Column  There's a fine line between madness and magic in technology. Unless you're talking about wireless power transmission, where woo outweighs watt

Wireless powersats promise clean, permanent, abundant energy. Sound familiar?

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2021-08-15 14:00:06

Column There's a fine line between madness and magic in technology. Unless you're talking about wireless power transmission, where woo outweighs watts every single time.

It all started with Tesla – Nikola, not the car company – who got fixated on the idea at the start of the 20th century and built a giant tower to test it out. He spent all the money and never made it work, although his disciples still cling to the wreckage. Not that anyone has learned.

Since then there's been a steady stream of startups promising to push power through the ether to distant gizmos. None of them can make it work either – the physics is just about good enough for small-scale demonstrations for the crowdfunding video, but bonkers thereafter. Think about supplying a town's water by high-pressure jets squirted through the air – and that's much more sensible than the radio equivalent.

There is one respectable area: satellite power stations. Europe, America, and Japan have been steadily refining the idea for decades – another demonstrator is due to be flown in 2023.

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