Wireless

A few weeks ago I read an article that discussed the possibility of wireless electricity. Apparently, it is theoretically possible for electricity to be sent over lengths of several meters without any need for wires, or any adverse effects on the human body. This is done by transforming the electricity into another form of energy, such as heat, light or sound.

The energy that they’re considering is resonance, much like the resonance of a musical instrument, but in the electromagnetic scale, rather than through sound. Objects up to five meters away could be charged via this effect, with both objects needing antennas that can broadcast and receive this power.

I speculated with a couple of friends about what this would mean for us. We started with the obvious, in that this form of electricity would spread across the cities, allowing us to use our gadgets anywhere for as long as we wanted. Cafés would be equipped with these resonators, as would public transport, no doubt. It would be fantastic never to have to worry about charging your phone again.

But we realised it wouldn’t stop there. Once an object is a receiver of electricity, it would no doubt also quickly be able to function as a transmitter. In this way power could easily be spread around the house and, what is more, to places where it hasn’t gone yet. It would no longer be necessary to put a wire under the ground (or above it) but rather, you could simply put catchers and projectors into the surface of the road, for instance, or into lantern poles.

That would become especially noteworthy, once the range increases. If you hit about ten meters, then it would be easy to imagine them going up anywhere and everywhere. Once these projectors hit the hundreds of meters (which might seem fantastic now, but will probably not be too far away) it becomes possible with simple transmitters to project power over long distances to places that have never had anything of the like before. What is more, it would probably only cost a fraction of what it does now.

Power could become truly fluid, easily moving to where it is most needed. Excess capacity in one place could be projected to a place where there are constant brown outs.

What is more, the idea of an electricity bill as it exists now would begin to disappear, much like phone numbers are less and less coupled to addresses, and more and more coupled to individuals. People would need individual electricity accounts that are automatically tracked, where ever they are. Each object would need to be set to your own electricity account (or would automatically be set to whoever is handling it at the time).

Our entire understand of power would change, especially because once energy is being projected to individual objects it would not be too hard to get an itemised bill about what is consuming how much. When that starts to become possible, people will probably suddenly become a great deal more energy conscious (‘what! My DVD player consumes /that/ much?!’) which, in turn, would push a drive for more energy efficient machines.

Wires would disappear from the house, as lights run wherever you put them, speakers catch not just the audio feed but the electricity they need to run from the air and computers (or just keyboards) could be carried around everywhere, without needing their stupid batteries charged or replaced.

And these were things we came up with in only about an hour. No, this wireless technology would truly revolutionise our world, yet again.