2 Responses

1. Tesla found that AC was just easier to handle and to move long distances. You can put AC through a transformer and boost the voltage, and this high voltage AC can travel through long transmission lines (wires) without as much loss. Then using another transformer you can reduce the voltage to what is needed by the consumers.

   In the beginning there was a battle between Edison and Tesla. Edison wanted DC. After he invented the light bulb, he foresaw small generating stations in every neighborhood, with wires going no further than a few blocks. Tesla’s AC made it possible to have much bigger power stations, one or two for a city, which was cheaper. At one point, Edison found that the electric chair in Sing Sing prison in New York used AC, and his people used this fact in ads to show how dangerous AC was.

   An ‘incidental’ benefit of AC was that electric clocks could basically count the cycles to keep track of time.

2. although Edisons direct current ,dc, design was safer it meant that power needed to be generated and supplied at the same voltage that it was to be used. because of the low voltage that dc required the loss due to resistance in the lines was going to be substantial. This would necessitate having many power generating stations instead of just one. perhaps as often as every few miles.Teslas alternating current allowed for transformers to be used and the voltage sent down the lines to be many times higher than would be used commonly. with the higher voltage the percentage of power loss was significantly lower.