Department of Energy, the increase of the use of LED lights will reduce the world’s energy costs by over $30 billion USD. Even though they use less energy than Incandescent light bulbs they aren’t good for the environment. Compact fluorescent lights contain small amounts of mercury in them.LED lights have a lifetime between 20,000 and 30,000 hours, and that is 20 times longer than an incandescent light bulb.
General Electric bid to electrify the fair using Edison’s direct current for $554,000, but lost to George Westinghouse, who said he could power the fair for only $399,000 using Tesla’s alternating current. The Chicago World’s Fair - also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition - took place in 1893, at the height of the Current War. He spread misinformation saying that alternating current was more dangerous, even going so far as to publicly electrocute stray animals using alternating current to prove his point. and can be converted to different voltages relatively easily using a transformer.Įdison, not wanting to lose the royalties he was earning from his direct current patents, began a campaign to discredit alternating current. Alternating current reverses direction a certain number of times per second - 60 in the U.S. Tesla believed that alternating current (or AC) was the solution to this problem. Direct current is not easily converted to higher or lower voltages. During the early years of electricity, direct current (shorthanded as DC) was the standard in the U.S.īut there was one problem. Starting in the late 1880s, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla were embroiled in a battle now known as the War of the Currents.Įdison developed direct current - current that runs continually in a single direction, like in a battery or a fuel cell. Send us your questions on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ using #GridWeek. We’ll be hosting a Twitter chat on How the Grid Works on Thursday November 20 at 2 PM EDT. We’re highlighting our efforts to maintain a reliable, resilient and secure electric grid across the country, and what that means for you.