Is there any data on how efficient Tesla wireless power transmission was?

Question

It's widely believed that Nikola Tesla not only demonstrated wireless power transmission but his works in this field were very successful.

Wikipedia only says this

The electric energy transmitted by means of electrostatic induction can be utilized by a receiving device, such as a wireless lamp. Tesla demonstrated the illumination of wireless lamps by energy that was coupled to them through an alternating electric field.

but there's a lot of statements as in here

Nikola Tesla started the wireless energy transfer revolution almost 120 years ago.

and there're lots of fanatic claims about Tesla being able to transmit power wirelessly and later generations having lost his achievements.

Now wireless power transfer is possible but the efficiency is rather low. For example, Wikipedia has this statement (not backed up though)

For example, the Magne Charge system employed high-frequency induction to deliver high power at an efficiency of 86% (6.6 kW power delivery from a 7.68 kW power draw).

and Magne Charge charges an electric vehicle via a pad placed inside the slot on the car, so transmitter and receiver coils are very close to each other. Efficiency goes down quickly as distance increases.

Well, okay, let's just agree we've lost Tesla's secrets. Also I realize that if there was a detailed enough description of a machine for efficient wireless transmission of electricity someone would make use of it.

I don't hope to find anything like that. I'd be happy to just find trustworthy evidence of actual fact of transmission taking place with specific (hopefully miles) distance and specific efficiency.

Is there any evidence that Tesla was actually able to transmit power wirelessly with commercially reasonable efficiency?

If such proof were accessible to you or I, why wouldn't someone (in USA, Russia or China) have used it to create commercial products by now? — RedGrittyBrick, Feb 01 '13 at 15:42
@RedGrittyBrick: You've forgot about conspirancies and evil corporations who are not fond of gas car industry getting useless. — sharptooth, Feb 01 '13 at 15:54
@RedGrittyBrick: Actually I'm not asking about a constructive proof like "Tesla constructed this specific thing and the efficiency was this", I'd be happy to see a confirmed claim like "At date this Tesla transmitted power at gazillion miles with this efficiency". — sharptooth, Feb 01 '13 at 15:56
@Sharptooth: I believe he demonstrated illuminating partially evacuated tubes wirelessly (but this wasn't how his "World System" was intended to work). Some modern artists have replicated this on a larger scale by planting [fluorescent light tubes below power pylons](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXhZvyGtMrk). — RedGrittyBrick, Feb 01 '13 at 16:25
Electric motors work by action at a distance through induction. That is what that car charging system is doing. My toothbrush charges the same way. This single fact motivates much of the early technology of electricity. — Tim Quinn, Feb 02 '13 at 06:48
When people talk about Tesla and transmission of power though space they are usually thinking of the picture of him holding a glowing fluorescent tube in the middle of a field under transmission lines. This is static electricity, a different beast than what goes through wires and runs motors. — Tim Quinn, Feb 02 '13 at 06:55
There are wireless charging devices that work over very short distances (phones that have to be placed on a special mat to charge, etc). They're typically not very efficient compared to a conventional power transfer mechanism. Given the inverse square law I can't imagine power transmission through big air gaps would be remotely efficient — GordonM, Nov 09 '16 at 15:20

RedGrittyBrick · Answer 1 · 2013-02-03T00:04:12.853

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TL;DR;

Tesla's Patents and notebooks are available. Tesla was often interviewed and gave public demonstrations.

There's no convincing evidence that he had really discovered a means of transmitting power that could be commercially implemented in the way he envisaged in his "World System".

There's no evidence (that I can find) which proves his system could achieve the 99.5% efficiency he claimed.

Tesla's Secrets

we've lost Tesla's secrets.

By definition, that's impossible to answer, we've also lost Newton's secrets and Edison's secrets. If any. But we know that Tesla's US patent 1119732 for Apparatus for transmitting electrical energy is on public record.

Tesla wrote

I obtained convincing evidence of the feasibility of wireless power transmission on a vast scale for all industrial purposes.

The chief discovery, which satisfied me thoroughly as to the practicability of my plan, was made in 1899 at Colorado Springs, where I carried on tests with a generator of fifteen hundred kilowatt capacity and ascertained that under certain conditions the current was capable of passing across the entire globe and returning from the antipodes to its origin with undiminished strength. It was a result so unbelievable that the revelation at first almost stunned me. I saw in a flash that by properly organized apparatus at sending and receiving stations, power virtually in unlimited amounts could be conveyed through the earth at any distance, limited only by the physical dimensions of the globe, with an efficiency as high as ninety-nine and one-half per cent.

Nikola Tesla's Colorado Springs Notes were published as a book.

Wireless Transmission of Power

Is there any proof that Tesla was actually able to transmit power wirelessly with commercially reasonable efficiency?

Judging from the number of web-sites that cover this topic, a large number of people have looked for this. None of them seem to have found anything commercially exploitable so far.

Colorado Springs. 1899-1900.

Tesla had a lab in Colorado at which he is said to have demonstrated illuminating light bulbs at a distance.

illuminating light at a few hundred feet
illuminating light bulbs at a range of five miles

I have not yet found any reliable primary sources for these stories. The reports are brief and certainly contain no data concerning efficiency.

enter image description here (from PBS)

^{Caption in Century Magazine, June 1900, reads: "The photograph shows three ordinary incandescent lamps lighted to full candle-power by currents induced in a local loop consisting of a single wire forming a square of fifty feet each side, which includes the lamps, and which is at a distance of one hundred feet from the primary circuit energized by the oscillator."}

It seems Tesla's focus was on demonstrating feasibility. It seems unlikely he was especially concerned about efficiency at this stage.

Tesla envisaged that his "World System" would be able to transmit power across thousands of miles, point to point, through the earth, with negligible power losses. It would also be able to power aircraft and ships.†

Wardenclyffe. 1900-1917

Tesla's backers provided funds for a long-range communication system, but Tesla was mainly interested in demonstrating the feasibility of his "World System" for wireless power distribution.

Since Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower never became operational, Tesla was unable to demonstrate the system of power transmission he planned for his "World System"

The failure of this project suggests that Tesla was unable to provide his financial backers with convincing proof that the idea was commercially exploitable.

Efficiency

Is there any data on how efficient Tesla wireless power transmission was?

We've seen above that Tesla claimed 99.5% efficiency.

I haven't read much of the Colorado Springs notes, I have the impression that his demonstrations didn't measure efficiency of power transfer.

I believe his "World System" was intended to work on slightly different principles. In a 1927 article Tesla contrasts his system with power transmission by short wave broadcasting.

Conclusion

For all the reasons given above it seems unlikely that Tesla provided experimental results that demonstrated commercial feasibility with the technology of the day.

enter image description here
^{(Tesla wireless power - but not his "World System")}
^{(also not Tesla's "World System")}

Miscellaneous references

1 2 3 4 5

Footnotes

†(Frankly I find his writings and reported interviews somewhat confusing, but I'll try to provide references for this paragraph in a later edit)

edited Feb 03 '13 at 00:04

answered Feb 01 '13 at 15:56

RedGrittyBrick

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I'd dispute the last assumption as Wardenclyffe was an extremely complicated technical undertaking, saying that it failed provide proof would be like saying that the LHC failed to provide proof o the Higgs boson before the it was started. Since Wardenclyffe was never fully operational we can't say it was a failed experiment either. – rjzii Feb 01 '13 at 16:11
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Also, with regards to the commercial feasibility, if the power is going to be transmitted through the air, it's inherently not very commercially feasible as you don't have a means of billing people for usage. :) – rjzii Feb 01 '13 at 16:13
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@Rob: I'm suggesting 1) The Patent apparently is not such proof. 2) T lacked proof to convince backers. 3) Since W was never completed, the proof (by demonstration) it was intended to provide does not exist. 4) Therefore the proof the Q seeks probably didn't exist in Tesla's lifetime. – RedGrittyBrick Feb 01 '13 at 16:19
That's fair, although I seem to recall reading that Tesla was able to do a scaled down experiment in Colorado Springs where he was achieving power transmission over a mile away. I'll have to see if I still have the books though and that doesn't say much about the efficiency of the system though. I still think that lacking proof for backers is a very weak argument though. Free power transmission inherently doesn't have much in the way of commercial viability unless you can sell more products that can use the power which were lacking at the time. – rjzii Feb 01 '13 at 16:33
I think you -can- say that an experiment that never was completed failed. That is a simple fact. That doesn't mean that anything was 'proven.' – Tim Quinn Feb 02 '13 at 07:09
Google is "free" and yet they make money. Free energy would be such a boon that there would be no question it would be exploited for gain. You have to do some risky mental gymnastics to deny that. – Tim Quinn Feb 02 '13 at 07:12
The LHC did fail to provide proof before it was started up as did Tesla's experiment. We're not talking about some sort of cosmic justice here, we are talking about facts. – Tim Quinn Feb 02 '13 at 07:16
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@Tim: Google isn't free, they charge their customers (the advertisers) quite a lot. It's true they don't charge their product/meat (you and I) for being sold. That would be like Hormel charging pigs to be put into cans. The free bait is tasty though. – RedGrittyBrick Feb 02 '13 at 11:00
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@TimQuinn - It's a mater of semantics that can trip people up though. If you say the experiment failed then people tend to assume that the hypothesis was invalid. If you say that the experiment was never completed then people tend to assume that the status of the hypothesis is currently unknown pending further investigation. – rjzii Feb 03 '13 at 00:15
Obviously, Google charges someone. The quotes around the word indicate something. I guess I should have spelled out my point a little better. The argument that you could not make money if your product can be produced for free is just not an argument that makes any real sense within the context of this discussion. It takes a world changing idea and puts it into today's context as if it was just another widget. – Tim Quinn Feb 03 '13 at 04:49
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My point was that you can't say they would not make money because you can't imagine how it would happen. There are other ways to make money than to charge your end user for bandwidth. Google provides us with one possible example. Google is a search engine that is supported through ad sales. You can say that ads are their real business since that is what they make there money on, but I would disagree. Are newspapers in the business of selling ads (well, not anymore but that's a different story) not really, they are in the business of journalism and it is supported by ad sales. – Tim Quinn Feb 03 '13 at 04:50
To say they are in the ad business is to willfully ignore a real distinction. – Tim Quinn Feb 03 '13 at 04:51
I am not suggesting free energy could be supported by ad sales, though. I am making a counter example to your assertion that you can't make money from something that can be made very very cheaply. (cause free doesn't really exist) one counter example shoots down your point. – Tim Quinn Feb 03 '13 at 04:57
Or rather Rob Z's point. – Tim Quinn Feb 03 '13 at 05:04
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I want to make one more point here. RedGrittyBrick, you jumped on my statement about Google in a way that suggests you did not really read my post to understand, but to look for a hook to hang your skeptic's hat. Your quick leap to the point about Google not being free can only be made if you did not bother to try and understand what I was saying. This is a disturbing tendency around here and a characteristic of the skeptics milieu in general. Be aware of templatizing responses. It ain't skepticism. – Tim Quinn Feb 03 '13 at 05:38
@Tim: I'm struggling to see how your comment about Google's success helps me improve my answer to *"Is there any proof that Tesla was actually able to transmit power wirelessly with commercially reasonable efficiency?"* - please clarify (as concisely as possible) or consider moving your points to a separate answer where you develop this theme. [n.b.](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/312/8755) – RedGrittyBrick Feb 03 '13 at 12:00
If Tesla's large scale power transmission were made available, they could use a system like the UK's TV License to make sure people pay for it -- UK citizens are required to pay for a TV license if they own a TV, TV dealers furnish information to the Licensing Agency when people buy a TV, and inspectors make unannounced house visits to look for unauthorized use. Since some of Tesla's receiving equipment is huge, it shouldn't be hard to inspectors to find unlicensed electricity users. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Licence_fee_enforcement – Johnny Apr 19 '13 at 21:11
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@Johhny: Tesla's "World System" was envisaged as global in scale. How would New York Light and Power recover it's fuel costs from Kim Jong-Un after Tesla's plans are used to build a receiving station in Pyongyang? There are some challenges. Also Tesla envisaged powering aircraft, presumably he felt small portable receivers could be constructed? – RedGrittyBrick Apr 20 '13 at 11:49