Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [50]
Direct current had a few points in its favor. Most important, its dynamos converted mechanical energy into electrical energy with a loss of only about 10 percent, whereas alternating generators had losses closer to 25 percent. Direct current also offered the versatility of supplying power as well as light. A lightbulb had no preferences as to current type—its filament heated to incandescence whether the current flowed in one direction or alternated back and forth. But electrical companies needed a way to earn income from their plants during the day, when there was little demand for light. Direct current could run electric motors, allowing Edison to sell electricity to users of sewing machines, elevators, and other machines. There was no motor for alternating current, so Westinghouse's plants would sit idle during the day. There was also no way of measuring usage. The only electric meter—Edison's—worked on the principle of electroplating, strictly a direct-current phenomenon. Without a meter, Westinghouse would have to charge a flat rate, and this would lead to inefficient use of his power.33
EDISON FOLLOWED Westinghouse's work with great interest. Late in 1886—around the time Westinghouse's Buffalo plant went on-line-he wrote a thirteen-page memo to Edison Electric president Edward Johnson about alternating current, professing to be not a bit worried. The inventor pointed out that the generators and transformers wasted energy, and that the lack of meter and motor was a problem. Edison also worried about the dangers of sending high voltages through wires over city streets and into people's homes. Whereas direct-current lighting used just 100 volts, the Westinghouse system, Edison explained, "uses 2000 volts alternate—This gives a difference of 4000 volts (!) (HOLY MOSES). . . . Suppose Wfestinghouse] uses 2000 and one leg gets crossed, the first man that touches a wire in a wet place is a dead man." The inventor then made a prediction: "Just as certain as death Westinghouse will kill a customer within 6 months after he puts in a system of any size."34
Edison's evaluation of alternating current was accurate, given the state of the industry in 1886. But Westinghouse was placing a bet that the efficiency would improve, that meters and motors would be invented, that the dangers of high voltage could be controlled. Just as Edison had done in his work on the incandescent lamp, Westinghouse chose to gamble that he and his engineers could do what most experts said was impossible.
THROUGH HIS FLAIR for promotion, Edison had created a demand for electric light that he could not meet. Most Americans still lived in sparsely populated areas, and the limited range of the Edison system left them in the dark. Westinghouse filled the gap. His high-voltage system delivered affordable electricity to homes and businesses outside the reach of the Edison system.35
When Edison wrote his memo to Edward Johnson, he admitted, "One thing that disturbs me is the fact that Westinghouse is a great man for flooding the country with agents and travellers." It was an astute assessment. Unlike Edison, Westinghouse shunned publicity and built his business not through the power of personality but through aggressive marketing. Although at first Westinghouse was content to promote his system in rural areas Edison could not reach, before long he was competing head-to-head with Edison for customers.36
In April 1887 Westinghouse moved into New Orleans, selling light at a loss in order to undercut Edison's operation. "They are robbing our business pretty badly," Edison's local representative complained. The numbers bore out