Posted on 09/05/2025 8:06:38 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
What if we told you that DARPA, the U.S. government agency, has developed a way to send electricity through great distances… with no batteries or cables involved in the process? That’s right, like out of a cartoon (it actually looks like a Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz’s idea), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been able to transmit energy using focused light beams. Of course, they have decided to call their project POWER —great copywriting, even better science.
But, how does the DARPA’s POWER project work? This scientific experiment turns electricity into a tightly focused beam of light, sends that beam across open air, and then turns the light back into electricity at the far end.
Much like Wi-Fi for power, it has a transmitter feeds a laser, the beam is steered and kept on target by tracking hardware, and a receiver (essentially a compact opening plus a mirror that redirects light onto rugged solar cells) converts photons into usable current. The appeal is mobility. If you can move energy as light, you can bypass roads, spools, ...
What DARPA actually did in New Mexico In a series of tests at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range, the POWER team delivered more than 800 watts across 8.6 kilometers for 30 seconds, then repeated shorter runs over several days that added up to more than a megajoule transferred.
The centerpiece was a new receiver that lets a near-infrared beam enter through a small aperture, strike a parabolic mirror, and reflect onto an array of commercial photovoltaic cells. At shorter ranges, the setup measured a little over 20% conversion from laser optical output back to usable output; the goal of this demo was speed and ruggedness, not peak efficiency.
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Can we forgo the copper cables now then?
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(Excerpt) Read more at eladelantado.com ...
Wires seem to be almost entirely a male world, how many males are sick of always running the wires for everything, the stereos, the TVs, the computer stuff, how many times have most of us males standing knee deep in a pile of wires and different types of connectors, extension cords, and power strips, trying to hide them behind the couch or desk, or run them along the wall and keep track of them and untangle and separate this one to that device from that one to that device, prayed for when nothing needs wires again.
Whether it is powerlines during winter snows or setting up the wife’s office gadgets, or setting up the girlfriends new TV/Stereo system, men always get stuck with the wires, I’m sick of wires.
with a little assistance from Mother Nature Ben Franklin witnessed transfer of electricity over long distance.
could have easily died with his discovery, too
Hmmm. Maybe there will finally be a way to wirelessly charge an EV while driving. Just raise the car’s receptor like it’s a periscope. I think Cosmo Kramer envisioned something like this.
And some people thought living near or under high voltage power lines was dangerous. And thing how many fires the electric companies can start if they don't even need wind to knock the power lines to the ground.
“”Can we forgo the copper cables now then?””
No. The testing was done in an uninhabited area. There’s a good reason why there were no humans “in the way” of that focused beam of light (tests at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range). What happens to humans if that beam hits them? I’m betting that DARPA isn’t at all concerned with the answer to that question. $$$ is the goal here. It is “Big Govt”, after all.
“This scientific experiment turns electricity into a tightly focused beam of light, sends that beam across open air, and then turns the light back into electricity at the far end.”
Done, on my tiny scale.
I can see the towers with the high tension wires and know enough to avoid them, but how to keep from getting cut apart by the highly-concentrated beam of light?
“”And some people thought living near or under high voltage power lines was dangerous. And thing how many fires the electric companies can start if they don’t even need wind to knock the power lines to the ground.””
I’m thinking... DEWs here. Remember how those fires in Maui started... with supposedly no power going to the power lines?
At least one researcher who tried to duplicate Ben Franklin’s experiment was killed.
https://fi.edu/en/science-and-education/benjamin-franklin/kite-key-experiment
Darpa has laser weapon projects.
10% electricity to laser efficiency and 8% solar cell efficiency means 99% energy conversion loss. What you have, if you cool everything with water is a not very compact hot water heater. Otherwise you are just making hot air.
Of course, he did lose his mind and went from this to this. But we all fade a bit in old age.
I do not think I want to live near the transmitting station, receiving station, or the path in between.
“Tesla’s dream..................”
It is said he accomplished it.
and EVs still suck
The beam will destroy anything in its path. If its path shifts just a bit it will roast things around it, like animals, houses and people.
Of course it will be controlled by AI, and the AI can mess up or be hacked, thus aiming the beam at animals, houses, people, skyscrapers, airplanes and cities.
Plus there is a loss of energy compared to transmission by wires.
That reminds me of a science fiction movie I saw as a child. Some ancient civilization had some sort of light beam they could play on enemies. Very scary to a child. I wonder how they will prevent this technology from being converted to such a weapon.
As insane an idea as that of a giant collector in orbit which beams “energy” to Earth. When a meteor hits it and deflects its beam just a few degrees, and it roasts an entire country...
Or something that charges your cellphone from 20 feet away, and is inducing a current in everything metal in the room including your brain.
Or putting “flying cars” on the highways.
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