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Wireless Electricity Set to Power Village
freedommatters writes "The UK Sunday Times has a story today about how "Scientists have successfully applied the technology used in microwave ovens to beam electricity without the need for unsightly pylons and overhead cables." A prototype has illuminated a handful of light bulbs and they expect to be able to power a remote village within three years."
It's a cool technology but if it's implemented there would be even more radiation for our brains to absorb.
Dr. David Carpenter, Dean at the School of Public Health, State University of New York believes it is likely that up to 30% of all childhood cancers come from exposure to EMFs. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warns "There is reason for concern" and advises prudent avoidance".
He "believes that it is likely." That doesn't mean he had any empirical evidence whatsoever.
Repeated controlled studies have shown that there is no connection between power lines and cancers except in the sense that neighborhoods near power lines tend to be of poorer people who have a higher incidence of cancer due to lifestyles (i.e., they smoke a lot).
You can use this to access the story... username: slashdot password: slashdot I didn't register it, I just typed it in hoping it would work. :-P
This is a more detailed publication pdf file
Well, I doubt this is really as dangerous as all that, but just made me think back to fond memories...
Tesla was using RF generated by a tesla coil, not microwave. The receiver for this power broadcast? A rectifier and an antenna. I don't know if that's what they're doing here, I didn't bother to read the article. :) This technology is used in the Wacom tablets and apparently they have a patent for using it in that application, the bastards. As if that weren't an obvious thing to do with the technology.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Electricity can be beamed through the air without a pylon in sight
Roger Dobson
SCIENTISTS have successfully applied the technology used in microwave ovens to beam electricity without the need for unsightly pylons and overhead cables.
The power is fired through the air in the form of microwaves and collected in special antennas that reconvert the microwaves into electricity.
A prototype of the wireless power technology has shown the system works and a full-scale version is now being built to make a remote village on the French-governed island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean the world's first microwave-powered community.
According to a report to be published this week, the system is a cheaper way than either solar energy or local generators of supplying remote areas not connected to a grid.
"(Electricity) network distribution is effective at the centre but the costs increase quickly when you get to the edge," said Dr Guy Pignolet of CNES, the French space agency, which has conducted the trials.
"Extending it to remote areas is very costly, but with microwave technology you do not have those costs. You also do not have pylons, which you may not want in sensitive areas."
The technology works by converting direct current (DC) electricity into microwave power at the transmitting end in the same way that switching on a microwave oven converts electricity into waves using a device called a magnetron. Residents are unlikely to be baked as the frequencies in the two applications are entirely different.
Microwaves for the electricity are targeted via antennas and reflectors at a "rectenna" (from the words rectifier and antenna), which absorbs the microwave energy from the beam and converts it back into DC power with diodes.
In Grand-Bassin on Réunion, which lies at the bottom of a 3,000ft canyon with no road access, electricity is currently provided by solar panels placed on the roofs of the houses. But increasing the amount of electricity solely by using the panels is difficult because of the amount of surface area needed. It is also expensive.
The researchers have successfully produced a field prototype to illuminate a handful of light bulbs. A second prototype is being finalised and will be in operation in about 10 months, while the whole project to supply the village with power is scheduled to be completed within three years.
Additional reporting: Nick Speed
Microwave power stations were great, until the beam lost its tracking slightly, sending it on a spectacular journey through your city.
Electricity can be beamed through the air without a pylon in sight
Roger Dobson
SCIENTISTS have successfully applied the technology used in microwave ovens to beam electricity without the need for unsightly pylons and overhead cables.
The power is fired through the air in the form of microwaves and collected in special antennas that reconvert the microwaves into electricity.
A prototype of the wireless power technology has shown the system works and a full-scale version is now being built to make a remote village on the French-governed island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean the world's first microwave-powered community.
According to a report to be published this week, the system is a cheaper way than either solar energy or local generators of supplying remote areas not connected to a grid.
"(Electricity) network distribution is effective at the centre but the costs increase quickly when you get to the edge," said Dr Guy Pignolet of CNES, the French space agency, which has conducted the trials.
"Extending it to remote areas is very costly, but with microwave technology you do not have those costs. You also do not have pylons, which you may not want in sensitive areas."
The technology works by converting direct current (DC) electricity into microwave power at the transmitting end in the same way that switching on a microwave oven converts electricity into waves using a device called a magnetron. Residents are unlikely to be baked as the frequencies in the two applications are entirely different.
Microwaves for the electricity are targeted via antennas and reflectors at a "rectenna" (from the words rectifier and antenna), which absorbs the microwave energy from the beam and converts it back into DC power with diodes.
In Grand-Bassin on Réunion, which lies at the bottom of a 3,000ft canyon with no road access, electricity is currently provided by solar panels placed on the roofs of the houses. But increasing the amount of electricity solely by using the panels is difficult because of the amount of surface area needed. It is also expensive.
The researchers have successfully produced a field prototype to illuminate a handful of light bulbs. A second prototype is being finalised and will be in operation in about 10 months, while the whole project to supply the village with power is scheduled to be completed within three years.
Additional reporting: Nick Speed
"The life and times of Nikola Tesla" ISBN 1-55972-329-7
Read that, it has all the information you need, and documented sources.
I have also seen examples of his coils in real life creating the effect of 'wireless power transfer'. Its simple high frequency air-core transformer theory really.. its not complex in our age.. it was totally amazing in his..
Figures you would post under anonymous, cant hide behind facts.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I work for an electric utility
Underground is 5-10X the cost vs overhead depending on the area and how built up it is.
Overhead may seem like a problem to you, but for the utility the 1x in 20 years that an individual section of cable (vs the entire network) comes down due to weather or outside parameters, its much lower cost to do that repair than to do all buried cables and when the lines are down, they dont incur higher costs, just reduced sales and we don't generate the power that you aren't using when you are blacked out.
So how did one guy run into lots of power poles? Usually here it's 1 car=1 pole, and they aren't in the condition to run into more poles after knocking down the first.
login with slashdot/slashdot
Then post.
This isn't a case of general broadcast, it's point to point.
They also claim that, since it's different frequencies, that they "won't bake the residents." Though I'm not sure about it, I'd think anybody who actually is in the middle of such a project and says such a thing probably know's what they're talking about. (Though obviously spectacular exceptions exist.)
In any case, if they start baking residents, passersby or wildlife, I assume lawsuits will fly. I also assume that somebody has consulted tech-aware lawyers already regarding this issue.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Why aren't lines buried to be less obtrusive, better insulated, and non-problematic in ice storms?
Well, you basically identified the issue in your question. It's all about economics. Pylons are just plain cheaper. I have a book that claims the cost of 1 mile of electric cable underground is 1 million pounds sterling vs about 400,000 or 500,000 for pylons. (This book was published in the UK, but I bet the ratio is the same between the two methods). The electric company chooses the cheaper method so that rates don't go through the roof.
Also, most places you find electric conduits underground, it's because there's simply no space above ground. Like in cities, for example. And underground conduits are by no means perfect. Where I used to live, New York Telephone buried the phone cables, even though it was a rural area. And for the most part, it was like using two Dixie cups and a string. And during times when we had several days of rain in a row (read: Spring), the phones would just plain stop working. This was the case all over the village (yes, it wasn't even a town.) And the phone lines were less than ten years old. However, in the next town, where the lines were on poles, they never had this problem. (Of course, they had trees fall on them, but that's a different issue)
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
That old power line thing was disputed a while ago - mostly just a media fad. I was working at the NIH with one of the guys who first noticed the magnetic field effect on celles in culture.
It has never been shown to cause any cancers.
Radiat Res 2000 May;153(5 Pt 2):627-36 Related Articles,
Leukemia and lymphoma incidence in rodents exposed to low-frequency magnetic fields.
Boorman GA, Rafferty CN, Ward JM, Sills RC.
The PCB coolants used in/around many of those power stations is another subject.
Just to help hammer the nail home, there are many FDA approved devices that use magnetic or pulsed elctronic field devices to aid in bone healing. No reports of cancer yet in these either. Some increased cell growth yes, but cancer no.
This kinda crap science is usually perpetuated by the media and lawyers hoping to make a few bucks (well, usually they want a few million).
Bah!
..........FULL STOP.
Guess who invented this technique? Nikola Tesla. These scientists may have built a system to use this, but they aren't the first ones. Read for yourself.
This has been done in Hof / Bavaria / Germany
Some people used the huge output of a local
Radiostation to power the lights in thair Garden.
They used Neon-Lights and some wire. It changed
the directional Pattern of this Radiostation
until it was forbitten ( In the beginning there was no Law which forbits "High power Receivers" )
Now, an interesting one is the amount of lead in CRT glass. CRT's and X-Ray tubes are surprisingly similar...
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!