[Mukluk]

Check out this very recent demo of wireless power transmission. I love how he wanders through the field and indicates it has no effect on him. I believe Tesla made the same claim about x-rays

Very interesting vid.

m

http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_dem ... icity.html

[Scape]

Saw it. I think the emf is within spec thou. I mean the sun doesn't kill us and that is a huge nuclear reaction this would be at a much lower intensity.

[Benn]

There are those who claim living near high voltage power lines gave them cancer or headaches. All far from proven beyond coincidence.

Having an electrical technology background myself i can see lots of problems in turning this into widespread use. Video left me with more questions. The concept of transferring energy through the air between coils is as old as manufactured electricity. One of the biggest issues was efficiency, which he mentioned was 50%. Simply Awful in today's standards. In simplistic terms we'd need 50% more power generation, sucked natural resources, nuclear power, coal pollution, to provide this and thats just the first hurdle to making this widespread. Solving that alone will mean you should not count on seeing this running public grids in our lifetimes, maybe even our kids, maybe even beyond the realm of a neat trick and fascination. He's also got to get that transmission coil way down in size if he wants to power a city, that one was only powering a TV and cell phone, and the cell was negligible.

[Scape]

A majority of power needs are small items like cell phones and the idea is to counter batteries not power lines. For something like the TV or laptop being powered by short range transmitter instead of a chord plug in would make a huge difference. I don't think this is intended for your range or hot water heater however.

[Benn]

Still has the efficiency issues, that's wasted power and these days pushing any waste in the energy sector is a no sell. Plus even if its on a small scale there are still many issues standing in its way for the foreseeable future.

[Scape]

As compared to the current manufactured waste that is batteries? The middle man is being removed outright here and no matter how efficient you make a battery wifi power will be superior no matter how bad the loss because there is no need for a storage device or the batteries life get extended indefinitely because it is constantly in a state of full charge. That efficiency trumps any transmission loss because the source is one that is local and constant. At home you are surrounded by wires and we have trains and buses that run on electrical rails and circuits making them wi-fi powered would remove a lot of moving parts that are subject to wear and tear and exposure to the elements. Imagine a car that is run electricity through the road itself, the battery would be tiny in comparison to what we need now and no need to plug it in when you get home but this would also extend the range of off grid travel as well.

[SigPig]

Scape Scape:

As compared to the current manufactured waste that is batteries? The middle man is being removed outright here and no matter how efficient you make a battery wifi power will be superior no matter how bad the loss because there is no need for a storage device or the batteries life get extended indefinitely because it is constantly in a state of full charge. That efficiency trumps any transmission loss because the source is one that is local and constant. At home you are surrounded by wires and we have trains and buses that run on electrical rails and circuits making them wi-fi powered would remove a lot of moving parts that are subject to wear and tear and exposure to the elements. Imagine a car that is run electricity through the road itself, the battery would be tiny in comparison to what we need now and no need to plug it in when you get home but this would also extend the range of off grid travel as well.

I see where you are coming from and agree for the most part. But the money you would be saving in the car and its parts by having electricity transmitted through the road, would be at least equivalent to the drastically increased cost of road construction and maintenace.

It's a good idea, but I am not convinced we would end up with net gain in that particular situation.

[Benn]

Sure you're right, battery waste would be vastly reduced. However mass transmission itself of these fields has more issues to over come than simply efficiency. Now what I could see, coming first, is unit one can plug in at home to power laptops, charge everything that needs charging, power cordless phones etc. Units on construction sites or in work shops to power power cordless tools etc. Would be nice to not have to try to locate chargers all the time I'll admit!

Not saying it won't work for sure, just don't think anytime soon and I have a lot of questions before being totally sold.

[sandorski]

Cool Tech.

[BartSimpson]

It's a cool idea, but not something that will pencil out with the level of complexity needed to deploy it and to defray the 50% efficiency. Maybe, given time, those things can be resolved and it is probably worthwhile to look into this, but for now this is just a novelty.

[Pseudonym]

Pretty sweet. I wonder how one could go about increasing its efficiency, though.

[Scape]

SigPig SigPig:

I see where you are coming from and agree for the most part. But the money you would be saving in the car and its parts by having electricity transmitted through the road, would be at least equivalent to the drastically increased cost of road construction and maintenace.

Don't think it would roll out in rural areas but mass transit on main traffic routs would suffice. Cordless powertools that self charge would be a godsend as well.

[Mukluk]

I am wondering what the power draw is if there is no load. i.e. if the supply coil is always energized, how much power is consumed without the TV/cellphone/laptop actually in place and consuming power?

I am thinking there would be some load, but that once the device was drawing power you would see the full draw.

Point being - if these things are just hanging out behind my walls, and I don't turn anything on, is my meter spinning like a top regardless?

m

[SigPig]

Scape Scape:

SigPig SigPig:

I see where you are coming from and agree for the most part. But the money you would be saving in the car and its parts by having electricity transmitted through the road, would be at least equivalent to the drastically increased cost of road construction and maintenace.

Don't think it would roll out in rural areas but mass transit on main traffic routs would suffice. Cordless powertools that self charge would be a godsend as well.

Even still think of the tens of thousands of km's of road in the GTA alone, with tens of thousands of cars running over them everyday. Add on other major centres across the country (at least the capitals in each province) and their cars. That is a massive amount of road maintenance.

Rural roads would actually be easier because of fewer roads and lighter traffic.

[Benn]

Pseudonym Pseudonym:

Pretty sweet. I wonder how one could go about increasing its efficiency, though.

Pretty hard to do through air and even with the conductor technology we have today. This is essentially transformer action but over great distance. Only with actual transformers you have metal laminated (silica steel) cores which the allows the emfs to travel easier through them to the secondary coils. No core means higher amp (therefore Watts) draw and more energy used without a core to power a secondary unit of equivalent watts input. Even with a core you have losses but last I worked in the industry the newest transformers were running around 90%.

Mukluk Mukluk:

I am wondering what the power draw is if there is no load. i.e. if the supply coil is always energized, how much power is consumed without the TV/cellphone/laptop actually in place and consuming power?

I am thinking there would be some load, but that once the device was drawing power you would see the full draw.

Point being - if these things are just hanging out behind my walls, and I don't turn anything on, is my meter spinning like a top regardless?

I'm sure they would design it so the coils (Secondary load coils really) in the products in your home would not be energized unless you turned on the appliance to use it. Any electronics that run some functions while they appear off could just have a second, much smaller coil which would always be energized. The cost of adding second coil like this to handle power consumption from "Idol" background loads would be small in the overall cost of say a 62 inch plasma TV and you'd hardly notice the diff in consumption on your bill from these operations than you already do.

Now that brings up the question of how does the power comapny know how much you are using under this system> How do you meter the amount of EMFs being used in your own house? There are a number of options but they all revolve around end up in the same conclusion. The reason why we won't see this anytime soon being used for a public power grid.