Well here we go again... As I thought back on the Edison/Westinghouse compition, I started thinking that there may or may not be enough for a decent entry here... So here starts the ramble, and we'll just see where it goes...
As I mentioned in the first edition, Edison was a proponent of direct current (DC) while Westinghouse saw alternating current (AC) as the better system. (in terms of mass distrobution at any rate, there wasn't really much of a low voltage electronics market going on at the time naturally)
As things turn out, AC was the better system. At the very begining though, it was an even field for a few reasons. Copper was very cheap in the early 1880's. DC needs a much heavier wire/cable to deliver the same energy as an AC system. However since the copper was cheap, it did not matter too much at first. Secondly, there was no "grid" delivering power long distance, so electric instalations tended to be in small areas, the longest run being no more than a few miles. DC can hold its own in that situation.
So what do rivals do when the compition heats up?... Out come the smear tactics. Yep, way back in the late 1880's there was plenty of mud slinging going on. The majority of the mud came from Edison as he was facing a better technology. (which he eventually admitted later in life) He played on peoples fear of an unsafe technology. In 1887 he got one of Westinghouse's generators, hooked it to a metal plate, and started electrocuting animals. (dogs, horses and cows) They were useing a 1000 volt Westinghouse generator, which will certianlly do the trick.
At the height of the back and forth between the two, New York State decided that they needed a new form of execution. They decided on electrocution, even though there was no electric chair yet. Well both companies jumped into the fray, designing their own respective chairs, powered by their prefered system. Now comes the odd part. They were both hoping to lose, and had campagined to get the rival's chair accepted. The logic was that people would not want the same kind of power in their homes that was used for ececutions. The end result, was the AC powered chair won, and Edison had a field day. Westinghouse was upset, and actually refused to sell generators to NY state to fry their criminals, going to the extreme of paying for the legal appeals of the first few people sentenced to the chair.
While I am sure there was more fighting between the two, I have never found reference to it. It seems they just seemed to get on with making their power systems after the 80's... Westinghouse figured out the first long distance delivery system in the 1890's. He managed to secure the contract for the Niagra Falls generating station. For this he had to develop transformers to make the transmission effecient. The system generated three phase power, in a system he had aquired the rights to from Nikola Tesla, whom Westinghouse had persuaded to join his company. They sent the power from Niagra to Buffalo where it was the first system that powered multiple sytems. (in this case railways, street lights, home and business power) This is pretty much the way things still are. What happened to all the DC systems? Well in some places, they still exist. Co Ed (a part of the Consolidated Edison group) is still generating DC for some clients, though they offer good incentives to convert. (I'm thinking if those people are still running their DC gear after all this time, they're not going to want to change... Good luck to Con Ed... )
And there ya have it... (well kinda... I guess I rambled a bit there, but hey... its my blog, and I'll ramble if I want to...)
I am not going to pre-determine the next topic of ramble for the Flashback... We'll just see what hits me at the time...
Posted by Backstage at August 31, 2003 07:46 PM