this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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The amount of research needed to make this technology work for the applications you are suggesting would be many times greater than the amount of research needed to just figure out better batteries. And. it would always be energy inefficient, so it would need an electricity surplus to be viable.
Didn't say it would be easy. Oh magnitudes sure. It's already a well known area though. Would reduce down the size and efficient of batteries.
It's what I'm betting on. Already plenty of applications on it. Pretty sure Japan is or has trying to beam power from space solar to ground arrays.
I think to get drones to work effectively they will need this tech.
The air is a poor wire. Lots of electricity will be lost just getting it to the machines, so for high energy applications, especially over longer distances, trying to use this technology would waste huge amounts of power. Not economically viable until electricy costs almost nothing.
I don't disagree that it has many applications, but probably more low power things for a while.
Battery/energy storage technology on the other hand has a lot of potential, and is entering it's golden age of research. The advances we have already made will look like nothing compared to the advances in batteries we will have in the next 20 years. Why beam power from the ground to a plane in the air when it could have all it needs onboard, and can charge in minutes once landed?
Oh absolutely but if you've got a way to reduce weight and that's what you need in aircraft then anything that helps will make a huge difference. Also means if anything fails you still have backup power.
Electricity already costs nothing in some places. Solar panels and windows turbines gave to be turned off quite often.
We are literally wasting power because it's financially prudent. Free power is bad for power companies. They paid to be able to sell at a price and if the sun is shining the wind is blowing they can't make money.
If you had planes flying over Nevada or hot arid regions they could waste megawatts of power throwing it at planes. Yeah it's inefficient but so are big heavy batteries. Or we keep using horrific jet fuel and eventually we will kill ourselves and the planet.
I know which one I'd pick.
Better batteries can be coupled with power over the air. It doesn't need to charge it just needs to slow the rate of discharge down. It's a novel idea.
Honestly I mostly want it for my phone. Again I don't need much power just enough to get my phone from 8am to 10pm without plugging in.
Several companies are in the running but ossia and energous are the ones with products. Once apple or Google incorporate into their devices it's a done deal.
It's a waste of energy as it's inefficient but we waste energy all the time.
Yeah but it's just a matter of scale of that waste. Sending power over that much air for practical air travel would be something we could think about after we have all our energy problems totally solved, but transitioning our planes to electric is a more pressing concern than that for many reasons. Solar panels are great and getting better all the time, but it isn't nothing to produce them or we would already have all we need to stop using fossil fuels.
I'm hoping for batteries power-dense enough that weight concerns aren't far from liquid fuel, and a charging time similarly on par. Only for now are our batteries so "big and heavy".
Phones are a great application for power over air, very practical. But no matter how good it gets, even if it charges in your pocket from a hidden source under your feet as you walk down the sidewalk... I bet you want it to have a pretty good battery too.