"If we use fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful and will have to be stopped in the interest of coming generations."

-- Nikola Tesla, 1900, as quoted in “Great Scientist, Forgotten Genius, Nikola Tesla” by Chris Bird and Oliver Nichelson, New Age, #21, Feb. 1977, p. 42

And who was Nikola Tesla? The guy definitely had cred ... Consider the following:

• Edison's work in electricity was based on using DC (electrical current) . Tesla's work was on AC. So what?
  
  
  • DC can be transmitted only short distances. Imagine having a power generating station every mile or so.
  • AC can be transmitted for hundreds of miles. Those high-voltage power lines that comprise the "power grid?" Thank Tesla, not Edison. The generators that produce and use AC - too numerous to count.
  
  
• Edison and Tesla both created lighting powered by electricity (as opposed to being poered by fire).
  
  
  • Edison invented the incandescent light bulb - the one that we see 'everywhere' - the one that generates more heat than light. Some would say that a "lighting" device that produces more heat than light is, um, inefficient at best.
  • Those fluorescent tubes (and now bulbs) - the ones that use 22% as much electricity to produce the same amount of light and produce very little heat? Tesla.
  
  
• Electric motors including those that power electric
  
  • cars
  • starters for gasoline/diesel/biofuel engines
  • razors
  • fans
  • and on and on and on - just look around you
    
  
  
• Wireless communications devices (radio). Tesla, not Marconi, was the creator. After decades of court battles, Tesla was finally awarded the patent for radio .... it's too bad he died before that happened.
  
  
• X-rays? Tesla discovered the x-ray. Roentgen patented devices using x-rays.
  
  
• Robotics? Electrotherapy (medical devices)? Wireless transmission of electricity?
  
  
• Geothermal energy (Tesla described and experimented with it). Capturing earth's naturally-occurring magnetic fields to produce electricity (Tesla had extensively studied the idea). The laser (Tesla's "death ray" weapons).

To learn more about the forgotten genius, start with Wikipedia. Wikipedia has many pages and dozens of sources.