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Monday, January 31, 2011

Wireless Electricity

My first drivel will touch on a topic that most will likely scoff at--wireless electricity.  One can't even mention it without dropping the name of Nikola Tesla, a bonafied genius with inventions that gave us electricity as we know it.  I was looking at the qwiki entry for Tesla, and I really became interested in the 1980's documentary on Tesla by the BBC.  Check it out!

Here is the BBC documentary on Youtube.

You have to wonder why we have spent 100 years wiring the entire world and using inefficient batteries (don't get me started on Lithium-ion batteries in devices and how hip your inefficient electric car is).  I have been looking into the topic, and some MIT people have been able to transfer electricity wirelessly a few meters.  I watched a video on TED about the MIT group, and they touch on Tesla and Wardenclyffe Tower, Tesla's attempt at large scale wireless electricity.  The presenter claims that we will never know if Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower ever worked.  If you watch the YouTube video, you will see a wireless transfer of electricity at greater than two meters, and that video was made in 1982, almost 30 years ago!  What madness when the smartest of the smart have just begun to scratch the surface of what Tesla did.  Maybe we could have some of these hip Silicon Valley venture capitalists do something worthwhile instead of trying to create the next big iphone app.

Oh, and don't tell me you can't put a meter on it.  Just connect a meter right next to the receiver, which would keep track of power use similar to individual houses.  You could sell power subscriptions by the month, or by the amount used. 

Wardenclyffe Tower

First post

First and foremost, I need to give acknowledgments for the title, The Driveller.  Obviously, I didn't come up with it.  I think I probably thought of the name from Steve Martin's "Pure Drivel," a book title I was very fond of.  If he got the title from somewhere or someone else, most respect!  Have a good day and stop by again once I start driveling!