Extending The Range of Electric Vehicles By En-route Induction Charging.

Hello Gavilan

Wheeled Vehicles:

High strength magnetic fields are damaging to body cells, and there appears to be no practical way to have sufficient "Power by induction" into a fast-moving wheeled vehicle, which does not permanently damage the occupants in that strong magnetic field.

Electric Power:

Production via Hydro-power, Wind-power, Tidal-power, Solar cells is now reasonably efficient: Apart from construction, manpower, and maintenance costs, it is all free.

Electric power production from fossil fuels - Coal, Natural gas, oil, is not as efficient, and plunders the planetary energy Bank.

Electricity Distribution is quite efficient, particularly at EHV, 250kV and above, as the line voltage increases, the efficiency increases, albeit at increased cost of transformers tower spacing increases, insulators.

Airplanes:

Maglev devices have the magnetic field "bad for people" problem as per the Wheeled Vehicles".

Jet engines and airplanes using them become far more efficient flying at 30,000 feet and above.

General:

I realize there are commercially operating Maglev trains and such.

Magnetic field damage does cells damage, even at low intensity levels, but may take several or even many years for the damage to become obvious, by which time it is far too late to do anything about it.

If you value your good health, then steer well clear of high-level magnetic fields, of every sort.

If you are truly an older person, 60+, then it won't really matter your being exposed to high-strength magnetic fields, because statistically speaking, you are on a "downhill slope" regarding your health, as your cells have telomeres on the ends of their chromosomes, and after the telomeres are used up, and there is none left for cell repair, that cell dies suddenly.

That is why scientist are able to state that for each type of cell, for each species, there is a pre-designed number of cell divisions possible, before sufficient cells die in that creature, and it dies.

But also remember that the human body is designed to live for approximately 120 years, but we expose ourselves to all sorts of damage, which shortens the lifespan.

Kind Regards....

I think others have addressed some of the problems with power transfer via induction: if the gap is large, then the field strength has to be extremely high: efficient transfer requires the the primary and secondary be in very close proximity. There are also issues with mechanical drag from magnetic coupling. (Use permanent magnets mounted in the pavement to generate power in car-mounted coils: suddenly, you've created a perpetual motion machine.) Typically, this involves a tremendous amount of copper for coils, health risks, damage to magnetically sensitive equipment, etc. Some of these risks can be overcome, and there have been prototypes of inductive systems like this, but the systems end up being very costly, albeit attractive from a more theoretical basis.

How about power transfer via high power lasers?

I'd like to see a slot car system. With a small onboard battery pack, you'd have energy for lane changes, for neighborhoods, etc. I suppose the slot contacts could be segmented, with each segment supplied by electronic switching so that the segments are on only when a vehicle is sensed as being above. This would reduce the hazard to pedestrians, as would a low voltage system, in which the long distance distribution is at high voltage, but in which local segments would be supplied by transformer every few hundred feet.

There are a gazillion possibilities for systems like this: given the state of the art in high-charge-rate prototype batteries, a system could be developed that would charge vehicles at intersections, or at pull aside charge lanes (like HOV lanes) at points along highways... maybe.

An electric vehicle designed for 5 mile or 10 mile range can, right now, (today!) be a really excellent vehicle: fast, quiet, light, more reliable, etc, with emissions about half that of current efficient cars (even given the primitive state of our mainly fossil fuel generating systems). It's only when you load down electric vehicles with tons of batteries and hope for long range, that problems such as astronomical cost and weight surface.

Of course, perhaps something like the EEstor will materialize -- although the EEstor seems scammier (stock pumping) as time goes on. If an EEstor-like unit were available, then our woes would be over -- the battery problem essentially disappears.

One hindrance to getting the funding for prototyping a slot car (etc) system on a small town or city level would be that many people will say: Why install all this infrastructure when we know the battery technology will improve enough to make the system obsolete soon?

How about hydrogen (wash my mouth with soap!)? We develop a burst mode electrolysis, in which a bang goes off and water is converted to high pressure H2 and O2, enough for 2 miles via fuel cell*. Every mile or so cars move over ultra high amperage, low voltage plate contacts (=/- 2 volts) -- safe to walk across in bare feet. Bang! Recharged.

* I am going to regret having mentioned this: The next HHO scam is going to be for a device based on "burst mode electrolysis, as promoted by engineers on CR4." "The incredible power of burst mode electrolysis can actually blast hair out of your skin, as can be seen in spas! Static electricity, which gives LIGHTNING its power, can only make hair stand up. Our rentacrank PhDs say "Burst mode electrolysis makes lightning seem like a child's toy, in comparison."