Billions of stars across the universe shine without capacity payments and without imported coal. The Sun, the Moon, and the countless stars that have illuminated the cosmos for billions of years are not dependent on Fuel Price Adjustments (FPA), because they operate in harmony with the laws of nature.
🔲 Public Investigative Series | Episode 26
Subject: How Can Pakistan Fix Its Electricity System?
Title: Nikola Tesla and the Philosophy of Energy and Electricity
🔺When institutions avoid providing facts, the responsibility of reaching the truth falls upon the people.
Research and Writing: Syed Shayan
For quite some time now, I have been writing about the role of IPPs in Pakistan, the collapse of the country’s electricity system, unaffordable power tariffs, capacity payments, line losses, and the deep structural flaws within government policy. After constantly dealing with the same statistics, the same reports, the same contracts, the same losses, and the same recurring failures, I sometimes feel mentally exhausted myself.
Writing endlessly about circular debt and broken energy economics eventually drains both the mind and the spirit. There comes a point where one no longer wishes to remain trapped within the mechanical world of numbers and policy papers, but instead feels drawn toward the deeper intellectual universe from which all forms of energy originate.
That is why today, instead of once again discussing Pakistan’s power crisis and its growing darkness, I wanted to reflect on the philosophy behind light itself. I wanted to ask a more fundamental question: what exactly is energy? Has humanity reduced light to nothing more than a modern utility for survival, or have we truly come any closer to understanding the profound mystery upon which all existence depends?
Have we ever paused to consider that billions of stars across the universe shine without capacity payments and without imported coal?
The Sun, the Moon, and the countless stars that have illuminated the cosmos for billions of years are not dependent on Fuel Price Adjustments (FPA), because they operate according to the laws established by nature itself.
Before us lies an infinite ocean of energy. From the Sun to distant galaxies, the universe is overflowing with light, heat, and motion.
The true secret behind the energy of the Sun and the stars lies in nuclear fusion. When hydrogen atoms merge to form helium, a tiny fraction of matter transforms into an immense release of energy. That light then travels millions of miles before reaching Earth, where it becomes the very foundation of life itself.
On Earth, the first great system for storing this cosmic energy is plant life. Plants convert sunlight into chemical energy, forming the basis of food systems and biological fuels.
E = mc^2
Einstein’s famous equation tells us that matter itself is simply an extremely condensed form of energy. In other words, everything we perceive as solid in this universe is, at its core, a reservoir of energy.
Viewed from this perspective, the real issue behind energy crises is not the absence of energy, but humanity’s inability to organise and utilise it intelligently. The universe is full of energy. What remains scarce is the smart infrastructure capable of harnessing it effectively.
Yet this is also humanity’s tragedy: we still have not learned how to fully understand and civilly utilise the energies of the universe.
Instead, we have developed systems of electricity generation that produce smoke, noise, pollution, inflation, and economic hardship. Perhaps humanity has still not reached the stage where energy can be produced in true harmony with nature.
In Pakistan, scientists working in these fields are generally known as Plasma Physicists, Fusion Researchers, Nuclear Physicists, and Astrophysicists. These researchers study the Sun, stars, plasma, nuclear fusion, energy fields, and the future of advanced energy systems. But what practical outcome has emerged from decades of such research? That may also be a question worth asking NEPRA Chairman Engineer Waseem Mukhtar.
Pakistan’s most important institution in this field is the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, under which the Pakistan Tokamak Plasma Research Institute operates. Previously known as the National Tokamak Fusion Program, the institute was established in 2007 and conducts research on Tokamak technology, plasma physics, and fusion energy. Another institution, the National Centre for Physics, also conducts research in plasma physics, astrophysical plasma, and fusion energy systems.
Among Pakistan’s most distinguished scientists in this field was Abdus Salam, who laid the foundations of theoretical physics in Pakistan. Likewise, Ghulam Murtaza is regarded as one of Pakistan’s most important scientists in plasma physics and controlled nuclear fusion research.
But neither of these men is alive today. They completed their intellectual journeys and departed from this world. Perhaps it is also one of Pakistan’s national tragedies that the country failed to fully recognise the scientists who had the potential to lead it from darkness toward light.
Abdus Salam was one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the modern era. In 1979, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on unifying the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism within a single theoretical framework. It was a moment of global honour for Pakistan. Yet despite receiving immense international recognition, he was never granted the same level of dignity and national respect within his own country. Religious and social controversies ultimately overshadowed his extraordinary scientific contributions.
Ghulam Murtaza, meanwhile, was among Pakistan’s leading scientists in plasma physics and controlled fusion research. He published research papers in internationally recognised scientific journals, including Physics of Plasmas, Plasma Physics, and Laser and Particle Beams. His work revolved around understanding how the energy systems of the Sun and stars could shape the future of human civilisation. He also played an important role in mentoring young Pakistani scientists and promoting scientific education and research in Pakistan.
Yet his name, too, never entered public consciousness in the way many nations celebrate their scientists as national heroes. In Pakistan, those working in science, research, and fundamental physics rarely receive the recognition and respect they truly deserve.
In another of his writings, “Our Future Motive Power,” Tesla argued that when humanity burns fuel to generate energy, it is essentially extracting and destroying resources that took millions of years to form, simply because we failed to harness natural sources such as the Sun, wind, and water according to our needs. In Tesla’s view, true progress lies in learning how to live in harmony with nature’s forces without damaging them.
He repeatedly warned that if humanity failed to restrain its reckless dependence on fuel consumption, the world would eventually face an energy crisis. He believed that merely burning these natural resources amounted to depriving future generations of their rightful inheritance.
The universe itself teaches us that sustainable progress can only exist through systems that are autonomous and do not place unbearable burdens upon ordinary people.
To Tesla, tearing coal from the earth or burning oil represented a primitive and barbaric method of obtaining power, particularly when humanity already exists within an ocean of energy. In his own words:
“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.”
In other words, Tesla believed that by continuously burning fuel for energy, humanity was consuming its own capital and rapidly depleting it. He viewed this method as both destructive and recklessly wasteful, one that future generations would ultimately be forced to abandon.
Although the term “climate change” was not commonly used during Tesla’s era, he had already sensed that dependence on fossil fuels would not only become economically unsustainable but would also disrupt the natural balance of the planet itself.
Tesla was working on what he called a “World Wireless System,” through which Earth’s own electromagnetic energy could be used to provide free and unlimited electricity across the globe. His dream was for humanity to emerge from the smoke of burning fuels and instead align itself with the natural frequencies of the universe.
Tesla’s most ambitious project was the Wardenclyffe Tower, which was designed to deliver electricity wirelessly to the entire world. He believed that if humanity could properly utilise the Earth’s natural resonance, there would be no need for the billions of dollars spent on wires, grids, and transmission infrastructure.
Today, as the world increasingly moves toward Renewable Energy, including solar, wind, hydro, and biomass systems, it often feels as though humanity is finally arriving, a century later, at the destination where Tesla had hoped to see it standing.
Nikola Tesla once remarked that the day science begins seriously studying non physical phenomena, it will achieve more progress in a single decade than it had during all previous centuries combined.
Tesla was referring to forces that cannot be physically touched yet govern the entire universe, forces such as frequency, vibration, and energy fields. He believed humanity remained trapped within the material world of wires, machines, and coal, while the true source of energy existed within the invisible waves constantly surrounding the universe itself.
I have repeatedly discussed “Capacity Payments” in my writings. At its core, this issue exists because electricity, unlike most other commodities, cannot easily be stored on a massive scale.
Tesla’s vision was that one day humanity would develop the ability to store energy itself, allowing societies to gain control not merely over production, but over energy management as a whole. Today, systems such as Tesla’s Powerwall are bringing that very philosophy into homes around the world, where people generate their own solar energy, store it, and gradually reduce their dependence on centralised grids. In many ways, the direction the world is moving toward today is precisely the future Tesla had imagined more than a century ago.
Reading Nikola Tesla’s various essays today, one begins to realise that Pakistan’s problem is not merely a shortage of electricity, but a flawed understanding of energy itself. One cannot help but wonder what might have happened if a scientist, policymaker, or national institution in Pakistan had realised in time that energy is not simply about generating more electricity, but about understanding an entire philosophy of civilisation.
Instead, we built an entire system around expensive power plants, capacity payments, and trillions in investment, while forgetting that the true beauty of electricity lies in balanced transmission, efficient use, and harmony with nature.
Tesla repeatedly argued that the future of energy does not lie in endless production alone, but in intelligent transmission, minimal waste, and balance between humanity and nature. Yet we reduced electricity to nothing more than bills and megawatts.
Tesla abandoned hundreds of patents because he wanted humanity to have access to affordable and accessible electricity. Had he wished, he could have accumulated immense wealth from his inventions in the same way Thomas Edison did. But Tesla’s thinking was never driven purely by business. It was driven by humanity itself.
Edison, while undoubtedly a brilliant inventor, also possessed an exceptionally strong business mind. Nikola Tesla, on the other hand, remained absorbed until his final days in dreams about the future, energy, and humanity.
It remains one of history’s great ironies that the man who gave the modern world light, AC current, motors, wireless concepts, and visions of advanced energy systems ultimately spent his final years in poverty and died almost penniless.
In 1943, when Tesla died quietly in a room at New York’s famous New Yorker Hotel, it was not merely the death of a scientist. It was the passing of a man who had seen the future long before his time, a man whose vision extended far beyond the material world into the hidden mysteries of cosmic frequencies and energy itself. His death remains one of the most mysterious episodes in scientific history.
Immediately after Tesla’s death, the U.S. government’s Office of Alien Property seized all of his belongings, documents, and trunks. Although Tesla was an American citizen, the sensitivity of his inventions, particularly concepts such as the so called “Death Ray,” led authorities to treat his research as a matter of national security.
Tesla’s greatest dream was to provide the entire world with free wireless electricity. His idea was to use the Earth’s ionosphere to transmit energy from one location to another without wires. The sketches of his so called “Magnifying Transmitter” still fascinate scientists to this day.
In his final years, Tesla also spoke of a beam capable of destroying enemy aircraft from hundreds of miles away. He described it as a weapon for peace, believing that if every nation possessed such technology, war itself would become impossible. Several sketches recovered from his room were reportedly related to particle beam concepts later associated with what became known as the “Death Ray.”
Tesla believed that the universe is filled with radiant energy, and that humanity merely needs the correct “tuning” to harness it. His notes described devices capable of extracting electricity directly from the environment, concepts that later became foundational to many modern “free energy” theories.
It is said that a large portion of Tesla’s documents were later handed over to his nephew, Sava Kosanović, and are now preserved at the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade. Yet researchers continue to claim that several important files either remain hidden within American intelligence archives or were permanently lost.
The wireless world we live in today, Wi Fi, smartphones, and remote controls, can in many ways be seen as the interpretation of the scattered sketches once lying inside Tesla’s hotel room. He was a man who devoted his entire life, and perhaps even transformed his own death, into a mystery in humanity’s journey from darkness toward light.
(To be continued in the next episode.)
