This is a Tesla coil. It was invented by Nickolai Tesla, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Tesla was an assitant to Thomas Edison and was greatly responsible for many of the discoveries in electricity made famous by Edison.

You may have seen a smaller version of this same thing in a gadget shop. You know, the thing in the glass container with the lighting shooting about inside? That is a Tesla coil. The one pictured above is 17 feet tall, weighs about two tons, and puts out roughly 1.5 million volts. It consumes 40,000 watts of energy and can be seen complete with the bolts of lighting several miles away. This was being fired up during the Cirque de Flambe and we could smelll the ozone even though we are at least a half mile away in the background. The upper cage is made from aluminum.

This picture was obviously taken quite a bit closer than that.

The coil was brought to the Playa by Greg Leyh, one of the folks associated with the always amazing Survival Research Laboratories.