Generating Electric Power

Before I even begin, I have to take my hat off to Nikola Tesla. Einstein gets remembered, but Tesla's work effects your daily life. Not to diminish the genius of Einstein in any way, but how often does the speed of light factor into your life? The link goes to the Wikipedia entry. It's worth a read if you give a crap about electro-magnetism. Well I do, ok?

Also I better put out there that I claim no absolute expertise on the things I'm about to pontificate on. I ask for corrections on the science by anyone who knows better.

I'm going to disappoint everyone by not providing a comprehensive background of the generation of electricity. If I knew it off the top of my head I would, but since I don't I'm just opening a thread.

I will, however, bring this one application up since it's apt to our hurricane situation:

...If high-power microwaves, able to evaporate significant amounts of water, could be beamed down from space, what if they were beamed into the path of a hurricane? Would they be sufficient to change its track? Or, if they were beamed into the eye wall of the storm, would they vaporize enough water to reduce the strength of the storm? It seems the process might affect the winds and perhaps raise the barometric pressure near the center of the storm, and could potentially reduce, say, a Category 4 storm into a Category 3...

This is theoretically possible. Like a sledder digging one hand into the snow to make a turn, you could retard the momentum of a hurricane on one side, effectively steering it. Major problems of wireless power transfer need to be solved first, but the possibility is out there. If you had enough raw power, you could diminish the intensity of the hurricane itself. Which suggests one of my pie in the sky favorite power generation schemes of all time.

Anyone who's taken a basic physics class knows how an electromagnet works (or at least they should -- quiz tomorrow). Run an alternating current in a loop of wire around a magnet and it rotates. You just turned electricity into motion (kinetic energy). Conversely, rotate a magnet inside a loop of wire and a current is generated. You just converted motion into electricity. This is due to the interplay between electric and magnetic fields. You lose lots of energy in this process, mostly to friction/heat, but it's the foundation of all meaningful electricity production (water spins a turbine, etc).

The earth is a giant magnet. Put a large strand of conductor in orbit, it doesn't have to circumvent the earth. Viola, another source of unlimited electricity. And friggin' lots of it. Capturing it and storing it can always be figured out, even though we have no efficient batteries. It appears to be free energy, but don't worry, the laws of thermodynamics are preserved and the universe won't destroy itself if we do this.

But what good does electricity in orbit do us? Not much of course. We've figured out wireless power transfer but it's extremely lossy. You'd lose 80% storing it into a battery, and then another 80-90% transmitting it wirelessly.

Ok, enough of my pet project. You're just lucky I didn't bring up the space elevator.

Please, I ask all of you to opine on electricity generation. What is the worst pollution wise? Ideas for moving off to something else? What am I not asking that I should?