Phoenix Turbine Builders Club

Tesla's Other Turbine

May 2007

Now that we have covered the basics of building a practical gas turbine at lower cost and greater robustness, let's take a look back in time to the "other turbine".

In the 19th century, as electrical infrastructure began to be built, the prime mover quickly evolved from steam piston to electric motors of all sizes, shapes and types. The electric motor is clearly the first modern age prime mover and, in fact, is a turbine.

These first turbines were DC¹ types. When Nikola Tesla attended college in Europe, professors of electrical engineering believed that an AC² induction motor was an impossible development -- tantamount to perpetual motion. Tesla was the first scientist to fully grasp, and then work out the design and development details, of AC induction motors, ushering in a revolution of industrial growth.

An interesting thing about these electrical turbines is that they are powered by pulses of energy rather than a steady stream of electrons. Whether the motor is commutated -- as in the case of DC -- or AC induced, the electron energy powering the motor is non-continuous.

In the early 20th century, Tesla proposed the first hybrid powered ships using an engine to spin a generator, which in turn powered the prop motor. Since there was a serious problem with bladed turbines exploding due to poor metallurgy in those days, Tesla also proposed replacing both reciprocating and bladed or bucket turbine engines with his disc turbine.

Although his large-scale marine proposals never were utilized, his own R&D programs were highly successful -- which  included an electric powered robotic boat and a wirelessly powered electric car.

That brings us to the point of this article. Tesla was a very forward-looking visionary who could see into the future and describe the kind of world we are living in today -- a world full of pollution and ill health due to man's arrogant misuse of science, engineering, and resources. He clearly identified the internal combustion engine as the main culprit, and warned against using piston engines in widescale preference to his "perfect engine" design.

So here we are, 100 years later, and the worst of his predictions is now in progress, with no end in sight, and the lie of the "green diesel" is in full swing. Automakers around the world are pushing the diesel throttles full speed ahead in an effort to again swindle the nitwit consumers into funding their own demise. - How stupid can you get! The money mongers have already robbed us of health, and now they want to rob us of life by depleting our dwindling oxygen reserves at an increasing rate, and blanketing the planet with cancer-causing soot.

Is there a simple, do-able, cost-effective solution to this madness? You bet there is, and this is the place you will read about it first.

Stay tuned for the next exciting article on the real solution to the pollution and global warming problem.

Ken Rieli

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