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  • Essay / Thomas Edison – The ultimate winner of the current war

    The competition between Nikolas Tesla and Thomas Edison to supply electricity to cities in the late 1880s is often called the "war of the currents", because this battle finally decided on the type of Current has become the standard for electricity production today. The battle between Edison's direct current (DC) and Tesla's alternating current was initially won by Tesla, because his method was easier to step up and down between high and low voltages and was more easily transmitted over higher voltages. long distances. The “war of streams,” however, is far from over, as each method has both advantages and disadvantages. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Direct current was first produced in 1800 by the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, in his battery called the voltaic pile. It is the direct flow of an electrical charge through a conductive path, hence the name. A clear example of DC power is from a battery or fuel cell. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, electricity began to be produced in power stations and used to power street lighting running on direct current. Edison fueled this industrialization of electricity and used direct current to transmit electricity between power plants and the devices that used that energy. However, there were two problems: direct current could not be easily converted between higher and lower voltages and it was difficult to transmit it over long distances. Tesla, who was one of Edison's students, thought he had the solution to this problem: alternating current instead of direct current. Alternating current is a type of current in which the electrical charge periodically changes direction and is based on principles designed by Michael Faraday in 1832. Alternating current can be converted relatively easily to different voltages using a transformer. A simple transformer consists of two or more coils of insulated wire wound on a rolled steel core. When a voltage is introduced into the first coil (called the primary coil), the iron core becomes magnetized. This induces a voltage in the other coil (called the secondary coil or output coil). The number of times the second coil is wound around the transformer core regulates the size of the output voltage. With Tesla and Edison each having different ideas about what the future of electricity should look like, a war began. Edison earned large royalties from his direct current patents and so set about discrediting Tesla's ideas on alternating current. He spread rumors that AC was more dangerous, even going so far as to publicly electrocute stray animals using AC to prove his point. The defining moment of the "War of the Currents" took place in 1893, at the Chicago World's Fair. Using Tesla's alternating current, the fair could be powered for $399,000, while Edison's direct current could power the fair for $554,000. In terms of cost and efficiency, Tesla's AC was the obvious choice and since then, AC has become the method of power transmission. However, both AC and DC had advantages and disadvantages. The main problems with direct current were, as previously stated, its successful transmission over longerdistances and the increase and decrease of tension. According to Regoli (2016), improving or degrading DC voltages requires complicated circuitry, and because wires quickly lose power, additional circuitry is needed to "rejuvenate" the voltage when transmitting electrical energy over long distances. Regoli goes on to explain that unlike direct current, alternating current is easily transmitted over long distances and can be converted between high and low voltage using a simple transformer. However, direct current has a very big advantage: direct current energy can be stored (as in batteries) while alternating current cannot. Although AC won the current war in the days of Edison and Tesla, the semiconductor era forced the return of DC. . A semiconductor solid substance that has a conductivity between that of an insulator and that of most metals, either due to the addition of an impurity or due to the effects of temperature. The most commonly used semiconductor is silicon and is primarily used to power electronic devices, primarily those that operate in only two states: on and off (such as phones, computers, etc.). Due to modern society's reliance on computers, tablets and other portable devices all using semiconductors, DC has made a comeback. These semiconductor devices require a constant flow of electricity and therefore rely on direct current. In alternating current, the voltage reverses periodically, as does the direction of current flow, meaning that there is an infinitesimal amount of time per period that there is no current. This period without power is something that constantly power-hungry electronic devices cannot handle and is why DC is used. In addition to being used in electronic devices, direct current is also used in solar panels. All solar cells are based on semiconductor substrates and generate or operate with direct current. Today, energy is used for many things and therefore it is essential to have a sustainable, affordable and reliable source of energy. To achieve this, alternating current and direct current work in tandem. Alternating current flows through power lines, providing the electricity we need to homes and businesses, and is pushed to high voltages to overcome energy losses due to resistance. When the electricity arrives at its destination, the AC voltage is then converted to DC voltage using a rectifier to power household appliances, such as light bulbs, lamps, and other appliances. However, the effectiveness of rectifiers is questionable and they are expensive. The solution to this problem would be to use DC instead, which would eliminate the current "switching" between the current transmission type before use. However, the simplicity with which AC voltages can be controlled and transported is still unmatched by simple DC, meaning that AC remains the preferred method. However, there is a new technology that could be the solution to this problem: high voltage direct current (HVDC). When it comes to transmitting large amounts of power over long distances, HVDC is much more efficient than conventional AC lines. HVDC lines provide a greater amount of power than traditional AC lines, regardless of how far the electricity travels; can transmit up to 3.