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Power Beaming For UAVs and Space Elevators
An anonymous reader writes "The idea of power beaming — using lasers or microwaves to transmit usable energy over great distances — has been around for decades. But recent advances in cheaper, more energy-efficient diode lasers have made power beaming commercially viable. LaserMotive, based in Kent, WA, is best known for winning the Level 1 prize of the NASA Power Beaming Challenge at the Space Elevator Games last November. In a new interview with Xconomy, LaserMotive co-founder Tom Nugent, who previously worked on the 'photonic fence' mosquito-zapping project at Intellectual Ventures, talks about gearing up for Level 2 of the NASA competition, slated for later this year. What's more, LaserMotive is trying to build a real business around beaming power to unmanned aerial vehicles, remote sensors and military bases, and other locations where it's impractical to run a wire, change batteries, or truck in fuel. The ultimate goal is to beam large amounts of solar power to Earth."
I'm surprised that with all the recent news of NASA being marginalized that they can still have competitions like this? Or have I just got the wrong impression of the state of NASA's future?
Trying to build a monopoly! They want to have a stranglehold on the... oh. Tom. Damn.
Haida Manga
Simple enough - just have a satellite convert it into powerful microwaves which you then beam down to reflector dishes. It works great! But you have to be careful, as occasionally the satellite gets out of whack and cooks large portions of your town.
That, or Godzilla. Unless you've turned disasters off.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Perhaps "have made" and "commercially viable" don't mean what I think they do.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The ultimate goal is to beam large amounts of solar power to Earth
Last I checked, within their life span solar cells on earth don't pay for themself, or barely pay for themself. Presumably the advantage to harnessing solar power in space is the increased intensity of light without the interference of the earth's atmosphere. But solar panels aside, building and launching satellites is expensive, and this laser transfer of energy has unavoidable energy losses. One has to wonder if this could work out to be economically viable without some other serious technological breakthroughs.
The ultimate goal is to beam large amounts of solar power to Earth
Isn't that handled by...y'know...the sun?
Your brain is not a computer.
Put up a sat that allows a beam from earth, to the sat, and then back to earth. The reason is that the DOD will buy LOADS of this right now. In addition, disaster areas can make use of this. Since it is likely that a large receiver for the space based power is needed, then one approach is to place it on a plane (think AWAC), and then have multiple smaller beams from underneath. Obviously, something like that in a war zone will need to be WAY up there (60K feet), but a 20K feet over a disaster area would be real useful. The difference with this approach is that it requires MINIMAL amounts of putting cargo into space. That means that it is fast and easy to get things started.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Just think what a hack it would be to log in and redirect those microwave beams from a few thousand square km of solar cells in space towards people you want cooked... Well Done!
Epitaph: At last! Root access!
Imagine that a space elevator is possible and constructed. With the proposed material you've then got a crawler climbing up one of the best conductors known. Why mess about with the extra mass required to receive radiation beamed from the ground in that situation at all?
Even the huge potential difference as such a long conductor goes through different portions of the atmosphere is probably going to give you more power than you can get there unless you have an enormous and heavy parabolic dish.
Who cares about power beaming, I'm still tying to find a link on where to buy that great mosquito zapping thing..
once more into the breach
It's not 1963 anymore.
We've got these things called integrated circuits and microprocessors now that meant we're using high purity silicon in bulk and the price has fallen to the point that solar cells are in cheap novelty garden lights.
I suggest "checking" again.
I don't really understand where the "lifespan" thing comes from since there's still panels from the 1970s running. Please elaborate and tell me what modes of failure make you think they have a short lifespan?
Excellent, this will be more fodder for the "electromagnetic harassment" nutters!
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
"Tom Nugent...previously worked on the 'photonic fence' mosquito-zapping project at Intellectual Ventures..."
I understand the photonic fence project hit a wall during tests held just North of Winnipeg. Three mosquitoes (described by locals as "undersized" and "early season weaklings") came out of the bush, trashed the equipment and kicked the living shit out of two researchers. A German Shepherd-Pit Bull cross brought in to keep bears out of the scientists' camp was dragged off by the insects and never seen again.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
If everyone had your attitude, we would still be living in caves in Africa.
Don't push the boundaries, and stay in your mom's basement for all I care.
But your display of your lack of adventure/exploration/curiosity paints you into a corner from my view.
*hyperbole warning*
Real men with balls are explorers, always pushing the boundaries.
Real men have the balls to attempt and fail, learning something, and trying again.
Real men don't give up until they see their vision through, or die.
*end hyperbole*
Humans are renowned for their curiosity, and the mental capacity to satisfy that inherit curiosity.
Therefore, by my straw-man reasoning, I have deduced that you are subhuman. ;-)
Your type contribute nothing to our world. You're just leeches; a detriment to our society/species/world.
Win or lose, you should applaud their effort[or turn in your geek/nerd card and STFU]. We all benefit, directly, or indirectly.
There is a reason Star Trek had such an affect on society/industry/science.
"To boldly go where no man has gone before.."
That appealed directly to our species sense of adventure/curiosity.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
The real problem is not beaming the power, but making sure nothing valuable gets in between sender and receiver. You wouldn't want an airliner to fly through the beam I expect.
The main dollar cost was melting the silicon and keeping it molten during purification. It turns out that it's vastly more efficient to do that in bulk, so you reduce both energy and dollar costs because they are very closely correlated.
Nice to see all those extra little bits added on that don't get added on when other forms of energy are considered - keeping people alive on that list as well? Care to add in airfares for holidays, energy cost to fabricate the planes and to make the inflight movie as well or is there enough irrelevant bullshit added in already?
As I said before, it's not 1963 and a side effect of the electronics revolution was to make this stuff a lot easier to make in every way.
Although I have at least an idea of the engineering difficulties, I still wonder why this technology is not in a more advanced state, as power beaming has the potential to solve so many problems ?
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Upon reading the write-up once more, suddenly all my warning LEDs turn red: "Intellectual Ventures" ?? That is a patent-monger! If there is any link between this project and Intellectual Ventures, it is doomed to stay in a box. Which would really, really be too bad.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
that sounds right up their alley, complete with rubber mosquitoes.
Top it off with about forty seven minutes of commercials per hour and...
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Err, doesn't the sun already do that?
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
"The ultimate goal is to beam large amounts of solar power to Earth"
Which eventually turns into heat, which could contribute to global warming, depending on your definition of 'large amounts of power', of course.
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
this centuries flying cars.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Here's a thought. Our world already gets a certain amount of energy from the sun. By adding solar collectors and beaming the energy down to earth, we will be effectively increasing the amount of thermal energy into the system. Yes I know that is is converted (at some level of efficiency) to usable work, but much energy used remains loose as heat. Now, our current civilization only requires a tiny fraction of the solar energy we get from the sun, so adding a bit more will likely not be a big deal, but over time - centuries perhaps, would we be subjecting the earth to heat pollution?
The truly amusing thing is you are trolling somebody in the oil and coal exploration industry about solar energy. So much for being in the "cult" you rather strangely refer to above. I suggest acting like an adult instead of this silly little game where you set people up to fail with your pointless criteria that you know have not been measured.
Now if you were serious instead of playing a silly game of insulting strangers and making everyone think you are stupid you would have googled for something about energy pay back time - something like "EPBT photovoltaics" and found out that it something like TWO YEARS (based on 4.7 sun-hours per day).
That's what I mean about it not being 1963 anymore and having rare expensive one off experimental photovoltaics which is where this bullshit about never getting a full return comes from.
You need to update your viewpoint half a century instead of spreading incredibly stupid lies that disgust those that work in the industry you think you are protecting.
I really don't understand what it is with all the mindless insults and the misplaced outrage pretending I didn't care about lives - either your education has failed you very badly or you are ignoring it to piss off strangers.
The proposals to beam microwave energy down from space spec the beam intensity low enough for people to be able to walk around in the beam with no ill effects.
The photonic fence was quite impressive. IF you had asked me if it was possible, I would have doubted it, but having seen some information about it, it is very impressive. If this guy is involved, it may have some reality. There are some people with the right combination of math, science, and intuition that bring forward amazing stuff. I am going to be paying attention to what this fellow does.
This is a recent paper from UC Davis on distinguishing Anopheles (the genus that spreads malaria) by spectral analysis: The “Wingbeat Hypothesis” of Reproductive Isolation Between Members of the Anopheles gambiae Complex (Diptera: Culicidae) Does Not Fly.
Note this *does* seem to imply the possibility of distinguishing genera. There is one paper I found that claims a 72% success rate in distinguishing Ae solicitans, Cx pipiens pallus and Cx pipiens quinquefasciatus, but it is not published in a biology journal. I don't find the distinguishing of Cx pipiens subspecies plausible, since where their ranges overlap they readily hybridize. That means the hypothesis of recognition by acoustic signature has no function. Also, I doubt many researchers outside the mosquito field are qualified to distinguish between the pipiens subspecies.
In any case, there's no reason to believe that mosquitoes recognize each other by anything so simple as wing beat frequency; harmonics, possibly but it doesn't have to be good enough to be an exclusive cue. There are probably behavioral cues as well.
UC Davis or Rutgers are the major research centers for mosquito biology in the US. If you want credibility, you should invite somebody there to prove you wrong, on your own dime of course.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Very interesting... I did a science project based on Space Solar Power, more precisely microwave energy beaming.
basically, I had two square patch antennas about a foot, and a foot and a half in diameters, and I had a setup where I transmitted the microwave beams across a ping-pong table (no net) and measured how much voltage was received in the end circuit. it was enough to light some LEDs... and when I stuck my hand in it didn't fry.
not that this means anything decisively. obviously it was low power and low distance and low size, nothing near what it would be like for real. but I'm sure engineers can pull it off, limiting the diffraction and stuff.
Mostly, the main advantage of SSP (space solar power) is that it can collect all wavelengths of light at a high efficiency and beam it down to earth. The basic problem of how the sun sends solar power to Earth is that the Earth's atmosphere absorbs many of the wavelengths, and some of the visible as well (not to mention cloudy days!)
Microwaves are desirable as they pass easily through the atmosphere. They are really like cell-phone wavelength, not microwave-oven wavelength. they won't cook you as far as I know.