Wireless Energy Transfer: The Future of Power Distribution
Portable electronics,
Wireless networks, and Bluetooth devices
have all revolutionized our day-to-day activities by freeing us from the confines of space and allowing a degree of portability never before experienced. Contemporary consumer electronic companies such as Sony, Apple, and Research In Motion (the Canadian company behind the BlackBerry) have all proudly released products which require fewer and fewer wires to function and operate; however, behind every beautiful Sony plasma television or attached to every charging laptop or cell phone is a plethora of ugly wires all tangling their way towards a power supply. No matter how sophisticated and robust wireless
technology becomes, there appears to be no way of cutting the power cord. However, this is beginning to change.
In the late 1800’s, scientist and engineer Nikola Tesla successfully powered an array of incandescent bulbs through wireless energy
transfer. Unfortunately, Tesla could not continue his research in this field and was forced to abandon his vision for this wireless power. Decades later, MIT researchers have picked up where Tesla left off; they too successfully illuminated a light bulb without wires in 2007. Soon thereafter in 2008, Technology Review listed Wireless Power as a “Top 10 Emerging Technology.” Our shift towards a wireless world has logically brought Tesla’s work back to life and because of a predicted demand for wireless energy, established and startup companies are pushing to commercialize “WiTricity” and incorporate it in a way that challenges previously accepted paradigms.
Scientific minds have been questioning some of the fundamental laws of physics which has driven WiTricity since the early 19th century. Heinrich Hertz was one of the first to transfer energy through the use of electromagnetic waves when he developed one of the earliest radio instruments. But this was not the first form of wireless power transmission; rather, Hertz’s experiment provided the foundation for Nikola Tesla’s research of electromagnetic waves which culminated with wirelessly powered illuminated vacuum bulbs at the Chicago’s World Fair of 1893 (Germano). Nikola Tesla was an extremely intelligent man but he was burdened with a slew of psychological problems.
He was struggling with nervous breakdowns, hallucinations, countless phobias, and eccentric compulsions, but despite this, Tesla gave the world alternating current, wireless communication, the modern electric motor, robots and remote (radio) control, lasers, radar technology, neon, and x-rays (Witricitynet 1). Much of Tesla’s life and scientific efforts were focused on developing and implementing a system to provide electricity without wires. While working in Colorado Springs, Tesla was able to illuminate 200 lamps from a distance of 25 miles away using a 200-kWatt tower he designed (Rougin 373). Moreover, Tesla’s dream took a step towards reality when J.P. Morgan, a famous financier, hoping to corner the communication market, agreed to finance a tower which was supposed to wirelessly transmit sound and pictures over the air to consumers. This was to be Tesla’s biggest achievement yet.
However, before the tower, named Wardenclyffe, was completed, it became known to Morgan that Tesla intended to use Wardenclyffe to provide “free energy” to the entire world forcing the banks providing monetary funding to cease supporting Tesla’s work. This obviously halted any progress being made on the tower spurring Morgan to cancel the project altogether. Morgan’s extensive connections in the financial sector kept Tesla from obtaining any sort of substantial funding for the rest of his life relegating him to smaller projects until his death.
Moreover, Tesla’s photographic memory kept most of his work from surviving past his death, forcing researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to start from near scratch when developing their own process of transmitting electricity wirelessly.