Wireless Electricity Could Have Profound Environmental Implications
By: Jenny Bengen on 09 03, 2009
As I sit here writing this post, I am bemused by how many electrical cords I have in the room. There’s one for my cell phone, one for my printer, at least two for my computer and then I have a power strip for them all to be plugged in to. My light has a cord, my fan has a cord…and across the room, my fiance’s corner looks like a jungle with electrical snakes.
I explain all of this in order to explain my complete fascination with the idea of wireless, or cordless, electricity. Never mind that it’s a very sexy and cool idea - think about the environmental ramifications! As reported by the above CNN article, a company called WiTricity is currently perfecting their wireless electricity technology, and excuse the pun, but the article made my hair stand up. Think about all of those batteries that we throw away - the article reports that companies make more than 40 billion of them every year. And, powering your iPods and mp3 players and computers is wonderful, but what about the implications for the resuscitation of the electric car? The car failed the first time around for a host of reasons, and one of them the sheer impracticality of having to build charging stations every so many miles so that cars could be powered up. Wireless electricity seems to solve that pesky chicken-and-egg problem wherein electric cars will not become widespread until there is the electric car infrastructure to support them, but the infrastructure to support them won’t be built until electric cars really take off.
It seems that, if developed properly, this technology could also save a lot of energy, as it only powers objects when they need to be charged. Right now, our computers and televisions are sucking up energy even when they’re turned off - if they’re plugged in, they’re using up small amounts of energy.
Wireless technology is already here for smaller devices. I cannot wait to see how this potentially green technology develops on a larger scale. Hopefully, I’ll be in the position to tell my own kids in about ten years “back when I was a girl, we had to use these things called electrical cords to power up everything, and it was a pain…”
Photo Credit: Edkohler from Flickr
2 Responses
u r an idiot. first off, the idea of transmitting electricity by inductance is really old and purposely bypassed by expert comp in the field as it only allows very small levels of transmittance of power. As a doctor and a power eng, I can tell u that the magnetic field needed to induce enough power for everyday electronics/appliances can me extremely dangerous to us humans.
call this what u want, its just hype.
We could of had it back in Tesla time, but the Electricty Comnpanies did not see a way to charge us, so they did everything that they could to stop wireless electricty. We have been poluting our envirment for no good reason just so that a few greedy companies could make every larger profits. This technology is over 80 years old, it’s funny how we have to keep going back to the past to save ourselves from polluting ourselves out of existence!