Tesla wanted to hook up our machinery to the very wheelwork of Nature. To do so we should first understand this wheelwork.
Energy can not be created nor destroyed, for that is how we have defined energy. So we can not just conjure up some energy, we need a source. The main source of energy on Earth is the Sun. In one way or another virtually all energy we have available to us was brought to us from our sun. According to Tesla stars, including our Sun, are electrically charged to very high potentials. Our Sun he estimated at 216 billion volt (positive). Because of the high vacuum surrounding it, this charge can not escape, so what happens is that tiny, sub-atomic particles are torn from the Sun and accelerated away because of the electrostatic repelling force. The Sun is showering these particle rays, which Tesla calls "primary cosmic rays" in all directions.
Primary Cosmic Rays
These rays pass through most matter unhindered, but when passing through large dense atoms they may do some damage causing what we know as radioactive decay. So atoms, according to Tesla, do not decay by themselves. It is caused by these primary cosmic rays.
As all stars are emitting these rays, they are everywhere in our universe. And when they interact with matter they may produce what we call bremsstrahlung, which is electromagnetic radiation that he called secondary cosmic rays and that we know as cosmic background radiation (CBR). Most modern scientists believe that CBR are a remains of the Big Bang, but as we see Tesla had a much simpler explanation for it, even before their existence was confirmed.
Then, if these rays do not tear off parts of the atom (radioactive decay) or cause bremsstrahlung, there is a third possible interaction; they may convey a little energy in the form of heat and thus heat up matter. This is what happens in our Earth's core. Because of its large size, the Earth picks up a lot of these primary rays which then heat up the Earth from the inside, just as a microwave oven does.
Earth's electricity
If we assume that a cold Earth would be electrically neutral, then we know -from Tesla's key- that a heated Earth must have an electric potential. And just as temperature can create electric potential, thermal conduction can be interpreted as electrical conduction (but without the movement of charges).
We know that through our atmosphere the Earth is 'leaking' an electric current of 1800 ampere worldwide. If this were a movement of electrical charges, the Earth would lose 1800 coulomb every second and consequently its voltage would rise several millions of volts every hour. This is obviously not the case, proving that this 1800 ampere that we see flowing through our atmosphere is not an electric current but is thermal conduction; heat from the Earth flowing to the cold interplanetary space.
summing it up
As promised in my first Tesla post, I have shown a number of very elegant and easy to understand explanations for radioactive decay, CBR, the heat in our Earth and atmospheric electricity. But this is just the beginning. These are the wheels of nature, zooming over our heads and that we need to find a way to connect to in order to solve our energy needs once and for all. Stay tuned and I will show you how.