Will DC take over? || Changing scenario in the war of currents

Edison tried hard to prove that direct current (DC) is superior to alternating current (AC), but that day, things didn’t work out the way Edison intended. Thus, begin the reign of AC, and it has been the same for more than a century now. He was wrong then, but does that mean he is wrong even today? You know time changes, so as circumstances. Was Edison’s idea of a DC powered world come true? Or will it continue the way it is today?

These are some questions that will be discussed in this article, if you are one of those geeks who keep interest in digging deep into the history of science, then Welcome!

Before we dive too deep, let’s get some context first.

In an AC dominated world

It has something to do with some intrinsic properties of this type of current and our needs. To understand the properties of AC, we need to know how it works and then will be looking into how it allows us with our needs.

AC, as the name suggests is alternating, that means the properties of electric current in this type of current alternate with time, i.e. the value and direction of voltage, so as of current. This phenomenon when isolated is not so great with getting our needs fulfilled. But, this is not an isolated phenomenon, this alteration of voltage is associated with alternating electric field, and electric field is associated with magnetic field. Now when voltage alternates, it induces some magnetic field around it, which can permeate through space and objects and induce electric field and thus voltage in another piece of object (mostly conductors). 

And as induction of electric field by altering magnetic field is dependent on the surface area it is exposed to and some other easily accessible factors, one can easily manipulate it into getting the voltage needed. And, as everything is happening here by virtue of changing fields and not moving particles there is minimal loss of energy to the environment, i.e. it produces minimal heat while being transferred and jumped from one voltage to another. As it produces a minimal amount of heat, it allows us to step up to some higher value of voltage, at which DC current simply melts the leads away.

There are multiple reasons to prefer AC to DC, but the above-mentioned reason of being manipulable with minimal loss of energy to the environment allowed us to put AC in our grids and in long transmission lines at which DC will simply fade to zero way before it reaches ours house and in industries to run the world. And to industries, equipment for AC ran devices were cheap and the same goes with AC producing devices.

So, those properties of electric and magnetic fields allowed AC to be used on a much wider scale than DC.

Evading the extinction

Though AC was dominating the world, it was never good for hands-on applications. Because with its inability of heat emission, the power of the current remains the same, though the voltage is much lesser, none will feel safe around high power which is out of its control. So, DC always remained in this niche of small and regular household applications.

And DC thrived in this niche. As unlike AC, DC can be stored, which made it a friend of bad times, i.e. whenever and wherever AC was unable to reach people opted for DC. And at the same time DC is easier to obtain from AC than the other way around, thus people around the world started storing industry supplied AC into batteries in the form of DC.

Now batteries are portable, so we got portable electricity through DC which we can use on the go and on the other side, it is not as risky with proper design.

So, for these reasons and the convenience DC provided, instead of getting replaced by AC, DC sat in the corner of every household, and expanded from there.

Changing circumstances

With advancement in computing and the advent of personal computers, people started building crazy stuff, of which some changed the way we do things, and others stayed for fun things. But of all the things made, there was one thing that every creator had to respect, a source of power. And a source of power that is handy, better if portable, should be safe no matter if it is not much powerful, and reusable.

With the advent of new technologies which are less for industries and more for common household or personal uses, and thus people will be coming in contact directly with the piece of technology. So, the safety margin should be lifted, else the technology will disappear from the market, mostly because of the presence of better, safer competition. With all this AC was outcast from these new technologies, which needed less power and more physical flexibility, with high safety margin, which AC is not. AC was merely able to fulfill any of the criteria to be taken seriously as a power source in newer technologies.

The perfect candidate was the one which was there around a century ago, the good old DC, the one that was sitting in the corner.

Soon, DC made its way into everything that sits in our pocket, drives us around, and cleans our room.

The comeback and beyond

There is no doubt that DC has made a comeback as a major player in the war of currents, but can it come out victorious?

Though DC is prevalent in small handy devices like mobile phones, laptops, remotes, etc. but at the end of the day those devices need to connect to AC power outlets to recharge themselves, that is because that’s what we get from power stations, and why they use AC is mentioned above.

But, what if we can have a power source near us? Turns out we can. See, almost all the energy we use comes directly from the sun, through multiple steps and phenomena that we don’t perfectly understand. But, what we understand is that not all of those steps and complexity are sustainable and above all those complexity are not absolute necessities for energy from the sun to be used, because we are now capable of converting sunlight directly into electricity.

Then why not cut out all those complexities? Well we can do that and that is affordable, and that’s where we are heading to, as evident from United Nations’ goal 7 of Sustainable development goals, Clean and Affordable energy.

If UN is adamant on fulfilling the goals then by the end of first half of this century we will be having a decent share of solar energy in our energy intake, this means we will be producing energy in our own yards and will be storing in our backyards in a DC battery, and this marks onset of an era of safe, clean and affordable energy. And this means everyone will be obtaining the energy they need in their backyard, thus, the need for transmission lines and power grids will become insignificant.

We can’t predict the future, but that doesn’t stop us from guessing what the future may look like. So, maybe AC will also prevail the way DC did with DC dominating the world.

 Conclusion

No one can say for sure whether DC will be the future or AC will remain this important in the future, but at this point of time it seems like we are on a verge. In a verge of transition into a DC powered world, because you know, your phone is DC powered, laptop is, your vacuum cleaner is, your remote is, sometimes your toothbrush is, the same goes for your trimmer, and even cars are transitioning to electric mode with DC in their heart.

So, from this point of time, looking forward to a DC world seems possible, whether it will be the case or not will and can be answered only by time itself.

Maybe in the far future, we will look back and realize AC was just the beginning of our quest into discovering ways to utilize and distribute energy.