Bratislav Dzombic

Bratislav Dzombic

  • Joined: September 16, 2024
  • Articles: 100

What was the War of Currents? The fight that decided how the world would be electrified

Vintage boxing-poster scene of Tesla and Edison facing off in a ring to symbolize the war of the currents between AC and DC power.

In the 1880s, electricity had a problem: nobody had agreed what an electricity system should actually look like. Thomas Edison backed direct current. George Westinghouse built around alternating current. Nikola Tesla helped make AC dramatically more useful. The resulting War of Currents involved transformers, patents, business rivalry, public electrocutions, safety fears, and some fairly ugly propaganda. AC eventually became the backbone of the grid—but DC never actually disappeared.

What is a spark spread? The number that decides whether a gas plant wants to run

Gas-fired power plant beside a balance scale comparing electricity revenue with gas costs to illustrate spark spread economics.

A gas-fired power plant can be technically available, connected to the grid, fully fueled—and still have no economic reason to generate electricity. The spark spread explains why. It compares the value of the electricity a gas plant can sell with the cost of the gas it must burn to produce it. Add carbon costs and you get the clean spark spread: one deceptively simple number connecting electricity, gas, plant efficiency, carbon markets, dispatch, and power prices.

What is reactive power? The electricity that does no work but somehow keeps everything working

Electric motor driving a mechanical load with glowing energy flow and blue loops illustrating reactive power supporting the motor’s magnetic field.

Some electrical power turns motors, heats ovens, lights buildings, and charges batteries. Reactive power does none of those things directly. Instead, it moves back and forth through an AC system, sustaining the electric and magnetic fields that motors and transformers need and helping keep grid voltage where it belongs. It sounds suspiciously like useless electricity. It isn’t.

What is methane leakage? When natural gas escapes before anyone burns it

Natural gas infrastructure with a pipeline methane leak, LNG ship and gas production facilities illustrating methane leakage across the gas supply chain.

Natural gas is mostly methane. Burn it, and the main climate problem is CO₂. Let it escape before combustion, and you release methane itself—a greenhouse gas far more powerful over the near term. That means a leaking valve, an open vent, a badly performing flare, or an abandoned well can change the climate footprint of gas before the fuel has produced a single useful kilowatt-hour.

What are ancillary services? The grid services nobody notices until something goes wrong

Illustration of a house above water with a hidden underground grid system below, representing ancillary services that support reliable electricity.

Buying enough electricity is not enough to run an electricity system. The grid also needs resources that can react in seconds, hold frequency, support voltage, replace a generator that suddenly disappears, and even help restart the system after a blackout. Those invisible jobs are called ancillary services—and as power systems add batteries, renewables, demand response, and power electronics, they are becoming much more visible.

What is district heating? One heating system for an entire city

Cross-section illustration of a district heating network with red and blue underground pipes supplying heat to city buildings.

Most buildings have their own boiler, furnace, or heat pump. District heating asks a very different question: why should every building make heat separately? Produce heat centrally, recover it from places already throwing it away, move it through insulated pipes, and an entire neighborhood—or city—can share one thermal system. The idea is old. What we can feed into those pipes is becoming much more interesting.