I believe there has been a systemic effort on some people to do a lot of mischief and create a big difference between Edison Company and The Westinghouse Electric Co., when there must be conditions that are completely different." Edison thanked me, but said, "My lab work took up all my time."
On June 8, Brown lobbied privately before the New York Electricity Supervisory Board, requested that his letter be on paper read in the meeting notes and demanded heavy regulation on air conditioning including limiting electricity to 300 volts, a level that would make the next AC useless for transmission. There have been many arguments against Brown's claims in newspapers and letters to the council, with people showing he has not shown any scientific evidence that AC is more dangerous than DC. Westinghouse showed in letters to various newspapers the number of fires caused by DC equipment and suggested that Brown was clearly controlled by Edison, something Brown rejected continuously.
A July edition of The Electrical Journal covered Brown's appearance in the presence of the New York Electrical Control Board and the debate in the technical community on the benefits of DC and AC and notes that:
At the July meeting of the Electrical Control Board, Brown's criticism of AC and even his knowledge of electricity was challenged by other electrical engineers, some of whom worked for Westinghouse. At this meeting, AC supporters provided anecdotal stories from electricians about how they survived an AC shock at voltages up to 1000 volts and argued that DC was the most dangerous of both.
Brown Demonstration
Brown, determined to prove the alternating current is more dangerous than direct current, at some point contact Thomas Edison to see if he can use the equipment to experiment. Edison immediately offered to help Brown in his crusade against the AC company. Soon, Brown lent space and equipment at Edison's West Orange, the New Jersey lab, as well as laboratory assistant Arthur Kennelly.
Brown pays local children to collect stray dogs off the road for his experiments with direct and alternating currents. After many attempts to kill a series of dogs, Brown held a public demonstration on July 30 in the lecture hall at Columbia College. With many participants shouting for the demonstration to stop and the others walking out, Brown subjugated a dog confined to several shocks with an increase in the direct current level of up to 1000 volts, of which the dog survived. Brown then applied 330 volts of alternating current that killed the dog. Four days later he held a second demonstration to answer critics' claims that DC might weaken the dog before it dies. In this second demonstration, three dogs were killed sequentially with 300 volts AC. Brown wrote to a college that he believes the demonstration will get the New York Electrical Control Council to limit the installation of AC to 300 volts. Brown's campaign to limit the AC to 300 volts went everywhere but the laws were almost close in Ohio and Virginia.
Collusion with Edison
What brings Brown to the forefront of the debate about AC and his motives remains unclear, but historical records note that there is a kind of collusion between the Edison and Brown companies. Edison's notes seem to indicate it was Edison Electric Light's treasurer Francis S. Hastings who came up with the idea of ​​using Brown and some New York doctors to attack Westinghouse and other AC companies in retaliation for what Hastings thought was an immoral offer by Westinghouse for illumination. contracts in Denver and Minneapolis. Hasting brings Brown and Edison together and keeps in touch with Brown. Edison Electric appears to be a footing bill for some Brown publications about the dangers of air conditioning. In addition, Thomas Edison himself sent a letter to the city government of Scranton, Pennsylvania recommended Brown as an expert on the dangers of air conditioning. Some of these collusions were exposed in letters stolen from Brown's office and published in August 1889.
Patents and mergers
During this period Westinghouse continued to pour money and engineering resources into the goal of building a fully integrated AC system. To gain control over the Sawyer-Man lamp patent, he purchased the Consolidated Electric Light in 1887. He purchased the Waterhouse Light Electric Company in 1888 and the US Lighting Company in 1890, provided their own arc lighting system at Westinghouse as well as controlled all the patent lights a major flare not controlled by Edison. In April 1888, Westinghouse engineer Oliver B. Shallenberger developed an induction meter that used a rotating magnetic field to measure the alternating current that gave the company a way to calculate how much electricity the customer was using. In July 1888, Westinghouse paid substantial sums to license US patent Nikola Tesla for a two-phase AC induction motor and obtained a patent option on the design of Galileo Ferraris induction motors. Although the acquisition of a decent AC motor gave Westinghouse the patent key in building a fully integrated air-conditioning system, the general cash shortage experienced by the company in 1890 meant construction should be temporarily suspended. The difficulty of obtaining funding for such a capital-intensive business became a serious problem for the company and in 1890 was the first attempt of several attempts by investor J. P. Morgan to take over Westinghouse Electric.
Thomson-Houston continued to expand, purchasing seven smaller power companies including the purchase of Brush Electric Company in 1889. In 1890 Thomson-Houston controlled most of the arc lighting systems in the US and its own collection of US AC patents. Several business transactions between Thomson-Houston and Westinghouse collapsed and in April 1888 the judge overthrew the original patent Westinghouse Gaulard Gibbs, stating that it included only the transformers linked in series.
With the help of financier Henry Villard, Edison's group of companies also went through a series of mergers: Edison Lamp Company, a lighting manufacturer in East Newark, New Jersey; Edison Machine Works , a manufacturer of dynamos and electric motors in Schenectady, New York; Bergmann & amp; Company , manufacturer of electric light fixtures, sockets, and other electric lighting devices; and Edison Electrical Lighting Company , the company's patent and financial arm holders supported by J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family for Edison's lighting experiment, joined. The new company, Edison General Electric Company , was formed in January 1889 with the help of Drexel, Morgan & Co and Grosvenor Lowrey with Villard as president. These then include Sprague Electric Railway & amp; Motor Company.
Top of war
Through the fall of 1888 the battle of words with Brown specifically attacked Westinghouse steadily increasing. In November George Westinghouse challenged Brown's remarks on the pages of Electric Engineers that the Westinghouse air-conditioning system had caused 30 deaths. The magazine investigated the claim and found that at most two deaths could be attributed to the Westinghouse installation.
Associate AC and Westinghouse with electric chair
Although New York has a code of criminal procedure that sets electricity through an electric chair, it does not explain the type of electricity, the amount of current, or the supply method, since this is still relatively unknown. The New York Medico-Legal Society, an informal society of doctors and lawyers, was given the task of doing the details and by the end of 1888 to early 1889 conducted a series of animal experiments on the amount of stress, electrode and placement design, and skin. conductivity. During this time they sought the advice of Harold Brown as a consultant. This eventually expanded the current war into the development of seats and general debate about the death penalty in the US.
After the Medico-Legal Society formed their committee in September 1888, chairman Frederick Peterson, who had been an assistant at Brown's 1888 general public of dogs with air conditioning at Columbia College, had the results of experiments submitted to the committee. The claim that AC is more deadly than DC and is the best current to be used in question with some committee members, suggests that Brown's experiment is not scientifically conducted and in animals less than human. At their November meeting, the committee recommended 3000 volts despite the type of electricity, direct current or alternating current, not specified.
To prove more convincingly to the committee that AC is more deadly than DC, Brown contacted the Edison Electric Light treasurer Francis S. Hastings to govern the use of the West Orange laboratory. On December 5, 1888 Brown experimented with members of the press, members of the Medico-Legal Society, chairman of the death penalty commission, and Thomas Edison. Brown uses alternating current for all his tests on animals larger than humans, including 4 calves and a paralyzed horse, all thrown with 750 volts AC. Based on these results the December meeting of the Medico-Legal Society recommended the use of 1000-1500 volts of alternating current for execution and the newspaper noted that the AC used was half the voltage used in power grids on the streets of American cities.
Westinghouse criticized these tests as a matchless demonstration designed to be a direct attack on alternating currents. On December 13 in a letter to the New York Times, Westinghouse mentioned where Brown's experiment was wrong and claimed again that Brown was employed by Edison's company. Brown's letter on December 18 denied the claim and Brown even challenged Westinghouse for electric dueling, with Brown agreeing to be surprised by the ever-increasing amount of DC power if Westinghouse surrendered himself to the same amount of increased AC power, first to stop losing. Westinghouse declined the offer.
In March 1889 when members of the Medico-Legal Society initiated a series of other tests to find out details of electrode composition and placement, they turned to Brown for technical assistance. The Edison treasurer, Hastings, tried unsuccessfully to get the Westinghouse AC generator for the exam. They end up using Edison's West Orange lab for animal tests.
Also in March, the Prison Inspector Austin Lathrop asked Brown if he could provide the necessary equipment for execution and design an electric chair. Brown rejected the task of designing seats but agreed to fulfill the contract to supply necessary electrical equipment. The state refused to pay in advance, and Brown apparently turned to Edison Electric as well as Thomson-Houston Electric Company to help acquire the equipment. It became a maneuver behind the scenes to get the Westinghouse AC generator to supply the current, apparently with the help of Edison and the Westinghouse-led AC rival Thomson-Houston. Thomson-Houston arranges to acquire three AC-Westinghouse generators by replacing them with a new generator Thomson-Houston AC and Edison Electric may be paying money to buy Brown. President of Thomson-Houston Charles Coffin has at least two reasons for obtaining a Westinghouse generator; he does not want his company's equipment linked to the death penalty and he wants to use one to prove a point, paying Brown to make a public efficiency test to show that Westinghouse's sales claims producing 50% more efficient generators is wrong.
The Brown Spring published "Comparative Dangers for Alternating and Alternating Electrical Flow Life" detailing animal experiments conducted in Edison's lab and claiming they showed the AC much more deadly than DC. This 61-page printed professional booklet (possibly paid for by Edison's company) is sent to government officials, newspapers, and entrepreneurs in cities with a population of over 5000 inhabitants.
In May 1889 when New York was sentenced to the first criminal sentence to be executed in an electric chair, a street vendor named William Kemmler, there was much discussion in the editorial column of the New York Times as a so-called execution form new. The terms " Westinghouse d" are filed as well as " Gerry cide" (after the death commission commissioner Elbridge Gerry), and " Brown ed". The Times hates the word that was eventually adopted, electrically, describing it pushed forward by "ignoramus knowledgeable". One of Edison's lawyers writing to his colleagues expressed the opinion that Edison's preference for dynamam , ampermort and elektromort is not a good term but thinks The Kemmler appeal
William Kemmler was sentenced to death in an electric chair around June 24, 1889, but before appeals could be made on the grounds that it was a cruel and unusual punishment under the US Constitution. It became clear to the press and everyone involved that the politically connected (and expensive) lawyer who filed the appeal, William Bourke Cockran, had no connection with the case but had a relationship with the Westinghouse company, clearly paying for his services.
During a fact-finding hearing held around the state that began on July 9 in New York City, Cockran used his considerable skills as a cross-examiner and orator to attack Brown, Edison, and their supporters. His strategy was to show that Brown had falsified his test on the power of the AC killing and to prove that electricity would not cause a certain death and only lead to condemned torture. In cross examination he questioned Brown's lack of mandate in the field of electricity and brought the possibility of collusion between Brown and Edison, which Brown rejected again. Many witnesses are summoned by both parties to provide direct anecdotes about encounters with electricity and evidence provided by medical professionals on the human nervous system and the electrical conductivity of the skin. Brown is accused of falsifying his tests on animals, hiding the fact that he uses a lower DC current and high AC current. When the trial was held one day at the Orange West Edison lab to witness a demonstration of the resistance against the electricity, Brown almost quarreled with the Westinghouse representative, accusing him of being in Edison's lab for industrial espionage. The newspaper noted the often contradictory testimony raised public doubts about electrocution law, but after Edison took a stand, many received assurances from "Menlo Park wizards" that a 1000 volt AC would easily kill anyone.
After the collected testimony was filed and both sides presented their case, Judge Edwin Day resolved against Kemmler's appeal on October 9 and the US Supreme Court rejected Kemmler's appeal on May 23, 1890.
When the chair was first used, on August 6, 1890, the technicians in hand misjudged the voltage required to kill William Kemmler. After the first jolt of Kemmler's electricity was found still breathing. The procedure must be repeated and a reporter in hand describes it as "a terrible spectacle, much worse than hanging." George Westinghouse commented: "They will do better with the ax."
Brown Collusion exposed
On August 25, 1889, New York Sun carried headlines:
The story is based on 45 letters stolen from Brown's brooding offices with Thomson-Houston and Edison Electric. Most of the letters are the correspondence between Brown and Thomson-Houston on the topic of acquiring three Westinghouse generators for New York state and using one of them in an efficiency test. They also point out that Brown has received $ 5,000 from Edison Electric to buy a surplus Westinghouse generator from Thomson-Houston. Edison's involvement was further contained in the letters from the treasurer Edison Hastings asked Brown to send anti-airfreight flyers to all legislators in the state of Missouri (at company expense), Brown requested that a recommendation letter from Thomas Edison be sent to Scranton, PA, and Edison and Arthur Kennelly coaching Brown in his upcoming testimony at Kemmler's appeal trial.
Brown is not slowed down by this revelation and is characterized by his efforts to expose Westinghouse just like going to a grocery store that sells poison and calls it sugar.
The "Electric Wire Panic"
1889 saw another series of deaths attributed to alternating currents including a midfielder in Buffalo, New York, four linemen in New York City, and a New York merchant who was killed when the display he used in contact with the airways. NYC Mayor Hugh J. Grant, in a meeting with the Electrical Control Board and the AC power company, dismissed the claim that the AC line is so safe saying " we get news from everyone who touches it through the coroner's office ." On October 11, 1889, John Feeks, a Western Union midfielder, was in a high position over an electric cable working on what should have been a low-voltage telegraph line in the busy Manhattan district. When the lunch hour crowd below looked at him grabbed the nearest line which, unfamiliar, had been shorted many blocks away with a high voltage AC line. The sting came in through his bare right hand and out of the climbing rock climbing his left armor. Feeks were killed almost instantly, his body falling into a wire mesh, igniting, burning, and burning for a better part of an hour while thousands of fearful people gathered below. The source of power that kills Feeks is not determined even though the United States line Illuminates the company ran nearby.
The public death of Feeks sparked a new round of people who feared the electric lines above their heads in what was called "Electric Wire Panic". The mistake seems to have settled in Westinghouse since, after buying many of the lighting companies involved, people consider Feeks death a fault of a Westinghouse subsidiary. The newspapers joined the public condemnation after Feeks death, which showed people's lives "cheaper than this monopoly rather than isolated wires" and called for the executives of the AC company to be accused of murder. The October 13, 1889 New Orleans Times noted that "Death does not stop at the door, but goes into the house, and maybe when you close the door or turn on the gas you killed." Harold Brown's reputation was rehabilitated almost overnight with newspapers and magazines searching for opinions and reporters following him around New York City where he measured how much current leaked from the AC power grid.
At the height of the current war, Edison himself joined the public debate for the first time, denouncing the AC stream in an November 1889 article on the North American Review titled "Danger of Electric Lighting". Edison posited the view that burying a high-voltage line was not a solution, and would simply move mortality underground and become a "continuous threat" that could shorten other lines threatening the homes and lives of people. He stated the only way to make the AC safe was to limit the voltage and swear Edison Electric would never adopt the AC as long as he was responsible.
George Westinghouse was suddenly put into a "villain" role that tried to keep an air conditioning installation mounted on a pole that he knew was unsafe and groped for journalists' questions trying to point out everything else in a more dangerous city. The following month he did better in his response printed on North American Review, indicating that his AC/transformer system actually uses lower household voltage than the Edison DC system. He also showed 87 deaths in a year caused by street cars and gas lighting vs just 5 electric accidents and no deaths at home attributed to AC currents.
The crowd that witnessed Feeks contained many New Yorkers because the location of the accident was near the New York government office and the terrible affair galvanized them into the act of passing laws on moving underground utilities. The power companies involved got orders to prevent their lines from being cut down immediately, but to close most of their lighting until the situation was over, plunging many roads in New York into the dark. The law that ordered the cutting of all utility channels was finally upheld by the Supreme Court of New York in December. The lines of air-conditioner were cut down making many streets in New York City in the dark for the rest of winter because little had been done by the expensive paid Tammany Hall town overseer who was supposed to look to build underground "subway" to accommodate them.
The current war ended
Even with Westinghouse's lost propaganda, the current war itself is winding with a direct current on the losing side. This is partly because Thomas Edison himself left the electricity business. Edison became marginalized in his own company after losing majority control in the 1889 merger that formed Edison General Electric. In 1890, he told President Henry Villard that he thought it was time to retire from the lighting business and move to a time-consuming iron ore refinery project. Edison's dogmatic anti-AC grades no longer control the company. In 1889 Edison's Electric subsidiary itself was lobbying to add AC power transmission to their systems and in October 1890 Edison Machine Works began to develop air-based equipment.
With Thomas Edison no longer involved with Edison General Electric, the current war becomes close to a financial merger. President Edison Henry Villard, who had engineered the merger that formed Edison General Electric, continues to work on the idea of ​​merging the company with Thomson-Houston or Westinghouse. He saw a real opportunity in 1891. The market was in a general decline that caused cash shortages for all the companies concerned and Villard was in talks with Thomson-Houston, who is now Edison General Electric's biggest competitor. Thomson-Houston has the habit of saving money for development by buying, or sometimes stealing, patents. Patent conflicts hamper both companies' growth and the idea of ​​saving 60 ongoing lawsuits and saving profit losses for trying to weaken one another by selling power plants under the cost of pushing the idea of ​​a merger into a financial circle. Edison hated the idea and tried to arrest him, but Villard thought his company, which now won the incandescent patent lawsuit in court, was in a position to dictate the terms of any merger. As a committee of financiers, which includes J.P. Morgan, working on a deal in early 1892 things against Villard. In view of Morgan Thomson-Houston looking at books to become stronger than the two companies and fabricating the behind-the-scenes agreement announced on April 15, 1892 that puts Thomson-Houston's management under control of a new company, now called General Electric. (dropping the name of Edison). Thomas Edison was not aware of the deal until the day before it happened.
The fifteen existing power companies 5 years earlier have been merged into two; General Electric and Westinghouse. The current war ended and the merger of this Edison company, along with its patent of light, and Thomson-Houston, with its AC patent, created a company that controlled three quarters of the US electricity business. From this point on General Electric and Westinghouse are both marketing the current system back and forth. Edison put a brave face on the media how his shares got the value in the deal but personally he felt bitter that his company and all his patents have been left to competitors.
Aftermath
Although the current institutional wars have ended in a financial amalgamation, technical differences between the direct system and the alternating current system follow a much longer technical merger. Due to innovations in the US and Europe, the current economic scale that varies with very large generating plants connected to loads via long-distance transmission is slowly coupled with the ability to connect with all existing systems that need to be provided. These include single-phase AC systems, dual-phase AC systems, low voltage incandescent lamps, high voltage arc lamps, and DC motors in factories and street cars. In the engineering of the universal system this technological difference is temporarily bridged through the development of rotary converters and motor generators that allow large numbers of legacy systems to connect to AC networks. These stopgaps are slowly replaced because older systems have been retired or upgraded.
In May 1892, Westinghouse Electric succeeded in lowering General Electric in a contract to stir Colombian World Exposition in Chicago and, although they did not make a profit, their demonstration of a highly effective and flexible flexible alternating current system that empowers all the different electrical systems in Exposition causing them to win an offer by the end of that year to build an AC power plant at Niagara Falls. General Electric was awarded a contract to build an AC transmission line and transformer within the project and a further offer at Niagara divided by GE which quickly pursued in the field of air conditioning in part because Charles Proteus Steinmetz, a Prussian mathematician who was the first to fully understand AC power from solid math point of view. General Electric employs many talented new engineers to improve the design of transformers, generators, motors, and other equipment.
The patent demands still hampered both companies and spent money, so in 1896, J. P. Morgan drafted a patent-sharing agreement between the two companies that remained in force for 11 years.
In 1897 Edison sold the rest of his stock at Edison Electric Illuminating of New York to finance his prototype iron ore purification plant. In 1908 Edison told George Stanley, the son of the inventor of the AC transformer William Stanley, Jr., " Tell your father I was wrong ", probably admitting he has underestimated the potential for the development of alternating currents.
Bigger developments
International Electro-Technical Exhibition
The International Electro-Technical Exhibition of 1891, in Frankfurt, Germany, features high-powered long-distance transmission, three-phase electric current. It was held between 16 May and 19 October on the former site of three former "WestbahnhÃÆ'¶fe" (Western Railway Station) in Frankfurt am Main. The exhibition features the first high-power, three-phase electric transmission, produced 175 km away in Lauffen am Neckar. It successfully operates the motor and lights at the exhibition. When the exhibition was closed, the Lauffen power plant continued to operate, providing electricity for the administrative capital, Heilbronn, making it the first place to be equipped with three-phase AC power. Many of the company's technical representatives (including E. Rice Thomson-Houston Electric Company (which became General Electric)) were present. The technical and representative advisers were very impressed. As a result of successful field trials, a three-phase flow, as far as Germany is concerned, becomes the most economical way to transmit electrical energy.
In Europe, Siemens and Halske became dominant forces. The three phases of 60 Hz at 120 volts became the dominant system in North America while 220-240 volts at 50 Hz became the standard in Europe.
Current-mode electrical transmission networks provide redundant paths and pathways for power routing from any power station to any load center, based on the transmission line economy, power cost, and the importance of maintaining a dedicated, dedicated empowerment center at all times. High voltage power transmission allows generators (such as hydroelectric sites) to be away from the load.
Willamette Falls to Niagara Falls
In 1882, the German Miesbach-Munich Power Transmission used 2kV DC with a distance of 57 kilometers (35 mi). In 1889, the first DC long-distance transmission in the United States was turned on at Willamette Falls Station, in Oregon City, Oregon. In 1890, floods destroyed power plants. This unfortunate event paved the way for the first long-distance transmission of AC power in the world when the Willamette Falls Electric company installed an experimental air conditioning generator from Westinghouse in 1890. That same year Niagara Falls Company (NFPC) and its subsidiary Cataract Company formed. The International Niagara Commission consists of experts, to analyze proposals to utilize Niagara Falls to generate electricity. The commission is headed by Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) and includes EleuthÃÆ'¨re Mascart of France, William Unwin of England, Coleman Sellers of the US, and ThÃÆ' Â © odore Turrettini of Switzerland. It is supported by entrepreneurs such as J. P. Morgan, Lord Rothschild, and John Jacob Astor IV. Among the 19 proposals, they even briefly consider compressed air as an electric transmission medium, but prefer electricity. They can not decide which method is the best overall.
Spread of air conditioning in Niagara
In 1893, the NFPC had rejected the remaining proposal from half a dozen companies and awarded a power plant contract to Westinghouse with further transmission lines and a transformer contract awarded to General Electric. The work began in 1893 on the Niagara Falls manufacturing project: 5,000 horsepower (3,700 kW) will be generated and shipped as alternating current, at a frequency of 25 Hz to minimize impedance losses in transmission (converted to 60 Hz in the 1950s).
Some people doubt that the system will generate enough electricity for the power industry in Buffalo, New York. Its founder Nikola Tesla believes it will work, saying that Niagara Falls can move all of the eastern United States. None of the previous polyphase flip-flop demonstration projects resides on the power scale available from Niagara:
- The German Lauffen-Neckar Demonstration in 1891 had a capacity of 225 kW over 175 km
- Westinghouse successfully used air conditioning in a commercial Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant in 1891 at 75 kW (Single phase)
- The Chicago World Expo in 1893 shows a complete 11,000 kW polyphase generation and distribution system with multiple generators, installed by Westinghouse.
- Almirian Decker devised a three-phase AC 250-phase system at Mill Creek, California in 1893
Westinghouse must also develop systems that can be converted to all required power standards including single phase and polyphase AC and DC for road cars and factory motors. The initial customer of Westinghouse for a hydroelectric generator at Edward Dean Adams Station in Niagara in 1895 was the Pittsburgh Reduction Company's factory that needed cheap electricity in large quantities for aluminum smelting. On November 16, 1896, the electric power that was sent to Buffalo began to turn on his street car. The generator was built by Westinghouse Electric Corporation with a generator containing the name Tesla. The scale of the project soon has General Electric contributing the same, building transmission equipment, generators, and generators.
Power Transmission
Competing systems
The Edison DC distribution system consists of a plant that feeds a weight distribution conductor, with a tapped customer (lighting and motor) load. The system operated at the same voltage level throughout; for example, a 100-volt lamp at a customer's location is connected to a 110 volt supply generator, to allow for some voltage drop across the cable between the generator and the load. The voltage level is chosen for comfort in making the lamp; high-carbon-resistance filament lamps can be built to withstand 100 volts, and to provide economically competitive lighting performance with gas lighting. At that time it was felt that 100 volts might not present the danger of a fatal electric shock.
To save the cost of a copper conductor, a three-wire distribution system is used. All three cables are at 110 volts, 0 volts, and -110 volts potential. The 100-volt lamp can be operated between one of the 110 or 110-volt feet of the system and the 0-volt "neutral" conductor, which carries only unbalanced currents between sources. The resulting three-wire system uses fewer copper wires for a certain amount of transmitted power while retaining (relatively) low voltages. Even with this innovation, the voltage drop due to the system conductor resistance is so high that the power station must be within a mile (1-2 km) or more of the load. Higher voltages can not be easily used with DC systems because there is no inexpensive efficient technology to reduce high transmission voltages to low utilization voltages.
In an alternating current system, a transformer is used between a high-voltage (relative) distribution system and a customer's load. Small lights and motors can still operate on some comfortable low voltage, but the transformer allows power to be transmitted at a much higher voltage, say, ten times the load. For the given amount of power, the cross-sectional area of ​​the wire is inversely proportional to the applied voltage. Alternatively, the permitted circuit length, given the size of the wire and the permitted voltage drop, increases roughly as the square of the distribution voltage. This means that less, larger plants can serve loads in certain areas. Large loads, such as industrial motors or converters for electric train power, can be served by the same distribution network that provides illumination, using a transformer with the appropriate secondary voltage.
Edison's response to direct current constraints is to generate power close to where it is consumed (currently called distributed generation) and install large conductors to handle increasing demand for electricity, but this solution proves costly (especially for rural areas that can not afford to build local stations or paying large quantities of very thick copper wire), impractical (including inefficient voltage conversion) and uncontrolled.
Direct current can not be easily converted to higher or lower voltage. This means that a separate power line must be installed to supply power to equipment using different voltages, for example, lighting and electric motors. This requires more wiring to lay down and maintain, wasting money and introducing unnecessary dangers.
The low frequency (50-60 Hz) alternating current can be more dangerous than the same level of DC due to intermittent fluctuations can cause the heart to lose coordination, induce ventricular fibrillation, loss of a deadly heart rhythm that must be repaired immediately. Any practical distribution system will use sufficient voltage levels for the amount of harmful current to flow, whether it is using alternating or direct current. As a precautionary measure against electric shocks for AC and DC, the technical and economic advantages of AC power transmission outweigh this theoretical risk, and are eventually adopted as a worldwide standard.
Transmission loss
The advantage of AC to distribute remote power is because of the ease of changing the voltage using a transformer. The available power is the product ÃÆ'â € "the current voltage at the load. For a given amount of power, a low voltage requires a higher current and a higher voltage requiring a lower current. Because metal wires have near-fixed electrical resistance, some power will be wasted as heat in the cables. This loss of power is given by Joule's law and is proportional to the square of the current. Thus, if the overall transmitted power is equal, and given the practical conductor size constraint, high currents, low voltage transmissions will experience much greater power losses than low currents, high voltages. This is true whether DC or AC is used.
Converting DC power from one voltage to another requires large rotary converters or rotating generator motors, which are difficult, expensive, inefficient, and require maintenance, whereas with AC, voltage can be changed with simple and efficient transformers that have no moving parts. and it takes little care. This is the key to the success of AC systems. Modern transmission networks regularly use up to 765,000 volt AC voltage. Power electronic devices such as mercury-b valve
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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