Like the other user said, broad cast power is inefficient, and one of the reasons why it's so inefficient, is because most of the power goes wasted. Think about it, you have a source that is broadcasting electromagnetically in all directions like a radio station, and there's only a handful of points in space that need it. The idea is about 100 years old.
But, I'm wondering even if it is inefficient, maybe it doesn't matter. You can think of the wasted energy as the fee for convenience. If the source doesn't use much power, and the devices you run don't require much energy, nor do the devices need to be powered everywhere or all the time, then maybe this idea isn't so bad after all. You can place your cell phone on a mouse pad like device and it will just "soak up the juices".
Perhaps when they figure out sustainable fusion power, or get hyper efficient solar cells, so that power is essentially free, Tesla's idea will then be practical to implement.
Coupled devices can be a lot more intelligent than they were in Tesla's day. I imagine you cell phone would send a signal to the transmitter when it is in use or finished charging. Further, it seems to me that there would be very little power lost in this system when not in use, even if the device is alway on, because P=V^2*R. The resistance (or in this case impedance, principle is the same) is nearly 0 if nothing is receiving the power. Only when something is receiving the power will there be an impedance in the transmission of signal.
Transmitters consume electricity whether anything is receiving it or not. In this case, generating a LARGE magnetic field eats it up like crazy. The greater the distance, the more powerful the field needs to be to gap that distance.
Did ANY of you actually read the new? It's all about the efficiency of this new technique versus common wireless power transmitting We all know how inefficient that was at Tesla's time.
Yes, I read the original article, and I read all the links from it. The main criticism of such technology is that the power is broadcasted. Think of shining a flashlight on a postage stamp from 3 feet away. The light will reach the stamp, but look at the the area of light that misses the stamp. That energy is wasted, and that wasted area is vastly larger than the area of the postage stamp. Neither this link nor any of the followup links address this problem, they talk about building a more efficient "flashlight". Unless they address that, this 100+ yearr old idea will still be plagued by this problem.
But, like I said originally, maybe this problem is not an issue if electricity gets super cheap, or if devices require such little power that the flashlight could have a very dim light. Neither of those conditions have been met yet. So I think this technology will be shelved and revisited later.
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Like the other user said, broad cast power is inefficient, and one of the reasons why it's so inefficient, is because most of the power goes wasted. Think about it, you have a source that is broadcasting electromagnetically in all directions like a radio station, and there's only a handful of points in space that need it. The idea is about 100 years old.
But, I'm wondering even if it is inefficient, maybe it doesn't matter. You can think of the wasted energy as the fee for convenience. If the source doesn't use much power, and the devices you run don't require much energy, nor do the devices need to be powered everywhere or all the time, then maybe this idea isn't so bad after all. You can place your cell phone on a mouse pad like device and it will just "soak up the juices".
Perhaps when they figure out sustainable fusion power, or get hyper efficient solar cells, so that power is essentially free, Tesla's idea will then be practical to implement.
@Toy,
Coupled devices can be a lot more intelligent than they were in Tesla's day. I imagine you cell phone would send a signal to the transmitter when it is in use or finished charging. Further, it seems to me that there would be very little power lost in this system when not in use, even if the device is alway on, because P=V^2*R. The resistance (or in this case impedance, principle is the same) is nearly 0 if nothing is receiving the power. Only when something is receiving the power will there be an impedance in the transmission of signal.
Transmitters consume electricity whether anything is receiving it or not. In this case, generating a LARGE magnetic field eats it up like crazy. The greater the distance, the more powerful the field needs to be to gap that distance.
Did ANY of you actually read the new? It's all about the efficiency of this new technique versus common wireless power transmitting
We all know how inefficient that was at Tesla's time.
@josealb
Yes, I read the original article, and I read all the links from it. The main criticism of such technology is that the power is broadcasted. Think of shining a flashlight on a postage stamp from 3 feet away. The light will reach the stamp, but look at the the area of light that misses the stamp. That energy is wasted, and that wasted area is vastly larger than the area of the postage stamp. Neither this link nor any of the followup links address this problem, they talk about building a more efficient "flashlight". Unless they address that, this 100+ yearr old idea will still be plagued by this problem.
But, like I said originally, maybe this problem is not an issue if electricity gets super cheap, or if devices require such little power that the flashlight could have a very dim light. Neither of those conditions have been met yet. So I think this technology will be shelved and revisited later.