André Fischer

Wireless technology: It is already possible to send electricity without wires. Can devices be powered using ambient radiation from existing broadcasts?

Jun 10th 2010

ANYONE whose mobile phone has ever run out of juice—which means, these days, more than half the world’s population—will like the idea of getting electrical power out of the air. The notion is far from new. A little over a century ago, the inventor Nikola Tesla drew up ambitious plans to transmit electrical power without wires. He carried out a series of experiments in which electric lights were illuminated via electrostatic induction, by connecting them to metal sheets suspended in a strong electric field produced by a distant transmitter. In 1898 he proposed a “world system” of giant towers that would form both a global wireless communications network and a means of delivering electricity over large areas without wires.

Pretty awesome if it can be made to work on a large scale, especially since solar power cells are still very inefficient, and there would be many applications for this sort of technology where radio waves penetrate, but light doesn’t (I’m thinking indoors, mainly).

Reminds me of a good book I read on the whole world of energy production and delivery: The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief and their Lightbulb (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scientist-Madman-Thief-their-Lightbulb/dp/0743449762/…).