View Full Version : Wireless electricity
The future is truly here http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html
I have been some white papers on this. What a future it will be..
AL :munchin
Slantwire
09-23-2009, 19:29
The future is truly here http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html
Same way passive RFID chips / cards work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification). The card reader emits an magnetic field (H-field), antenna in the card turns it into AC, rectifies to DC, and powers a micro-controller in the card. (Said micro-controller then does whatever the RFID / smart card is supposed to do. Often it's something very simple, such as broadcast a serial number for the reader to pick up. Weak broadcast, but you're already close to the reader or you wouldn't have power.) They're used in transit system passes and race timers. I believe SWC had me use one once, so I could run a distance and they could get an accurate time without me necessarily knowing how I did.
Nokia is supposedly developing something similar (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/10/nokia-mobile-phone), but even more radical: instead of pulling power from a specific (and nearby) emitter, they claim to soak up ambient radiated energy (such as radio, TV, etc) and gradually recharge the cell phone.
Remember those electric race car ets with the track and center line active metal thread. I see in the future roads and transportation systems design around this kind of tech
Red Flag 1
09-24-2009, 08:12
It would be interesting to learn the dollars and cents cost this technology will demand. The second thing I find myself wondering about is the overall energy usage. Given that some energy is lost in the translation, will the demand for energy increase or decrease? I can easily envision residential, and commercial use for this technology.
Will the bottom fall out of the copper markets?
My $.02.
RF 1
LINK (http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/cars-transportation/electric-highways-electric-cars-460909)
Neat idea! But I suspect it will send copper up, not down....
Excerpt:
A big worry people have about electric cars is something called "range anxiety." We're used to cars that routinely travel 300 miles between fillups -- if a battery vehicle goes only 100 miles (sort of like a gas car with its fuel gauge permanently on "E") then are we going to be anxious all the time?
This problem was highlighted in a story I did recently about the Tesla Model S sedan. Tesla wants the car to have 300-mile range, but to do that requires an 85- to 95-kilowatt battery pack, and nobody's built one that large for automotive applications. Tesla is confident, but conventional wisdom says it will be large, heavy and expensive. That gives people, well, range anxiety.
But what if electric cars didn't need batteries at all? What if they could hook up to induction strips and inverters buried in the roadway and get their power that way? Liberation! It sounds like science fiction, but Korea's Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is working on something exactly like that.
The Korean vehicles would be equipped with small batteries (with 50-mile range) to carry them between contact with the inverters. They really like it in Seoul, and have invested $2 million. The capital city has 9,000 buses, and would love to have them all wired for roadway electricity. KAIST is already running buses with the technology on its own campus, and is looking at a project on the resort island of Jeju.
An Israeli firm, Innowattech, with ties to the Israel Institute of Technology, is also looking at embedded electricity, but its model uses piezoelectric ceramic tiles and electricity released by the pressure of passing vehicle tires.
Red Flag 1
09-24-2009, 15:34
nmap,
One of my problems with plug in autos is that we just transfer the cost of energy to the power grid. If we get to the point where we are not using any fossil fuel to energize our power grid, then plug in makes sense. The same would apply for "slot" cars.
Nice to know copper will still be in demand:D.
RF 1
nmap,
One of my problems with plug in autos is that we just transfer the cost of energy to the power grid.
True. And since we're already experiencing the occassional brownout or rolling blackout, our grid looks as if it needs extensive investment...and we're already in debt and going deeper.
Looks like we had best plan for lots and lots of nuclear reactor plants...built on credit...from who-knows-where...
However, I was trying to be positive on a post. Just for the novelty of it. :D
TED.com is a great website with a great deal of interesting information that always manages to steal a nice chunk of my time. There should be a lot more interesting talks like this one coming out very shortly as the conference just happened recently.
I personally like following the talks on theoretical physics, but the one of topic that resurrects Tesla's ideas is a great one as well.
Nice to see history repeating itself.
Ret10Echo
09-24-2009, 18:18
True. And since we're already experiencing the occassional brownout or rolling blackout, our grid looks as if it needs extensive investment...and we're already in debt and going deeper.
Looks like we had best plan for lots and lots of nuclear reactor plants...built on credit...from who-knows-where...
However, I was trying to be positive on a post. Just for the novelty of it. :D
Sat in on a briefing a while back with the founder of a company named AttoChron. Primarily free-space optics and femtosecond lasers for telecommunications aplications. What he was briefing that day was a modification of that theory where laser 'wave guides' would be used as electrical power transmission conduits. The full application being a space-based solar platform with the free-space optic providing the transmission line (for lack of a better term) to a terrestrial substation.
Hey...why not...:munchin
Had the whole Star Wars light saber -vs- passenger aircraft thing pop up in my mind during the presentation......:eek:
Oh...and nmap...I prefer your reality-based augur-of-doom posts better.:D
nmap, Just for the novelty of it; confirm the fact yiou were a trekie:lifter
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Oh...and nmap...I prefer your reality-based augur-of-doom posts better.:D
Outstanding! I believe I can live up to that standard. :lifter
nmap, Just for the novelty of it; confirm the fact yiou were a trekie:lifter
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Yep, guilty as charged. Scotty was a favorite character. And I could never wrap my mind around why the ship had so few weapons.... ;)
Ret10Echo
09-29-2009, 12:42
Dell Laptop Fails to Excite With Wireless Charger
By Jared Newman - Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:05AM EDT
The Dell Latitude Z's wireless charger may provide relief for a subset people who despise power bricks and cords, but for the rest of us, it's an empty "wow" gesture that most users won't use.
Dell claims that the Latitude Z is the first laptop with wireless docking and an inductive wireless charger, which uses a pair of coils--one in the laptop and another in a special charging stand--to generate an electromagnetic field. But maybe the technology was untouched by Dell's rivals for good reason.
For starters, the stand is huge. From press photos, it appears to be a large plate connected to an even larger stand, containing a base surface and an equally huge raised platform. You'll need a nice desk to support this lavish set-up--laptop, in the literal sense, this is not--and you won't want to take it with you.
Also, the charger itself is no more effective than a standard AC plug. Steve Belt, Dell's vice president of business client engineering, told IDG that the wireless charger takes the same amount of time to juice a laptop as an AC connection.
For these privileges, you'll pay an extra $200 on top of the Latitude Z's base $2,000 price tag. For that money, I'd rather buy one or two more power cords, and plant them in the places where I use my laptop most.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the Latitude Z as a whole. The notebook boasts a few features that like to see in more laptops. Among them is the instant-on feature that lets you check e-mail and browse the Web during start-up (HP has beaten Dell to the punch here). There's also an optional wireless docking station that lets you connect TVs and USB devices while moving around freely with the laptop itself. Unlike the charger, the docking station seems worth the extra $200, especially if you plan to watch Web video through your television.