Niagara Falls and the History of Electricity

To see the role of Niagara Falls in electricity, we have to go back to electricity's humble beginnings.
Most of us know that Thomas Edison was credited with the invention of the incandescent light bulb. It was a technological achievement that ultimately changed the way we lived as our activities started to encroach well beyond sunset.
However, did you know that Edison almost undermined the electricity revolution by championing the DC electric current for electricity networks?
DC current (or "direct current" as opposed to AC current or "alternating current") pertains to the flow of electrons directly from the source (like a battery) to the load (like a light bulb). You can kind of think of it like water flowing from a reservoir high up on a hill and streaming downhill in a channel or creek towards a waterwheel, where the force of the moving water turns the wheel and does work for you. If you were to look at a DC current on an oscilloscope (which displays voltage as a function of time), it would be more or less a straight line.

Ever the entrepreneur and inventor, Edison sought to leverage his patents and control the electricity delivery (transmission) to customers needing to light up the night without noxious and staining fumes from gas lamps or candles (see how the power grid for transmission and distribution of electricity works).
However, DC has its drawbacks as it tended to be limited in range as it was susceptible to energy loss (as heat) as it moved across the wires carrying the electricity (wires could be modeled as resistors, which generate what's called Joule heating when current passes through it). Many of the clients who employed DC had to be located within one mile of the DC generators as a result. The voltage was also low voltage since Edison positioned it as "safe" and worry-free from electrocution.
George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla (who ironically was Edison's secretary) challenged Edison and championed AC current.
AC pertains to the alternating direction of flow of electricity from source to load. Periodically, the current moves in one direction, then flows in the opposite direction. If you were to look at an AC current on an oscilloscope, you would see a sine wave wiggling about zero volts in the vertical middle (i.e. the mean or average).
It turned out that AC had many benefits and it allowed engineers to capitalize on breakthroughs at the time. This included Tesla's induction motor (which exploited Faraday's Law to convert magnetic fields into an AC electrical current - the basis of most generators today) as well as William Stanley's commercial transformer (which allowed the ability to "step-up" or "step-down" AC current - the basis for transmission of electricity over long distances and overcoming line losses) among others.
Edison tried to vilify AC as dangerous. He even encouraged capital punishment to use AC for electric chairs to make the public associate AC with death and thus turn to Edison's "safer" DC.
After several years of fighting a public relations, legislative, financial, and technological battles, it turned out that Niagara Falls would play a crucial role in tilting the battle of AC versus DC in favor of AC.
The falls was like the scene for the climax of the epic battle between AC and DC. Both camps saw the powerful waterfall as a means to demonstrate the superiority of one technology over the other. The stage was set for numerous power companies to try to divert water upstream from the falls and route them to turbines which in turn generated the electricity.
Edison's limited range DC meant customers had to be close to the falls to attain the benefits of the DC generators he championed. This is the basis for what's known as distributed generation, where users had to be located close to the source of the power though you could have multiple generators each serving a localized community in a de-centralized network.
Meanwhile, the Tesla/Westinghouse camp were able to directly use the AC generated by the turbines spun by the force of the Niagara River diversions, step up the voltages with a transformer (up to hundreds of thousands of volts), send it long distances (to Buffalo nearly 30 miles away and eventually to Manhattan where there's Broadway and Wall Street), and step down the voltages with a transformer to a more usable form for lights and eventually other inventions to come like machines (for manufacturing), radios, televisions, calculators, etc.

While the hydroelectric schemes at Niagara Falls weren't the first to demonstrate Tesla's generation motors or that it was possible to use hydro for electricity, it was the first of its kind for industrial use.
Thus, the stage was set for the adoption of AC, which eventually paved the way for energy monopolists (like Samuel Insull), federal involvement in regulating (and in many cases enhancing monopolies) of electricity, standardizing the electricity (so you could plug your electronics in one area and it would still work elsewhere in the country; our current American standard is 120V AC oscillating at 60Hz), and the expansion of the electricity grid across the Nation as well as the world.
In essence, the AC current paved the way for centralized generation and consequent distribution and transmission of electricity to customers. Thus, the energy utilities started to gain influence and power, which still remains to this day.
Today, we take for granted that we plug in our electronics to the wall socket and get electricity to power our computers, chargers, TVs, lights, microwaves, refrigerators, etc. Yet it was a waterfall that was instrumental in the eventual adoption of our electricity grid, and thus changed our lives forever.
Now while Edison ultimately lost the technological battle between AC and DC, he might end up getting the last laugh as environmental, political, and economic pressures are steering the electricity industry back towards de-centralized distributed generation (though not totally in favor of low voltage DC as Edison would've liked). This opens the possibility for clean renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, etc.) to compete with energy utility monopolies for power generation and distribution (which is currently by coal-fired plants, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric) by being more efficient, environmentally friendly, and cheaper. Whether this happens sooner rather than later largely depends on all the backroom dealings, money exchanges, promises, and debating amongst government and industry interests (this includes lobbyists and politicians taking money from industry) who make the decisions as to how the Nation moves forward on this matter.

Electricity - The Past and The Future

Electricity is a necessary and integral part of our daily lives. It allows us to light our homes and our streets. It keeps us cool in the summer, warm in the winter and allows us to power a wide array of gadgets. Electricity is the force that powers all of our lives.
Even though electricity is so important to us, it still remains somewhat of an enigma. Most of us give little thought to its very presence, let alone contemplate its history or future. Today we are going to rectify that situation by not only giving you the history of this vital force of nature but also by giving you an overview of how electricity is going to change our lives in the very near future.
The History Of Electricity
It is now commonly believed that electrical forces were harnessed by mankind, albeit on a very limited scale, as early as the first century A.D. This belief has been fostered since 1938, when William Konig discovered earthenware objects that were believed to have been used as the first batteries. These artifacts were made of terracotta and contained both a copper cylinder and an iron cylinder inside. It is believed that the ancient people in this area filled these pots with either lemon juice or vinegar, used as a weak electrolyte. This would strip electrons from one metal post and depositing it on the other metal post, thus creating an electric current. Because of this potential for electric current, these artifacts have since been dubbed Baghdad batteries.
Even though the ancients may have had a basic understanding of electrical properties, it wouldn't be until the seventeenth century until scientists really began to investigate the seemingly magical properties of electricity. This is when an English scientists named William Gilbert really began looking into the properties of electricity with a series of experiments that produced static electricity by applying friction to a piece of amber. William Gilbert would go on to coin the word "electricus", a Latin word that means "like amber", and would later evolve into the word electricity.
Research into the properties and applications of electricity would continue at a snail's pace until the nineteenth century when some of the greatest minds in the world began to refine the principles and generation of electricity. Some of the people who helped revolutionize this field included Nikola Tesla, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse and Lord Kelvin. These great minds transformed electricity from a mere intellectual curiosity into the defined scientific principle that it is today, thereby transforming the entire world.

The Future Of Electricity
Having established the long and illustrious history of electricity, let's turn our attention to the future. What new advances can we expect to see in this field? Quite a few, actually. Let's look at what electricity is likely to be transformed into.
Wireless Power
Wouldn't it be nice to power you laptop without having to worry about charging its batteries or running a television somewhere that isn't close to an outlet? Well, that might just be the future of electricity. Researchers at MIT's Department Of Physics has made significant strides in making this a reality by developing something they call "WiTricity." It works by transferring electricity right over the air like Wi-fi. They have already demonstrated their ability to do this by lighting a light bulb that draws its power over the air rather than through an electrical cord.

All Things Electric!!
It is predicted that in the future electricity will take on an even more prominent role in our lives. It will be used to power anything and everything. This includes combs, brushes, shoes and even articles of clothing. These innovative ideas may further increase our dependence on electricity, but it will also open up new possibilities for us. If you don't believe that electricity will play an increased role in our future lives, then all you have to do is look at the electric car. A few years ago these vehicles were pretty rare but they are now becoming more and more common.

What Is Electricity?

ELECTRICITY :-

Electricity is a form of energy consisting of a flow of electrons. It is a basic part of environment which is actually a secondary energy source made from the conversion of other sources of energy such as coal, natural gas, oil or nuclear power and other sours. Water is a frequent source of generating electricity via use of mechanisms to harness the power of free flowing water such as water falls or rivers.

Obviously any mention of the history of electricity would include lightening. Lightening is a large discharge of electricity which has been created during thunderstorms. Cumulonimbus clouds become charged with electricity, not unlike when you become charged with electricity when you drag your feet across a carpet. Similar to when you touch an uncharged object and release a "shock," so a cloud does when it reaches near enough to something to release the stored static energy.

Generating electricity is typically accomplished by elctro-mechanical generators driving by an alternate fuel source such as steam, fossil fuel, heat from nuclear power or kinetic energy derived from water or wind.

Because electricity can not be easily stored in large quantities to meet demands on national scales, what is needed at specific points must be exactly provided. This requires power companies to pay close attention to peaks and valleys in usage of areas they service. Too much power when it is not needed is then waster and too little causes an entirely different set of issues such as black outs or brown outs which can result in delicate equipment damage

ELECTRIC WIRIRNG :-

Electric wiring is a means by which a consumer of electric energy can operate his items of electrical equipment as and when he wishes. The wiring extends from the consumer's terminals, where it is connected to the electricity supply mains, to the various outlet points such as ceiling roses and wall sockets. The term fixed wiring is often used to distinguish the wiring serving the fixed outlet points from flexible wiring such as that attached to appliances, familiarly known as leads.

Wiring comprises cables together with associated apparatus for control and protection. Cables consist of conductors, insulation and sometimes mechanical protection. The purpose of a conductor is to carry the current, and it is therefore constructed of a material offering little resistance to the flow of electric current, such as copper or aluminum. The conductor is generally in the form of either a single wire or of a group of wires (known as strands) in contact with each other.

The function of insulation is to prevent the current from leaking away from the conductor at places where it is not required to flow. Thus, a material which offers an extremely high resistance to the flow of current is used for the insulation, such as polyvinyl chloride (p.v.c.) or magnesia (mineral).

Mechanical protection may take the form of an integral overall sheath of insulating material or metal, or the cable may be enclosed within a conduit, trunking or duct. Two or more insulated conductors included within a cable and provided with mechanical protection are each described as a core.

The form of protection used largely determines what is described as the system of wiring. Typical systems of wiring include p.v.c-insulated p.v.c.-sheathed cables, insulated cables within conduits (either metallic or nonmetallic), and mineral-insulated metal-sheathed cables.

Systems of wiring should not be confused with methods of wiring, such as the looping-in method employed when wiring is within conduits, and the joint box method applicable to sheathed wiring.

What are the Wiring Regulations?

The I.E.E. Wiring Regulations, or more correctly the Regulations for the Electrical Equipment of Buildings, are principally concerned with the safety of electric wiring and electrical installations generally. They are recognised as a U.K. national code in this respect. The Wiring Regulations Committee of the Institution of Electrical Engineers frames the Regulations and amends them from time to time as necessary in the light of new developments. The Institution also publishes a Guide to the I.E.E. Wiring Regulations which aims to point out some of the reasoning behind the Regulations and their implications in day-to-day terms.

The Regulations relate mainly to requirements for installation, testing and maintenance of consumers' wiring and equipment, but certain requirements for the construction of electrical equipment are included, mainly in the form of references to British Standards. For guidance on good practice in certain aspects of electrical installations beyond the scope of the I.E.E. Regulations, reference can be made to the British Standard Codes of Practice issued by the British Standards Institution.