A century ago, there were no electric light, heater, cooler, electric dynamo, motors, radio, TV, computers, or locator to navigate traffics of international airports and lot of others which are so commonly used today that we do not give much thought. Although all of these important electric devices are the products of the twentieth century, we know that the history of electricity can be traced back to ancient Greeks. The famous philosopher Thales of Miletus (640-546 B.C.) observed that when amber is rubbed, it attracts small bits of matter such as straw, feather, silk or fur. Therefore the word electric comes from the Greek "electron", meaning "amber".
Long before we were able to generate and maintain electric current, the study of electrostatics phenomena inspired much interest. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) showed that the electrical experiments performed in the laboratory are directly related to events in the natural world on a large scale. Lightning experiments of Franklin led him to the invention of the lightning rod.
To have a steady current in a conductor, we need to have a supply of electrical energy. A device that supplies electrical energy is called a source of electromotive force (emf). An example is the battery when emf converts chemical energy into electrical energy. A natural example is the electric fish which is capable of giving a severe electric shock with its electric organ. The first practical battery with a steady electric current was invented by Alessandro Volta (1776-1827).
Northern lights named "Aurora borealis" was a common natural phenomenon for local people, but it was not understandable over many years, until the works of Coulomb, Oersted, Ampere, Faraday, Henry, Maxwell on electromagnetism and first of all J. J. Thompson with cathode-ray tube made it understandable.
An important characteristic of the magnetic force on a moving charged particle is that the force is always perpendicular to the velocity of the particle, causing it to move in a circular orbit. The period is called the cyclotron period or the frequency, the cyclotron frequency.
where q/m is the charge-to-mass ratio of the charged particle, B is the magnetic field.
The motion of charged particles in non uniform magnetic field is quite complicated in general form. The Figure shows an interesting magnetic field configuration called magnetic bottle. The charged particle becomes trapped within the magnetic bottle and moves forth and back inside the bottle. The natural example for a magnetic bottle is the earth. In the Van Allen belts electrons and protons are trapped in the earth's magnetic field causing not only the northern lights in the atmosphere, but an intensive irradiation for astronauts during their journy from the earth to the outer space. Naturally, these are avoided by proper tilt of the orbit.
In the famous experiment performed by J. J. Thomson in 1897 in the Cavendish laboratory he showed that the ray in a cathode-ray tube can be deflected by electric and magnetic fields and therefore consists of (not waves, but) charged particles.
By observing the deflection of these particles with various combinations of electric and magnetic fields, Thomson showed that all the particles had the same charge-to mass ratio q/m of the elementary particle.
Thomson also showed that particles with this charge-to-mass ratio can be obtained using any material for the cathode, which means that these particles, now called electrons, are fundamental constituents of all matter.
Thomson synthetized the electron like vitamin C was extracted from paprika (pimento) and his experiment showed simultaneously that how research in a poor science can interact with practical inventions in the relevant field with many consequences to our everyday life. In those time various electric-discharge and vacuum-tube-experiments were carried out using magnetic fields and high voltage, generated by different devices. Below the scientific examples relevant to Thompson's experiment, the X-ray tubes, the mass spectrometer and the cyclotron are mentioned.
Representatives of scientific and medical worlds of radiology came together in Seoul, Republic of Korea recently with a special exhibition on the development of X-ray tubes. Mr. J. W. Nam, expert in radiation physics, life-long student of Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen and his discovery in 1895. Mr. Nam has written a book about Roentgen and his life, is collecting X-ray tubes since 1955, and his exhibit featured 43 typical tubes.
First developed by Francis William Aston in 1919 to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of an ion produced by ion source accelerated through a potential difference using a uniform magnetic field.
The larger the m is the larger the r in the measurement will be. In an example in the cases of Mg-24, Mg-25 and Mg-26 the isotopes have masses in the approximate ratio of 24:25:26.
The first cyclotron was invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1934 to accelerate particles such as deuterons to high kinetic energies. The high energy particles are than used to bombard nuclei, causing nuclear reactions to obtain information about the structure of the matter.
Further examples are mentioned below from more practical fields from the time of J. J. Thomson. The lecture uses the possibility that the technical history of Hungary at the turn of the 20th century was very rich in Hungarian electric industrial achievements, and full with genius Hungarian inventors recognized by international scale. Hungarian original technical solutions attract many visitors in museums such as Musee National des Tecniques (1799), Paris, Science Museum (1857), London, Deutsches Museum (1903), München, etc., and may be stimulate also the physics teachers of the ICPE Conference to find and work out their own best-fitting examples and use them during their teaching work in the next year when we will celebrate the discovery of the electron.
Most electric energy used today is produced by generators. As it is known the inventor was Werner von Siemens (1816-1892) in 1867. Michael Faraday (1791-1867) lived parallel with the Hungarian physics teacher of a secondary school Ányos Jedlik (1800-1895). Both of them were the best experimenters of this age. However, there was a big difference between them for the benefit of Faraday namely Faraday worked a lot as well as published a lot in English. In his work "Experimental Researches in Electricity" he published his experiments numbered from §1 to §3340. Jedlik also worked a lot and published a lot (he had 42 publication) but the most essential parts did not have enough publicity or impacts beyond the walls of the Benedictine monastery of Pannonhalma, Hungary. Jedlik was the inventor of the electromotor with commutator in 1828-1831 (independently from Faraday in 1821) and also invented the dynamo in 1861 six years earlier than the German Siemens or the English Wheatstone.
Hundred years ago direct current (DC) was used for practical purposes. In the iron casting workshop of the Ganz Factory (the factory was named after Abraham Ganz 1814-1867), electric arch-lamps were used for illumination as early as 1878 initiated by András Mechwart to start making electric industrial products in the Kacsa street No. 18 in Budapest. The electric arch-lamp was invented by Davy in 1813. The Ganz-system was disseminated from Rome to Odessa in Europe. Electric public lighting in the streets were established in New York in 1882, in London in 1885, in Paris in 1888, and in Budapest in 1893 three years earlier than the millennium was celebrated in Hungary . But there was a serious physical constraint, which limited the spread of the applications of the electricity. Namely, due to the line loss, low voltage DC can be forwarded only to a relatively short distance. The first municipal power company was established in Hungary in the city of Temesvar in 1884 (now a city in Romania). Ganz used high voltage DC current for this purpose.
Radical change was brought by the year of 1885 when the AC transformer, the high voltage power transmission and consequently the high distance energy distribution was invented (together with the name of "transformer") by three engineers of Ganz factory in Budapest; Károly Zipernowsky (1853-1942), Miksa Déri (1854-1938), Otto Bláthy (1860-1939). An other merit was that the efficiency of a larger AC power plant with extensive network system was higher than that of a small DC station. AC was more democratic, means that it is not restricted for rich inert districts of a town, luxury hotels, etc., and constant voltage - independent of the loading - have been supplied for all consumers.
From technical aspects, another important step was the invention of the multi-phase asynchronous motor by Nikola Tesla (1857-1943) from Croatia. After this time, the steam engine of James Watt, the engine of the industrial revolution was replaced even in small workshops independently from giant companies by a cheap, easy to maintain asynchronous motor .
A century ago transport systems were also revolutionized by introducing electric motors, beginning with urban (including the underground Metropolitan), and further interurban into main railway technology. Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Scandinavia used 15 kV/16 2/3 Hz, France and the USA preferred DC (because they used low price copper for overhead wire). Ganz engagement in Italy was a three-phase-current technology by Kálmán Kandó (1861-1931). Europe's first electric underground railway opened in Budapest marking the millennium in 1896, soon after Hungary's independence from Vienna in 1867.
A century ago the firm Ganz from Budapest was the leading company in the AC technology in Europe and also in the World. However, it is characteristic for the heroic struggle between AC and DC that in 1900 there were 24 public company in Hungary from which only 10 produced AC current. Further, in 1911 from 75 company the AC-to-DC ratio was 31:44. This competition was not restricted merely to technical reasons, but everyday economic/political interest was also involved, as usual. However, only AC was used after constructing the first electric network called the National Grid. The number of the Ganz-made transformer exceeded already as many as 135 000 units. Power transfer system practiced in all over the world is based on the principle of the Ganz-made transformer.
From the origin of the life, light has a deterministic important role in the life of mankind. For lighting AC is equivalent to DC. Edison's original invention was patented in the US in 1880. The predecessor of the Tungsram factory in Budapest produced Edison's bulbs upto 1903 when A. Just and F. Hanaman in Vienna patented the first incandescent lamp with tungsten filaments. After 1920 only tungsten alloy based incandescent lamps were produced in the Tungsram factory in Budapest and all over the world (British Patent No. 23.899/1904). Tungsram become a world leading incandescent lamp factory in Budapest. Tungsram lamp was further improved using Krypton filling gas by Imre Bródi (1930). This was a benefit for Tungsram as compared to the factories of Osram, Compagnie des Lamps, Philips or General Electric.
These were the technical bases on which "the energy society" has grown up in the heart of Europe during the 20th century. Within this energy society the structure of the interdependency was very complicated. After the WW II, the small and vulnerable Hungarian power system operated parallel to the interconnected system of the former Eastern European COMECON countries over several decades. Within this cooperation the Hungarian system imported a significant amount of power from the former Soviet Union. Hungary had a 750 kV (3000 MW) transmission line crossing the border of Ukraine. After the collapse of the COMECON the association of the Polish, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian power companies named CENTREL agreed in Warsaw in 1991 to make attempt for the interconnection to the Western European power companies, named UCPTE whose networks operate synchronously. The Hungarian power system, together with the Polish, the Czech and Slovak ones was connected to the Western European synchronous system in October 1995. According to a long preliminary examination period the secondary control reserve was proved to be small in the Hungarian system during the winter peak period, but the practice did not required the installation of back-to-back coupling as was previously forecasted in the study. Presently the main connecting cross-border transmission line - the 400 kV (600 MW) Gyõr (Hungary)-Dürnrohr (Austria) is ready, but Hungary agreed to extend interconnection towards Croatia, Slovenia, etc. The consumption of electricity on the UCPTE interconnected system amounted to 1630 TWh during the 1995 period. From the total production 46% was conventional thermal power, 38% was nuclear power, 16% was hydro power. From the maximum generating capacity of the UCPTE the thermal power is 208 GW (50%), the nuclear power 98 GW (24%), the hydro power 108 GW (26%). A part of hydro powers pump-storage type power station.
The total electricity consumption in 1995 was 36 TWh from which 17 TWh was produced in thermal power plants and 13 TWh (43%) was produced in a nuclear power plant. Parallel to the electricity production the cogenerated heat production is important in Hungary as hot water (22 PJ) and steam production (23 PJ) used mainly for central heating in the winter season when the temperature is below zero centigrade. Nuclear power station is not commissioned as heat supplier. The national grid (abowe 120 kV) is more than 3000 km. In Hungary the per capita electricity consumption is very similar to that of the Czech Republic or Poland and is more than 3000 kW in a year. As a contrast for UK the per capita consumption is 5500 kW or for the USA it is 12 000 kW. Airborn emissions of Hungarian power plants in 1995 in t/year: SO2 435 t/y, NOX 39 t/y, CO 23 t/y, DUST 20 t/y, CO2 21 t/y. The standards of the new Environmental Protection Act passed by the Hungarian Parlament on 30 May 1995 became more closer to the standards of the European Union including liability for damages to those (mainly organizations e.g. power stations) pozing hazards to the environment. Throughout Europe environmental emissions are falling steadily. An important component is the GHG emissions should be satisfactory to the OECD conventions on global climat change for sustainable development. The updated Nuclear Act from 1997 will be another important legal rule for commissioning/decommissioning of a power plant including the management of the relevant radioactive waste diposal.
Privatization in Hungary is a unique undertaking as there has been no attempt anywhere in the world to privatize assets on a similar scale. The dismantling of the state ownership started with a series of transactions included the sale of shares in telecommunication, national oil and gas, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, banks and hotels, processing industry including the factory of Tungsram. The process which began in 1989 reached its peak in 1995. Total foreign direct investments in Hungary amounted to USD 13 billion. 1995 was the year of change also in the Hungarian industry producing electric energy. By the end of the year of 1994 the new regulation system the Electricity Act entered into force on the production, transport and supply of electric energy.
The aim of the Hungarian Power Companies Ltd. Co. - in the frame of the new ownership structure - remained unchanged namely to provide reliable and safe supply of electric energy most favorable for the mass consumers. The price of the electric energy has to involve the real cost of the environmental protection and the investments for improve permanently the existing technology.
Budapest, 11 October 1996