Part of the reason for this is that as remarkable as Edison’s direct current grid was in densely populated lower Manhattan or tiny Appleton, Wisconsin, it was better suited to small installations than large ones. The Pearl Street Station only confirmed this, as even with the six jumbo dynamos he’d installed it still didn’t have the capacity to transmit electricity farther than about a mile. He could put a lot of bulbs in that mile, and by adding additional generation, he could power them well, but after that the laws of physics took over. Direct current at so low a voltage (100 volts) just
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