Rebuilding Tesla Tower

Artist’s impression of the revamped Tesla Tower. (Global Energy Transmission)

By Michael Banks

Two Russian physicists have turned to the fundraising website Indiegogo in the hope of raising a cool $800,000 to build a Tesla Tower.

Leonid and Sergey Plekhanov – graduates of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology but now working in industry – want to reconstruct the famous Wardenclyffe Tower that was built by the inventor and engineer Nicola Tesla to find a commercial application for long-distance wireless energy transmission.

Tesla started construction of the 57 m tower in 1901 in Shoreham – about 100 km from New York City – but it never became fully operational and was dismantled in 1917.

After performing computer simulations and designing the building, the brothers believe that the Tesla Tower – or “Planetary Energy Transmitter” – could work if built to scale.

“It definitely requires funds to build this from scratch, and crowdfunding is one of the best options at this stage,” says Leonid.

Currently, the funding call has reached more than $40,000 – only 5% of the total. Yet the duo is determined to still plough on with the project. “We will continue our work regardless of the campaign result,” adds Leonid.