[Vwdiesel] ----( The Power Factor )

[Roger Brown]

LBaird119 at aol.com wrote:
>   No wonder Edison was hung up on DC!  ;-)
>   This stuff is ALL new concepts for me!
>      Loren

Really interesting reading about Edison (DC) and Tesla (AC) going at it in the early 
days touting the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems.  My favorite was 
Edison hiring a Harold Brown (no relation) to design the electric chair and of course 
it was designed to use that horrible, deadly AC current:
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair

Of course AC won out for the most part in power distribution systems.  However, DC 
still gets used here and there.  One big transmission line runs from around Portland 
Oregon down to Sylmar (near Los Angeles) and uses 500KV DC to transmit power.  DC has 
the big advantage of no power factor or stability issues.  It is not used more 
commonly due to the cost, which also tends to limit it to long-distance point-point 
use.  Huge solid state invertors are very, very expensive.

-- 
    Roger