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 ...
It seems like gnomes break in at night while we sleep and tangle all the wires up don’t it? :-)
NEEDS STRAIGHT LINE TRANSMISSION.
WILL NOT WORK IN HILLY/MOUNTAINOUS AREAS.
You think being near the receiving end of laser light causes cancer? Okaaaay.
Well, technically it depends on the wavelength. If it’s UV or shorter, definitely.
You Are Great!
I Am Great!
To clarify, I don't think it would cause cancer. I simply don't know. It'd be interesting to study the effects.
Unless you are somehow exposed directly to the light, I disagree. Just living somewhere around a laser receiver is not going to cause cancer.
Agreed. The light has to actually strike your body.
Just living somewhere in the neighborhood of a laser receiver (lasers are simply concentrated, coherent light) does not cause cancer.
If I was told that, I’d want to be sure I wasn’t in the path of the transmission.
Did you see the love light in Spock’s eyes? The right computer came along.
“Geez - they finally figured out how to do it after Nikola Tesla did it more than a hundred years ago?!”
Stupid comment
First EMP attack and you’ll sell your children for copper wiring. ;)
Oh yes LOLOL 😅😂🤣🤣🤣
I know you are, but what am I?
Straight lines can be diagonal in three dimensions.
Living things? If it’s a strong beam, they’ll die. Unfortunately, the same fate awaits birds who fly into windmills. Any object can block the beam, and any numbnuts can move the object or move the beam.
I shorted copper yesterday afternoon. So far, no joy nor sorrow.
Does nobody have any imagination? The biggest solar energy farm is in the heavens, where unfiltered, limitless solar rays can be collected on the moon, and then beamed down narrowly to earth with this new method. There is your power. There is your high ground and direct line of fire. All that’s needed is the lunar power plant, the lasar projectors, and the terrestrial collection terminals. So we best get cracking, before the PRC beats us to it and monopolizes the moon.
About 18 years ago, I worked on transmitting power to moving vehicles, using RF frequencies. The project died on efficiency considerations at highway speeds. The RF match couldn’t slew quickly enough. Slower vehicles like robots can do it now, take a look at https://reachpower.com/solutions/manufacturing-logistics/ For the project posted about here, the optical frequency is high enough to work for moving vehicles, but suffers from conversion inefficiencies at those frequencies. Microwaves work, you can beam up microwaves to an airplane and keep it up, my friends at university did this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stationary_High_Altitude_Relay_Platform It is still too inefficient for commercial use, and not friendly to birds flying through the beam.
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