Politics (bullet 1)
In college, Tesla observed the engine and after studying it, determined a way to take advantage of alternating current. A few years later, he expanded upon his original ideas regarding alternating current and designed plans for an induction motor, which would use alternating current. When he was 27, he went to work for Continental Edison Company where he realized his creation of an induction motor. The following year, Tesla moved to the United States with little more than the clothes on his back and began his new adventure in America. He landed a job with Thomas Edison, but they did not work well together and parted ways within a fairly short period of time. Shortly after leaving Edison, George Westinghouse bought Tesla’s patent right to his system of alternating current, where it eventually gained more support than direct current, which was also being touted at the same time as Tesla’s alternating current. Later, Tesla started his own laboratory and began designing his own inventions and shared that information all around the world. In 1900, Tesla discovered terrestrial stationary waves which proved the ground could be used as a conductor for electricity. He performed experiments in which he lit up items more than 20 miles away proving his theory. After this new found discovery, Tesla made big plans to create a tower to provide wireless electricity from Wardenclyffe Transmitter to the local area and began building the tower with the monetary support from an interested investor. To fund the project, Tesla sought out J. P. Morgan, who offered his funding for 51% of Tesla’s patent rights as collateral. Originally, the project was planned to be completed within nine months, but it went beyond that time so JP Morgan pulled his financing. Shortly thereafter “…the project was abandoned because of a financial panic, labour troubles, and Morgan's withdrawal of support. It was Tesla's greatest defeat. (Gribbin, 2008)

The Planetary Association for Clean Energy, or PACE, as it is known was a group created in Canada to seek out alternate clean sources of energy that were cost effective for the country. Initially, PACE sought “to replace of all these expensive constructions and prevent the indebtedness that would follow, Senator Carter advocated wireless energy transmission. What the PACE proposal outlined was specifically a Wardenclyffe setup for Canada that would take advantage of the country's geography, transmitting power to where – and more importantly to when – it was needed.” (Halliburton, 2006) The plan was sent before the Canadian Prime minister and was supported by scientific data collected from previous Tesla projects. One of Tesla’s fellow technician, Arthur H. Matthews, provided the data for the Prime Minister to review before deciding if wireless electricity would be the future way to provide electricity to the population of Canada. The Prime Minister then sent the proposal and all of the scientific data to the National Research Council (NRC) to elicit feedback before making a decision. When the NRC gave their statement, they had Dr. David Peat, a famous science writer draft a response, which rejected Tesla’s idea of a tower to produce wireless electricity and the idea was defeated.
After the rejection, an inquiry was created to discuss the rejection of project by the NRC. It was revealed that Dr. David Peat was instructed by the head of the NRC to reject the idea and that is exactly what Dr. Peat had done. As time went on, Dr. Peat supported the idea of wireless electricity and very slowly turned his back on his previous rejection of the project; however, the project was not funded and hydroelectric dams were awarded the financial backing instead. Canada is still paying on those projects that are not as profitable as originally expected.

Even though the proposal was blocked by the NRC, the idea of using Tesla’s towers to extract electricity and export it elsewhere still had the ear of scientists and engineers in Canada. Tim Richardson, whose father was an engineer, created a project in Timmins, Ontario that sought to use Tesla’s principles and export electricity wirelessly to another area. Richardson planned to have a tower built in Timmins and sought out an area in Minnesota to have a receiver coil built. Because local farmers in Minnesota were concerned the project may harm their cattle, they voluntarily participated in the project to see how it might affect their livelihood. After Richardson had organized a place in Canada to gather the electricity and a place in Minnesota to collect the wireless transmission of electricity, the head office of his company heard about the proposal and immediately blocked the transmission and shut down the proposal. The cancellation was surprising because the entire project was already funded.

Senator Carter, who had originally tried to get wireless electricity towers started in Canada, tried yet again to get electricity exported from his province so that they could make a profit by selling the electricity elsewhere. Carter took the Timmins proposal and began working on finding places and people to set up a tower in his province and a receiver coil in another. As he was building his network of people who accepted and bought into the proposal, he suddenly found that the government of Newfoundland blocking his experiment. Yet again, the ability to provide electricity wirelessly was thwarted by an invisible hand. Why would anyone want to block the ability to provide electricity to many people in faraway places with only a receiver coil? Were the people afraid of electromagnetic fields causing physical harm? The answer as to why the proposals for wireless electricity were always blocked is not surprising once you find out the answer. It is called the North American Energy Policy. Simply put, it is politics.
“This "North American" policy was apparently being dictated from Washington, DC, or perhaps from an international cartel of energy interests, and enforced by the simple, effective means of covertly using a few key highly-placed scientific administrators, and a science writer, to ridicule any paradigm-shifting proposal.” (Halliburton, 2006)

Tesla’s idea of wireless transmission of electricity was blocked twice previously even with willing participants. Even though it was blocked, the idea was picked up yet again by another proponent, Mila Mulroney, wife of the Prime Minister. She began gathering supporters in the previously unsupportive agencies. Both the Planetary Association for Clean Energy as well as the National Research Council had positive feedback on reviewing the proposal yet again. Mrs. Mulroney began gathering companies and venture capitalists that were willing to support the project and it seemed as if the experiment would finally be realized. Unfortunately, when the proposal with all of the scientific data was brought to the National Research Council, the Vice President, Dr. Keith Glegg, rejected it and the project was stopped. After the initial rejection, additional documentation was released regarding the rejection, citing generic information and vague support for the rejection. The rejection was so poorly supported, but with previous knowledge regarding political motivation to block wireless transmission projects, there was little motivation to try the proposal a fourth time.

Wireless transmission was blocked in North America over and over again, but why? The answer lay in the past. Ten years before the third wireless transmission proposal, headed by Mrs. Mulroney, the Canadian agency, PACE discovered energy signals coming from Russia and asked the government to monitor the signals. The results were eerily similar to the documentation by Nikola Tesla himself when recording wireless transmissions. Because there was not open communication between Canada and Russia, the results could not be confirmed that Russia had been able to successfully produce wireless electricity. Additionally, the Canadian Department of Defense had turned its back on PACE when speaking about Tesla’s technologies. It was finally starting to make sense that possibly the reason nobody would allow commercialization of wireless transmissions was because it was already created with a more sinister motivation—military defense. It was no wonder scientists were stopped in their tracks when they tried to move forward with the technology. It was indeed political and not used in the way Tesla had intended.

Tesla had intended his technology to be useful to everyone and for positive reasons. He related his vision in a scientific article titled The Transmission of Electrical Energy without Wires. In his article he stated “This energy will be collected all over the globe preferably in small amounts, ranging from a fraction of one to a few horse-power. One its chief uses will be the illumination of isolated homes. It takes very little power to light a dwelling with vacuum tubes operated by high-frequency currents and in each instance a terminal a little above the roof will be sufficient.” (1904) We can see from his writings that Tesla intended his technology to be used in a peaceful manner and for the benefit of everyone. Unfortunately, we also know from studying the history of wireless electricity that the technology may have also been developed to be used as an instrument of war.