My Dream has come true: wireless power

[whubbard]

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=11100BKT4X8X

I have dreamed about this forever. Now it is true!!!!!!


...i guess its really comming...more than one person is doing it:
http://www.powercastco.com/

[Freakitchen]

This was in the news over here a couple of weeks back. It's certainly potentially a big deal, though I'm not sure the green activists would agree that at ~40% efficient it's anything more than a step back, if one is being environmentally concious! Don't doubt that it will steadily improve, though.

[David M]

Given its only 40% efficient, then where does the 60% in lost energy go? Eventually all energy is converted to heat. Hopefully they can make this technology much more efficient.

[Petef56]

I see two potential problems with this technology.

First is the health risk from being constantly exposed to such strong energy fields.

Second is how do you isolate it and bill the customer?
In other words, if the power is radiated, this means your neighbor can operate
his wireless devices using your power source similar to how someone can access
the internet using your Wireless router that is not secured with a password.

Those are two mighty big obstacles to overcome.

---pete---

[alfie2]

I agree with Peter, there; magnetic fields are know to cause problem with living things such as us humans.

but it could be distributed muchly like water as it is done here in Canada where everyone pays a flat fee for a specific numbers of outlets/size of intake pipe...
in short, a communist dream world; then so is the Canadian Healthcare---flat fee again( everyone loves this one, envy of the world.).

[David M]

Given an electro-magnetic fields strength is one over the distance squared, I don't think you need to worry about someone stealing your energy. You would have one hell of an energy bill for someone one hundred feet away to benefit substantially..even with a directional antenna. The big question is the efficiency. It's not going to happen at only 40% efficiency. As far as cancer goes, its an SLF frequency...no worries. It's the super high frequencies of x-rays, visible light and above that you need to be concerned with. The super high frequencies below 10 cm have been proven to cause cancers but the lower frequency electro-magnetic waves cause controversy at worst. Power or amplitude is also a factor. I would rather get hit with a 1 watt radar gun than a 10,000 watt ships radar at near the same frequencies. Right now you are being bombarded with 60 Hz waves from the 120/240V wires around the house. Do you need to worry at that frequency?...I'm not worried. Exposure time is a third and pretty self-explanatory factor.

http://www.vlf.it/frequency/bands.html

[Strider]

This was in the news over here a couple of weeks back. It's certainly potentially a big deal, though I'm not sure the green activists would agree that at ~40% efficient it's anything more than a step back, if one is being environmentally concious! Don't doubt that it will steadily improve, though.
To counter the green activists the wireless power group could always say while less efficient there will be no more batteries thrown in landfills (You're not suppose to throw batteries away, but I bet most people do and they won't admit to doing this practice). I would imagine if this was put throughout the house the efficiency would increase to more that 40%, but probably not by much. As new technologies are being developed they generally become better and more efficient, it's just a little patience will be needed with wireless power when it is first introduced to the public. This is just my opinion.