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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."
Didn't Tesla already do this? He was just dubbed insane and hounded while others stole his ideas. Case in point: Marconi
I assume the microwave beam would have to be highly focused in order to work. What safegaurds are there to make sure nothing gets in the way of the beam?
(the article is unavailable without a $55 subscription, maybe it is spelled out in the article?)
If only he had more money to make it work.
Why aren't lines buried to be less obtrusive, better insulated, and non-problematic in ice storms?
Recently, in February, South Carolina, my home state, had a very bad ice storm. It was called "the worst on record". Why was it called that? It wasn't really the worst. Duke Power, our service provider, has failed to maintain the lines in there above ground condition. Lots of trees had grown through power even over and around some lines. Then there was the typical stupid driver who ran into a number of poles all over the area.
I was without power for 4 days. Luckily, I had an UPS unit from a server that has 40 hours and I use a laptop as my main computer. It powered everything in my place including a small heater for a while.
To be on topic, eventhough the above is too: I don't think we should be pushing conventional power to 3rd world countries. With this implementation of "beaming power" - power still has to be generated at a plant with with most likely a non renewable resource. Why can't we give these same people advanced windmills and solar cells? (Then teach them maintenance) That makes so much more sense. I see the costs of even an experiment; very high. Also, I think Microwaves at a ground level would interfere with radio communications at the points below the transmission.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I've been modded Troll? Come on, people that work around microwave antennas do have higher incidences of cancers. The cooking properties of microwaves were discovered by accident.
It's a genuine concern, and I was just addressing it rather light-heartedly. I've done science fair projects on EMF effects on plants, and I have observed differences in growth patterns; there is an observable effect on biological systems. The risks are real, and there should be more study before they start beaming out microwaves that can power homes.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
Tesla was pushing "broadcast power". It was doomed to failure because of the problems inherent in charging the atmosphere. What they are proposing here is quite different. Haven't read the article, but I'm slightly familiar with the concept here. You simply convert electricity into microwave radiation and transmit it in a tight beam to a receiving station. No problem, old hat. Doing it on this scale might be a challenge, though. On the other end you have a receiver that converts that radiation back to usable electricity. Quite a different problem. I suspect that's what they're pioneering here. I think it has actually been done before, but not in any practical way. Powering a few lightbulbs isn't exactly practical either, but it would be if you could power a small town, or even just several buildings.
But keep out of the way of the beam!! I have to wonder about the environmental damage of birds/insects flying through it and getting cooked.
I remember reading about a proposal to send power to the earth this way. By having a massive solar cell array in space transmitting microwaves to a giant receiver on earth, you could gather lots of energy. The thought of this thing getting off track and aiming at, say, NYC seems a little too scary, though.
Nice to see the wheel re-invented, again.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Will we get roasted? We mostly manage to avoid existing pylons as they're visible. What about birds, for that matter
On the other hand, if these things heat the air, perhaps we can travel vast distances using the resulting linear thermals.
Heh, buddy of mine living out on some farmland with some HV powerlines running through it can attest to that.
He built a 30'x30' pole barn out on his property to use as a workshop for his hobby (restoring 50's & 60's cars). He shopped around auctions and such for months to outfit his shop (shelves, tools, hoist, etc) and got hold of some nice big flourescent shop lights.
When he switches off the lights at night the bulbs still glow. Usually they are pretty dim, but apparently atmospheric conditions affect this and some nights they glow fairly bright.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Tesla would be proud, but baffled they weren't doing it his way. I still like the stories of Tesla scaring the shit out of his neighbors by creating simulated earthquakes and lightening storms for miles around... one of the few reasons I'd love to have visited the 1800's for a short while.
;-)
BTW folks - all microwaves aren't bad. Just the resonant frequencies of water molecules that are bad news. Filter those out and anything that might produce them by multiplication and life is pretty safe. Well at least it seems ok to me - I haven't fried underneath those microwave towers on the hills when we hike yet. (Yet
Tesla won the patent for radio because his plans included both a transmitter and receiver, while Marconi only had a transmitter. Transmit all you want but its worthless without a way to capture the transmissions.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
i always thought the energy of an electromagnetic wave decreases with the cube of the distance...
Come on, people that work around microwave antennas do have higher incidences of cancers.
I am aware of cancer clusters around some high voltage power lines that was traced to chemical compounds (used in the insulators, IIRC), but no responsible studies that link microwave antennas to cancer. (I use the qualification "responsible" because I have seen "studies" by the cell-phones-are-killing-us wackos that make the claim, but their methods were so flawed it was funny.)
-- MarkusQ
That stuff can be sprayed on houses as a spray on siding that is electrically diffusive.
The posts and replies to the parent make this seem like rocket science to come up with a reliable solution. It's easy, I've just given it to you. Will it cost? yes. Will it be less to maintain and actually more cost saving down the road? yes
This is the same theory behind building roads. Would it cost a hell of a lot more to build one more lane than needed? yes Will you have to expand the highway in only a few short years? no, not if you spent the extra $$ first
We aren't certain about the effects of EMF exposure, so we are going to find some poor village without electricity and offer them electricity through microwaves. The expirement can pay for itself through the utility fees we charge the villagers.
Boy, did I wake up cranky today . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
In order for this to work, they would have to make the beam extremely focused from transmitted to receiver.
The article isn't very specific, but I would guess that they would have either used a parabolic reflector or a maser to do this.
A parabolic reflector could focus the microwaves into a beam, much like that of a flashlight, but some energy would be lost to diffraction. A maser is similar to a laser, only it emits a coherant beam of microwaves that would travel from transmitter to receiver with minimum energy loss.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
how long before we have people building their own recievers and taking electricity directed at other people's homes?
Hmm, then how about sending water through a pipe and running a turbine at the other end. Way safer, and you get the drinking water delivered too...
1) Microwaves only have a heating effect because they're emitted at the resonant frequency of water molecules. Try cooking a ceramic plate in a microwave: it won't heat up much, if at all. Just pick a different microwave frequency, and you avoid all the problems of cooking birds in the sky and whatnot (even if the energy density were probably too low).
2) To the guy who thought that mentioning the technology used in microwave ovens was stupid: the technology used in microwave ovens is not as trivial as simply calling them "microwaves". The physics of generating a microwave beam are significantly different from regular radio waves. They mention later in the article that they make use of a magnetron, which was the invention which made high power microwave generation really feasible. It lead to radar and all that jazz.
3) I saw one person mention this elsewhere. However, I'll reiterate: the inverse square law applies to the density of energy at a given distance. The energy does not simply "disappear" (this would violate something called energy conservation, meatheads). Build a big enough collector, and you can receive all the energy (with the caveats that it gets absorbed by the atmosphere, circuitry, etc.). In space, this idea would work perfectly.
4) Finally, this isn't exactly a new idea. People have been bouncing it around as a method for beaming solar power down from orbital satellites for ages and ages. (Also, the microwave power plant--and disaster--appeared first in SimCity 2000, not SimCity 3000.) However, as another poster noted, the innovation here (if there is any) may be in the amount of power transmitted, or practical demonstration of something we already know is possible from the physical equations (but perhaps nobody was lame enough to think it actually had a practical application right now--villages, really).
All in all, I'm disappointed that the overwhelming number of responses here have been of the 'they can't do that/that's impossible/it's too dangerous' sort. Talk about a bunch of technophobes. Apparently, a technology is only cool and grokable if it involves microprocessors. Anything else is scary physics stuff. Lamers.
By the way: laser pointers don't need lenses to shoot really narrow beams. That's because they're lasers. Lenses help, because the lasers you find in your average pointer are kinda crummy in that department--but they're not required. Thus, trying to compare the size of a lens needed to collimate a laser pointer to that needed to focus a microwave energy beam is ridiculous.
One last thing: microwave beams have already been used for microwave communication, so the idea of deploying all these microwave towers isn't such a radical idea. What do you think MCI stands for?