back to article Boffins brew up FIRST CUPPA in SPAAACE using wireless energy (well, sort of)

Japanese scientists have claimed a breakthrough in beaming energy wirelessly, after they used microwaves to deliver 1.8 kilowatts of power though the air to a receiver a short distance away. That amount of power is enough to run an electric kettle, researchers at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) enthused. "This …

  1. Richard 12 Silver badge

    Odd that he lists the mostly solved problems as the "huge challenges", but ignores the "make one of these things actually work" and "make it not be a bloody superweapon of hideous death"

  2. Yet Another Hierachial Anonynmous Coward

    Olympic Sized Swimming Pool

    "The microwaves reached a receiver 55 metres (or 170 feet) away – which is a little bigger than the typical length of an Olympic-sized swimming pool."

    Yes, but how many kettle-fulls are in an OSSP, and how long would it take 1.8kilowatts to heat them all? The article does seem very short of useful facts and figures.....

  3. x 7

    why didn't they just directly irradiate the kettle and so miss out all the superfluous wiring?

    1. Gordon 10
      Joke

      presumably because

      when you have one of these pointed at your house you'd like it to be selective enough not to fry the cat when it walks past the kitchen window.

      1. Ugotta B. Kiddingme
        Joke

        Re: presumably because

        Well that depends rather largely upon whether or not you like the cat...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    energy for cloud-cuckoo land

    For space solar to make sense either atmospheric attenuation of solar energy would have to be enormous (so that one orbiting panel replaces one thousand on earth) or it has to be supplementary, i.e. after carpeting the Sahara with panels still more power is needed (and then the energy yield still has to exceed the input of getting them into orbit and maintaining them there. In fact attenuation isn't that bad (skim read of wikipedia suggests 50-75%) and short of a space elevator or nanomachines processing captured asteroids directly into panels I doubt they can be built in an energy-profitable way (and that's completely disregarding other costs)

    So fine research, keep it up - but stop justifying it as "gonna make peace with Greenpeace"

    1. Mark 85
      Trollface

      Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

      And microwaves going through the atmosphere and hitting the target (or not) won't cause global warming? Since microwaves will boil water, cloud cover could get interesting.

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

        Presumably, the trick is to select a microwave frequency to which the atmosphere and its soggy bits are transparent.

        1. razorfishsl

          Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

          And birds/ insects?

          Are we going to have a repeat of birds bursting into flames as they fly over the power delivery equipment.

      2. rh587

        Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

        "Since microwaves will boil water, cloud cover could get interesting."

        Lots of remote-sensing satellites already use microwave band instruments precisely because they can see through cloud (unlike IR).

        You just need to select your frequency with care.

        1. Gordon 10
          Angel

          Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

          Remote sensing satellites - wont they put Derek Acora of business?

          TxtMgs from RS_Sat1 : "Granny says the savings are under the floorboards".

    2. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

      For space solar to make sense either... ...or it has to be supplementary, i.e. after carpeting the Sahara with panels still more power is needed

      The reason we haven't already carpeted the Sahara with panels is transmission costs. Yes the Sahara gets lots of sunshine, yes the land in the Sahara is dirt cheap (pun intended), but the problem is the Sahara is a long way from major population & industrial centres where the electricity could be sold for $$$ (e.g. Germany). This bit of Japanese research is trying to improve transmission costs, but only works line-of-sight which means space-panels is the target application.

      1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

        the problem is the Sahara is a long way from major population & industrial centres

        So is geosynchronous orbit.

        Running a transmission line from the Sahara would seem to be a more manageable problem, achievable with today's technology.

        1. BristolBachelor Gold badge

          Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

          Why from space? Because except for a few days around the equinox, the satellite has sunlight 24/7 (and even then, the longest "night time" is about 70 mins in 24 hours). The Sahara has nights in between all the daytimes, which is not great if you want 24 hour power.

          As far as the amount of power and birds, etc, the normal plan is to beam the power with a density of about 1kW/M^2, which is the same a normal sunlight. One thing missing from this report is efficiency - normally conversion to microwave is normally only about 50% efficient.

          1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

            Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

            Normal photovoltaic cells are heading for 20% efficiency. Even if they only get full sunlight for, say, 25% of the day, this would mean that 20m² of earthbound solar panels could produce the same net energy as a 1m² microwave satellite reception antenna, and the satellite would have to have 10m² of solar panels to collect that energy (allowing for the stated 50% conversion to microwave efficiency).

            I still don't see how this could be viable, when you consider the relative cost of 20m² of earthbound solar panels, versus that of lofting a satellite with 10m² of solar panels + the ground station.

          2. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

            Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

            There are fairly large swaths of desert in North America (southwestern US) and Australia. Replicating "Sahara carpeting" in the other two regions would get much closer to 24 hour coverage, would it not?

            1. Martin Budden Silver badge

              Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

              There are fairly large swaths of desert in North America (southwestern US) and Australia. Replicating "Sahara carpeting" in the other two regions would get much closer to 24 hour coverage, would it not?

              Yes it would BUT how would you get the power from those uninhabited remote deserts to cities all around the world?

              1. x 7

                Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

                simples.......beam it up to a geosynchroonous mirror satellite and reflect it back down again

              2. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

                Re: energy for cloud-cuckoo land

                Yes it would BUT how would you get the power from those uninhabited remote deserts to cities all around the world?

                Some companies already are planning to do just that. Like this. (link goes to pic of transmission lines coming from the Hualapai Valley Solar project in Arizona)

  5. Andy Non Silver badge

    What could possibly go wrong?

    So the long term aim is to very carefully aim megawatts of microwave radiation to receivers back on Earth. Sounds safe. Oops, sorry Russia, we didn't mean to cook everyone in Moscow...

  6. x 7

    "which is a little bigger than the typical length of an Olympic-sized swimming pool."

    I think that should be rewritten in scientific measurement terms we are more familiar with, such as Lomdon buses or blue whales......

    1. Harry the Bastard

      ^^^ this

      the article completely ignores el reg's standard units, fortunately i was able to resolve the crisis by determining that the distance involved was in fact 392.8571 linguine

    2. Adam 1

      The Olympic swimming pool IS a perfectly valid scientific unit of measure. Unfortunately for the author, it is a measure of volume or displacement, not distance. Come on el Reg. We expect a technology news site to understand the difference.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Facepalm

        "Unfortunately for the author, it is a measure of volume or displacement"

        I respectfully disagree. Only the length of an OSSP is specified as an absolute. Width and depth, and therefore volume, have only a specified minimum value.

        1. Adam 1

          Bah! Next you will be claiming that blue whales come in different sizes.

    3. Sarah Balfour

      There's an app for that…

      Seriously - http://www.app-ease.net. Not been updated since last May, though.

      1. Martin Budden Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: There's an app for that…

        How do I convert that Unit Converter to run on Android?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Microwave RECEIVING satellites

    Given the enormous cost of gettings stuff into space, and the flimsy nature and low power output of solar panels I think JAXA have got the idea backwards. They should use solar panels on the ground to power microwave transmissions to satellites instead. That way the energy is relatively clean, the satellites are mechanically simpler and more durable (because of less surface area to micrometeorites), and no one is at risk of being accidentally vaporised from above.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      I don't really see the use of wasting power in converting ground solar power to microwaves and back on a satellite that has direct access to solar where it is.

      On the other hand, 1.8 kilowatts are required to heat water ? Blimey. And they try to sell us that stuff to heat houses ?

  8. Chris G

    Here is the News

    For today March 15th 2041;

    The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency announced they have lost steering control of one of their PPFFFZZZSST!!!!

  9. JassMan
    WTF?

    Will nobody think of the pigeons (and microlight pilots)?

    Already we have architects making curved building which cook the paint off cars, sculptors making parabolic mirrors as "art" which almost vaporises pigeons before they fall out of the beam and now they want to use a microwave not contained inside a faraday cage. No matter how accurate they can beam to a given point on earth there will always things which can't read the signs before they fly through the restricted airspace above the receivers.

    Since someone has already mentioned a space elevator, why not build 2, then they can use them as both conductors of a power cable. Send it as HVDC and you could achieve much lower losses than any micro wave.

    Is it too late to patent a system of parachutes attached to the elevator cables such that in the event of the satellite becoming detached, the chutes act just like the drogue on a glider tow line.

    1. Mark York 3 Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: Will nobody think of the pigeons (and microlight pilots)?

      "which almost vaporises pigeons before they fall out of the beam"

      You make it sound like a bad thing!

    2. frank ly

      Re: Will nobody think of the pigeons (and microlight pilots)?

      " ... they want to use a microwave not contained inside a faraday cage."

      They're developing a technique to also generate a large plasma cylinder that encloses the microwave beam. That should make it safe.

  10. vonBureck
    Mushroom

    What about misdirected microwave beams?

    Remember what happened in SimCity? (hint: see icon)

    1. Adam 1

      Re: What about misdirected microwave beams?

      It's amazing how short our collective memory can be. I mean that documentary came out nearly 20 years ago.

  11. x 7

    I always thought the plan was always to beam microwaves down from the satellite through a superheated plasma beam so there'd be no risk of atmospherics interfering with the microwaves. The plasma acts as a kind of waveguide.

    Of course you'd need a decent power supply to create and maintain the plasma.

  12. Little Mouse

    The Tower King, anyone?

    Hopefully Mick Tempest will still be available to save us all from inevitable post apocalyptic microwave cuppa related doom.

  13. Captain DaFt

    No problem as long as they follow the will of the Master

    Just ask QT-1, the Evangelical Robot.

    (Issac Asimov's "Reason")

  14. Faux Science Slayer

    Photovoltaics is a crude, molecular erosion parlor trick....

    Solar cells are a one time, one way molecular erosion process that NEVER 'produces' the energy required to 'create' solar cells. Microwaves are deadly at higher power levels. The sky based PV panel, transmitting power back to Earth is science fiction that is absurd.

    See "Green Prince of Darkness" at the FauxScienceSlayer site

  15. Down not across

    Brownian motion

    Excellent. That will sort out the brownian motion producer for the atomic vector plotter.

  16. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    Challenges?

    "There are a number of challenges to overcome, such as how to send huge structures into space, how to construct them and how to maintain them."

    "and how not to fry world and dog"?

  17. PeeWee

    For the sake of narrative imperative, please tell me that it will result in a liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

  18. Chozo
  19. Conundrum1885

    Re. power

    Using metamaterials could also work, the beam could be quite large then a stratellite array at 45K feet would upconvert the (diffuse) microwave beam into the required narrow IR non coherent beam for use with existing solar power stations optimized for infrared light.

    This would be an excellent use for ionocraft technology combined with longlife envelopes and onboard H2 production to keep the stratellites aloft and on target.

    If something goes wrong the second the beam misaligns power is lost and the system self corrects.

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