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Pushing 800W of Wireless Power at 5 Meters
Joe Decker writes "The Nevada Lightning Laboratory has experimented with Nicola Tesla's methods of wireless power transmission to push 800 Watts over 5 meters, besting MITs mark of 60W over 2 meters last year. (May I dream of wireless laptop power? I hate power cords.)"
Another problem that any physics professor will tell you (after pointing out that "the boys" are not going to be in any more danger from that than they are from your cell phone, since neither would be likely to operate at a frequency at which the human body is resonant) is that any bit of metal can act as an antenna. All it takes is to have one piece of wire inside your laptop that happens to be the right resonant frequency for the power that is being transmitted and ZAP! I for one would not want my sensitive electronics that can be fried by static electricity in the wrong place to be anywhere near something like that.
People who live near (under) high-voltage cross-country power lines can tell you about harvesting electric fields. People have been known to run wires through their attics, parallel to adjacent high-voltage lines, and run lights off them. It's considered power theft, which I think is a shame, because it helps make the rest of the house a little more liveable, with fewer shocks from touching light switches or heating vents.
In Moab, Utah, there's a popular bike trail with the parking area right under a major power line. There are audible snapping and popping sounds coming from bikes on car-top racks. I keep meaning to wire up a capacitor bank and see how far it charges up while I'm out on a ride, but I haven't had time yet to build that.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.