Maybe not a good idea. Every human being has its own particular set of electrochemical frequencies. Upset those individual balances and you quite possibly will have all kinds of behavioral problems with an unknown number of people.

Hello All,

I believe that, in maybe a hundred years or so, wireless electrical power could very well be in place.

No way, because of the dielectric strength of the air.

The human circulatory system is a conductor(predominately salt water) and when it passes through a strong magnetic field (produced by a strong electric field) guess what happens.

Although some might consider it an advantage to use very low frequencies (20 kHz would be considered extremely low in the context of "RF"), it's electromagnetic wavelength, in the neighborhood of 10 miles, is so long that it's impractical to form a "beam" to direct it. So its energy goes everywhere ... very inefficient. Also consider that the field strength falls off as the square of distance ... also very inefficient for any "broadcast" of power. And any long conductor (think barbed-wire fence) becomes a receiver you can't turn off ... dangerous. More realistic proposals have been made (in IEEE journals) to put huge solar arrays in stationary earth orbit, convert the collected power to a narrow microwave beam which is received by antennas on the ground. Theoretically, it works at a reasonable efficiency ... but how do you guarantee that a misaligned or out-of-control pointing system wouldn't burn a swath across the countryside? There are lots of practical problems ... and risks. I think wireless power transmission will remain inside ordinary transformers or slightly modified ones like chargers for electric toothbrushes and cell phones (and, on a larger scale, vehicles) over short distances for the foreseeable future. I built several Tesla coils in junior high school, primarily (pardon the pun) to amaze friends by lighting up handheld fluorescent or neon bulbs or draw foot-long arcs to a handheld metal object. Most of these, and I suspect Teslas abandoned one, operated at frequencies near 1 MHz (AM broadcast band). - Bill Whitlock, chief technology manager, Jensen Transformers, Inc.

There is no efficacy or rationale to the supposed health hazards at the frequencies and power levels being used. But feel free to stuff yourself in a Faraday cage. Not only is this energy non-ionizing, it is not in the GHz range that you get from the cell phone that is placed next to your head and is in your pocket all day.

The are IEC technical committees (TC108 for IEC62368-1 and TC100 for IEC 63028) currently working on updating/originating safety standards for these chargers, and there can be some fire risks if there is an intervening piece of metal. The discussions currently within the OSM/EE group about this topic have published at least one decision (OSM/EE 14/3). The new IEC/ANSI standards will not be published until 2016, so there is no basis for an AHJ to approve any larger charger installation.

Note that automotive chargers are different subject and are being addressed by IEC TC69 - see the iec.ch site for standards dates and status.

I have read the posted comments and based on that I am all for it. Thank you

Hey Mike,

Always appreciate your knowledge and your sharing of it.

Would you like to get some knowledge of this field?

You sound a few decades behind the times in regards to the technology, methods and applications.

Regards,

Phil Timmons

The Soviets built a massive system of Tesla coils much larger than that of Tesla's but had much the same problems with efficiency. The energy would be transmitted high in the upper atmosphere so there would no earth bound danger. Using extremely high frequency I believe is a valid future advance with properly designed skin conductors Also the Tesla coil itself has great potential if someone could solve the tuning problems.

'little induction heating anyone? My, is that my wedding ring that's glowing?

wlr

There is some work going on involving developing a technique to wirelessly charge battery powered electric cars. Coils would be mounted on a garage floor. A corresponding coil would be mounted on bottom of car. By magnetic, wireless, coupling power can be transferred to car to charge it's battery.

Right now there are many wirelessly powered devices available. Cell phone and tablets can charge simply by placing them on a USB powered pad or a specially equipped flat surface.

Beyond that, there are devices that harvest energy directly from the environment. "The most widely used energy harvesting devices rely on solar, thermal, RF, and piezoelectric sources of energy." These devices are deployed as remote sensors and controls. The key is that they are very low power and they communicate over an RF connection.

As we are able to implement more functions at these low energy levels we will have less need for copper wiring interconnections. Lighting controls come to mind right away, why route that current down the wall to a switch box and back when it only needs to be used at the light itself?

I would be surprised if there are not at least a few attics in the US being lit by RF energy coupling from an antenna to a 4 foot fluorescent tube. The antenna only needs to be tuned to a nearby radio station. The FCC has rules against this, but you can appreciate detectability is low and the simplicity makes this a tempting implementation for at least a few individuals. Again, the key is to have a reasonably efficient low power application.

Induction heating is one high power application in common use in factories and homes. It is commonly used for welding and heat treatment in manufacturing. In our home it shows up in inductive cooktops. In this application the coupling is efficient because it is at close range.

As far as large scale energy transfer over long distances that will have to wait a bit. Like solar, the first implementations will only be cost and energy efficient for off-grid applications. Until the economics and safety are addressed this is a niche solution, relegated to your induction stove top.

As this takes off we will see more incidents of brain tumors and the cost of copper will drop.

If you think about it, we already have a "wireless" power transmission device. the common transformer ( primary and secondary winding) Of course the efficiency of the transmission of power is greatly improved via the "iron Core" I have heard of an instance where someone "stole" power from close high tension lines over a rooftop by placing a large coil as close as possible in their attic. The local power company finally wised up and caught him. Even tho an "air core" coupling is inefficient, it might be as one commentor mentioned, what if the voltage and/or frequency as well as turns ratio could affect the process. I'm sure there have already been experiments like this going on for decades. Anything is possible as long as it is within the limits of physics, problem is we don't really know what those limits are.

Our bodies are constantly bombarded by energy in the form of waves (radio, cellphone system, solar radiation, electromagnetic, etc.), I think all of them are doing something to us and thus we need ways to filter or channel them.

Wireless electricity, yes it needs a lot of energy, but then what we need is a type of "wireless conduit or guide". Think about a laser, it's concentraded light, which can be diverted using a magnetic field. Maybe we don't have to transmit electricity per se, it could be wireless energy in some other form and then convert it; I think how we direct it is key.

The future always holds interesting options, discoveries are coming by way of the Large Hadron Collider and there's still things to find out about electricity in it's purest form. Just take a look at some of those super slow-mo lighting videos... Before lighting happens, "streamers" come down looking to connect with "spikes" coming up from the earth and things, what the hell!? Hmmm...if we come up with a way of producing and directing our own streamers and then spikes that match those...

It is not only unsafe but inefficient. Passing through a high energy EM field would be like putting yourself in a microwave oven.

There would have to be a unilateral global effort to agree on prices, methods of distribution and collection, and maintenance for this to work, of course negating the notion of safety and health.

Again, with health and safety aside, how would micro electronics be affected?

What kind of footprint/safety radius would there be for the distribution stations?

How could over absorption be prevented for a device?

Would each electrical item now need a small current protection device?

Wireless electricity is safe and feasible, electrical devices would be capactively not inductively coupled, high frequencies would make it unnoticeable because of skin effect.

The fundamental frequency would be around 20khz, (diameter of the Earth divided by the speed of light) So, high frequencies would make currents harmless because of skin effect.

hi frequency power could be transmitted to to currently operating substations and changed to 60hz for distribution.

Hi frequency can be easily transmitted from transmitter to receiver without power line losses, 100% power transfer.

Beyond the technical problems... * Health effects on people, animals, crops... * How the fields work with our large steel-framed buildings * Interaction with natural fields

There is a *huge* corollary which absolutely nobody seems to have published: How do you pay to build and maintain the infrastructure??

* A worldwide field of power-- free for the taking. * An enormous input (coal? nuclear? zero-point energy?)... * All this gadgetry has to be kept fed and tuned !

The only way to pay the bills is to establish a worldwide totalitarian regime, which can then tax Absolutely Everybody -- like the receiver tax in the UK: no exceptions !!

Totally incompatible with a Free Society...

I am pretty certain that Tesla intended to use the earth as a conduit to transmit the current, not through the air.

Well there goes my job in the future! I am going to need a back-up now.

I think when we talk about wireless power we need to determine if there are any health hazards to the human body. I hope someone will address this.