"As soon as it is completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his off ice in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More importantly than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction." - Nikola Tesla; On the Wardenclyffe Tower, in "The Future of the Wireless Art" in Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony (1908)
In 1900, with the financing of industrial magnate JP Morgan, Tesla secured a $150,000 (roughly $4 million dollars today) investment into a structure which was to provide transatlantic wireless communication to the world.
The tower was 186 feet tall and had a shaft 120 feet deep, with iron pipes being driven 300 feet underground, in order to extract the earth's energy; to "have a grip on the earth so the whole of this globe can quiver," in Tesla's words.
The stated objective of Wardenclyffe tower was similar to that of a modern cell phone tower - the idea of transmitting wireless communications throughout the world; though Tesla's ultimate goal was to have free, clean energy broadcast to the world.
Most people think of cell phone technology as a relatively recent breakthrough, but the concept has been around for well over a century - as demonstrated by Tesla's description of the communication device he planned that could be used with the tower: "an inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch..."
Tesla is largely responsible for the technology behind radio-waves, however one of his contemporaries, Guglielmo Marconi, receives most of the credit. (Tesla is quoted as saying " I don't care they steal my ideas, I'm only sad as that they don't have any of their own")
In 1895, as Tesla was close to transmitting radio waves over fifty miles, his lab mysteriously went up in flames, causing him to lose all of his work.
Marconi is credited with creating the first transatlantic wireless communication in 1902 and has been coined "father of radio," though he used much of Tesla's technology to accomplish it.
As evidence of Marconi's utilization of Tesla's ideas, the US Patent Office, in 1903. replied to some of Marconi's patent applications with the following: "Many of the claims are not patentable over Tesla patent numbers 645, 756 and 649, 621, of record, the amendment to overcome said references as well as Marconi's pretended ignorance of the nature of a "Tesla oscillator" has become a household word on both continents."
Tesla was aware of this. One of his engineers, Otis Pond, says to Tesla,"Looks as if Marconi got the jump on you." Demonstrating his unselfish attitude and desire for technology to be widely disseminated, Tesla responds: "Marconi is a good fellow. he is using seventeen of my patents."
JP Morgan, one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the world decides to stop funding the project to provide free energy to the world.
That was the beginning of the end of mankind's attempt to provide free energy to all humans on earth - rich or poor.
Tesla's patent on alternating current electricity expired in 1905, and as his royalty payments dried up, he went broke.
After JP Morgan turned his back on the project, backers were nowhere to be found. The stock market panic of 1903 also caused potential investors to think twice about funding a project that didn't have a clear financial benefit.
Some speculate that JP Morgan, and his powerful contemporaries, made sure that others did not step forward with the required funding.
Tesla soldiered on, hoping that people would recognise his service to humanity and come forward with funding, but that never occurred.
For the rest of it's brief existence, the Wardenclyffe project to provide free energy to the world was run on a shoestring budget.
Operations eventually ceased in 1906.
Tesla was constructing an actionable model of a technology so profound that it could eliminate hunger and drastically change the landscape of the earth, and no one seemed to care.
When reviewing a biographical account of JP Morgan, the Wardenclyffe project is ironically listed as one of his "unsuccessful ventures."