allowed power from electric motors to be returned to the electric grid, provided for electric distribution to trolleys via overhead wires and the trolley pole, and provided control systems for electric operations. This allowed Sprague to use electric motors to invent the first electric trolley system in 1887–88 in Richmond, Virginia, the electric elevator and control system in 1892, and the electric subway with independently powered centrally-controlled cars. The latter were first installed in 1892 in Chicago by the South Side Elevated Railroad, where it became popularly known as the "L". Sprague's motor and related inventions led to an explosion of interest and use in electric motors for industry. The development of electric motors of acceptable efficiency was delayed for several decades by failure to recognize the extreme importance of an air gap between the rotor and stator. Efficient designs have a comparatively small air gap. The St. Louis motor, long used in classrooms to illustrate motor principles, is inefficient for the same reason, as well as appearing nothing like a modern motor. Electric motors revolutionized industry. Industrial processes were no longer limited by power transmission using line shafts, belts, compressed air or hydraulic pressure. Instead, every machine could be equipped with its own power source, providing easy control at the point of use, and improving power transmission efficiency. Electric motors applied in agriculture eliminated human and animal muscle power from such tasks as handling grain or pumping water. Household uses (like in washing machines, dishwashers, fans, air conditioners and refrigerators (replacing ice boxes)) of electric motors reduced heavy labor in the home and made higher standards of convenience, comfort and safety possible. Today, electric motors consume more than half of the electric energy produced in the US. AC motors In 1824, French physicist François Arago formulated the existence of rotating magnetic fields, termed Arago's rotations, which, by manually turning switches on and off, Walter Baily demonstrated in 1879 as in effect the first primitive induction motor. In the 1880s many inventors were trying to develop workable AC motors because AC's advantages in long-distance high-voltage transmission were offset by the inability to operate motors on AC. The first alternating-current commutatorless induction motor was invented by Galileo Ferraris in 1885. Ferraris was able to improve his first design by producing more advanced setups in 1886. In 1888, the Royal Academy of Science of Turin published Ferraris's research detailing the foundations of