When, in New York, William Kemmler, a man of German heritage, became the first person to be executed in the electric chair in 1890, it was not only the beginning for some of a dark chapter in the history of jurisprudence, but also the sorry climax of a struggle between two ingenious men for the most promising industrial market of the day. The confrontation between the inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, and the industrialist, George Westinghouse, would go down in history as the "Electricity War".
Electricity was the magic word of the late 19th century. In initial attempts by Benjamin Franklin or Michael Faraday, and with the invention of electric impulses in telegraph technology, the spectrum of uses for electricity were growing continuously.
After the World Exposition in Paris in 1881 and Edison's astonishing unveiling of the light bulb, new electric illumination systems became the hottest technological achievement around the globe and everybody wanted them. Electricity could replace steam to drive engines. It was a second industrial revolution.
Everywhere in European and American cities power plants were sprouting up, based on Edison's design. But the limitations soon became evident. These utilities generated direct current, so it was only possible to supply energy to a small circle around the plant.
Westinghouse recognized the problem right away. He invested his money into a few, large generating plants outside the cities that used higher voltage to transport the electricity over greater distances - something that was only feasible with alternating current.
The competition between these two alternative utility systems developed into a bitter fight. It began with defamatory statements and, from there, moved on to slander, espionage and court battles, finally coming to a head with the public electrocution of animals to demonstrate how dangerous the other's utility system was.
Mission X takes a closer look at the dramatic story of this bitter rivalry on which the standard for today's high voltage technology is based. And yet, in laboratories around the world, the next step in power generation is already being researched. In Munich, an international team of scientists is working on how to bring the sun's fire to Earth. Nuclear fusion, as it is called, is a super heated plasma fire of 100 million degrees which scientists hope will be the energy of the future. Innovative super conductors will then be able to transport the generated electricity over thousands of miles to any point on the globe with no loss of energy along the way
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