Wireless Transmission of Power?

Like radio, do you mean?

Or do you mean sending it via a shaft and putting up with bearing losses?

NO I AM TALKING ABOUT ELECTRIC POWER.

Surely electrical power needs a conductor in the supply and a conductor in the return to make a circuit?

If there are no conductors, then there's no chance of power being transferred electrically! The Sun transfers power without using conductors, for instance.

(In electronic communications, it is often considered very poor "netiquette" to type in all capitals, because it can be harder to read and because it is seen as tantamount to shouting. Indeed, this is the oft-used name for the practice.)

There have been several threads and blog entries about this topic . I suggest you do a site search. General consensus is that is is a silly idea.

Our company has been working on this for several years now.

We've made several interesting discoveries. First, we found that electrical energy is easier to push through the air if you first convert it to smaller units of measure. Turns out you can send 1000 individual watt-hours MUCH faster than a single kilowatt-hour. Apparently each watt-hour is much more "streamlined" than a big wide and flat kilowatt. The downside is that they're much noisier.

A few months ago we tried transmitting individual ergs. What a disaster! They move so fast that trying to catch them is very like trying to catch armor-piercing bullets. Played hell with the test flashlight we had as a load on the receiving end!

The following resolution was passed at the last meeting of the WETW (Wireless Electricity Transmission Work group) "We are all here because we are not all there"

Some energy can be transmitted without using wires. Radio transmitters make a florescent tube glow we\hen brought into the proximity. A transformer is a transfer of electricity without direct wire connection.

Wind power...

water power...

Sound...

No wires

There is some validity to this research.

Back in high school, I got a circuit for measuring the radiated energy from transmitters. It was just a small circuit with a meter and no battery or any source of power. The meter moved from current picked up by the antenna. With this gadget, I was able to find out that my brothers CB omnidirectional antenna was not perfectly omnidirectional.

So, if radio frequency can make a meter move without being in direct contact, it could be possible to send electric power via radio frequency antennas. This presents several problems.

As radio waves propagate through the air or space, their energy gets lower and lower the farther and farther it goes. You could probably use a directional antenna to concentrate it but that means that the power is delivered in a straight line. So, to deliver power to houses wirelessly, the houses would have to be in a straight line from the power utility...and only for a few dozen miles.

So, while I say that there is some validity, it doesn't seem very practical...at this time.

There is a tremendous amount of research going on involving the expenditure of millions of dollars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite

The power is first converted to microwave energy, radiated wireless to a ground station, and then reconverted to electrical energy and distributed using a standard grid.

In the link the power is transmitted from satellite to ground, but there is no reason it couldn't be done from ground to satellite. Obviously the technology has a broad spectrum of potential applications. Another good example of the dichotomy in science applications.

Gavilan

I'm surprised no-one has brought up Tesla. This was the very essence of his belief, that power could be transmitted wirelessly from point to point. Does anyone know how far he got with this?

Yes, he caused a total melt-down of the local power station. Many folk got pissed.

Arthur Clark, the celebrated science fiction author wrote in the 1940s that multistage rockets powered by lox & liquid hydrogen can be used for space exploration; He also suggested, 3 geostationary satellites can serve as telecommunication link for the entire world and power generated by giant solar panels in geo-synchronous orbit can be beamed as microwave by a parabolic antenna & received on earth by a dish antenna & re-converted into electrical energy.

Except the last one all his predictions have come true. Perhaps the last also will become one.

This is quiet dangereous you know , sun is ultimate energy source , you can opt for having solar sensors converting electricity efficiently?.. ?? place to your electrical gadjets and get energy to power them , power beam projections , intense magnetin induction , high intensity microwave transmission are ok as proposed remot transmission of power , but you have to take care of there side effects , we need energy for our purpose or you can say power for our ever increasing demands artificially , nature gives us more than that but we do not tap it to full potential ,what is the use of that remote energy if you cannot operate your gadgets in such conditions you will have to change the technology to compatible theses new kind or source of energy , low energy telecommunications , microwave ,is quiet different from powering them from bigger energy source right

Yes there was a thread some days ago , it was a blog describing researchers from MIT from USA have developped a way of transporting power (electric energy) through air , by electromagnetic induction , it was in lab , also Sir Nikola Tesla to discribed wireless transmission possible through his experiments some 100 years ago , but to avoid losses , this is not possible through wireless you loose more power in conversion s , sensors , conducting wires are there in wireless to , super conductivity is better option .

People are worried about the effects of small amounts of electric radiation and their healths, other problems apart, what would happen if large amounts (a La Teslar) were radiated? I suspect that cancer would make an instant 10 fold increase alone.....smoking would not be the main direct cause anymore!!!!

1) Radios would not work anymore because of the huge background electrical noise.

b) how would you charge for amounts of electricity used?

c) Even if you could charge, due to losses, the bill would probably be 100 times higher than an equivalent bill today....

It will be used in certain special environments I expect - fusion research springs to mind, but for everyday usage, naaaa......

My suggestion is to go and find a better problem to fix......

Dear friend,

I know that what i am paying on account of eletrical energy is very less.

IF we produce energy in power plants by the time it reaches to the user threr is 60% losses during tranmission.

To produce the we are consuming huge amount of natural sourcess which are now available for us but for our future genaration is it remain.

Sadly I did not fully understand your point, was it for Wireless transmission or against it? Please be so kind as to make it completely clear for us. Thanks in advance.

I would humbly suggest that wireless transmission of power (not over single finite directional links) for everyone, the people doing it would be MOST happy if they got an efficiency of 10%, as I suspect the actual efficiency would probably be far less....

I am no expert in this area though!!

IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!!!!!

A mediocre broadcast radio station might put out 1 Kilowatt of signal (1 x 10³ watts).

Your radio receiver on a very good day might receive 1 milliwatt (1 x 10^-3 watts).

This is 1 x 10^-6 of the transmitted power is received or.0001 %. Thus 99.999% of the power is lost.

So lets make a directional parabolic antenna at the transmitting and receiving end (such as used in older satellite antennas)... say a 1/2 wavelength diameter.

At 50 Hz, a wavelength is 3 x 10⁸/ 5 x 10 = .6 x 10⁷ meters so 1/2 wavelength would be 3 x 10⁶ meters. So your dish would have a diameter of only 3000 kilometers.

Best of luck in your endeavor, but for me... I will go buy a lottery ticket. I have a much better chance of succeeding.

Bill

In AM broadcasting, the wavelength in short wave is 11m to 160m & in medium wave is 180m to about 600m. In microwave, the wavelength is in centimetres. There is no need for antennae kilometres in dia. The microwave can 'cook' everything in the way.

You are correct with the distances, but in a closed area like a microwave its easy to transmit power, it even gets reflected off the door and walls and is "re-used". The losses are relatively small.

If you want to transmit power over longer distances and to everyone's house within say 10 miles, the losses would be enormous.....

Transmitting at the usual required 50 or 60 hz, the needed antenna would be HUGE!!!

Tesla was a clever man and before his time, but I can see no possible way to distribute power in a manner that people could pay for, (assuming that you could even bill them!!)

My dear friend,

when i was in engineering at that time one my professor doing this research, so i am very much eager to know about the same but unfortunately you have given answer.

I am working on electrical,thermal energy saving projects, if you have done any such type of project please send me the details.

I see no reason to give you any further information at all on this subject.....

Do some study and learn a few things all on your own.....

HI Andy,

This is very surprising answer to me , I have done several project in my 20 years carrear and saved lot of electrical energy in steel plants where wright now working and also in thermal section I have don projects to save energy,

still today I am learning new thigs, dont be upset to give some information to me,

thanks for your comments...........

It is wise from you ,these issues matter you lot , but as andy pointed out you have to do little home work and see for the professor and talk to him or try assisting him , being his student there is no reason he should not co operate with you , generally it is a cause,energy conservation and saving is every bodies concern and interest , if you are a engineer you should understand logistics and practical aspects , right...

I worked for a large Electric Utility and they actually claimed they lost 30%. They were their own biggest customer. I think the 60% losses you are referring to is total energy input to the power plant versus total energy that arrives in your home. It is surprisingly in-efficient.

I couldn't imagine transmitting real "muscle" power through the air except for narrowly focused light (laser) and then re-convert. God forbid you'd break that light beam with your body though....

electricity requires those darned electrons. the key is to convert the energy up the electromagnetic spectrum and transfer the energy in some way by photons--microwaves or lasers. We could provide all the electricity the earth needs with a few solar panels in space with carefully aimed lasers hitting receiving units on the earth where the heat energy could be converted back into mechanical, then electrical energy. This would not eliminate loss, of course, and if one of the satellites went haywire, it would be like a bad science fiction movie, burning random trails across the countryside.

However, this is the means of interstellar travel I endorse--laser stations at local stars focusing their energy at central depots where it is stored in some way--capacitance perhaps. A spaceship could then access the energy through a weak microwave uplink down which the energy would flow, providing energy that could be focused and used for propulsion. Therefore our initial voyages to the stars should be robot ships packed with solar cells for circumstellar orbits that might beam their energy to a station just beyond the oort cloud where we could access it easily, but not have to worry about the energy falling into the wrong hands and being used to screw up the earth, because something like that would also be a powerful weapon.

But in addition to a weapon, it could be used to send heat rays to the earth to interfere with the formation of hurricanes and other disastrous weather. A hot spot in the atlantic a hundred miles south of a forming hurricane off the coast of Senagal would generate a rotating airmass that would prevent the hurricane from becoming integrated.

Tesla tried this years ago............ I think he almost destroyed Siberia or something to that effect......

tesla, according to a bit of urban legend, was experimenting with using the earth's magnetic field to generate electricity which would then be transmitted through the air at the same moment the tungusta event occurred in siberia. I think it has as much truth to it as the legend of tesla's earthquake machine.

But he really did try to transmit electricity through the ground and melted at least one generator at the niagara falls power station doing it. It nearly ruined him.

For power to be "beamed" it needs to use some medium other than electrons or it will simply melt any coil of wire it encounters --

wires are the least resistant medium available for moving electrons around in a normal environment but many physicists and materials engineers are trying to figure out how to use superconductors and supercold to reduce the losses in conductors. These would require a supply of liquid helium at a few degrees above absolute zero. Maglev trains use these technologies. For a while a few superconductors were discovered that could operate cooled by liquid nitrogen, which would improve the likelihood of this technology actually entering our daily lives. Then Bush was elected and our swift rush began back to the stone age leaving science and math and other hard things to other cultures. The Chinese or Japanese will probably come up with a solution.

"Then Bush was elected and our swift rush began back to the stone age leaving science and math and other hard things to other cultures."

Funny, I thought this was an Engineering forum. I didn't think political science was an Engineering discipline.

Really funny, good comment.....! keep them coming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_effect

this might lead to something that you can use.

joshua