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Electric motors can enable something which jet fuel and gasoline cannot: beamed power. There could be a new class of vehicles which only have a small onboard po

Electric motors can enable something which jet fuel and gasoline cannot: beamed power. There could be a new class of vehicles which only have a small onboard power store for emergency purposes. The weight savings would be about 20%.

0xffff2 7y ago
Is this something that someone has actually fleshed out with real numbers? The infrastructure and efficiency problems involved seem at first glance to be extremely challenging.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  I've seen numbers for microwave power transmission efficiency ranging from 75% to 84%. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/shu2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/shu2/
newsoul2019 7y ago
That is a fascinating idea, a plane being "handed off" from one beaming tower to the next, like a cell phone
- anticensor 7y ago
  It would be very interesting to see airplanes powered by Tesla towers.
- salawat 7y ago
  The ATC systems required would be prohibitive, rest in peace any birds that fly into\through the beam, maintenance of the towers, and emitter tracking would all be huge problems. Also, where/how is all that electricity getting generated/transmitted to the emitter, and what complications does that introduce? What about environmental conditions? How does that effect the efficiency? Does a storm front blowing through suddenly make regular ICE planes a better idea again? Oh, yeah, don't forget the security aspect. Those emitters are more than 'interesting' enough to be weaponized in the wrong hands. I mean, beamed power sounds cool and all, but you actually have to take into account a heck of a lot of variables first.
ph0rque 7y ago
As long as we're discussing beamed power, why not have just enough power to reach cruising altitude (presumably above any clouds), then use solar panels to continue flight? This would admittedly limit long-distance flights to just daylight, but still better than what is currently possible.
- petschge 7y ago
  Let's run the numbers for say a Boeing 767. It has a wing area of 290 m^2 and the main fuselage of 5 meter width and 60 meter length, so lets assume another 200m^2 of surface area. 490m^2 of solar panel can generate 0.2 * 490m^2 * 500W / m^2 = 49 kW. Compare that to the 800kW that the APU in the tail supplies to keep electric and hydraulics running if the main engines fail or the well above 200 MW that the main engines put out.

0xffff2 7y ago

Is this something that someone has actually fleshed out with real numbers? The infrastructure and efficiency problems involved seem at first glance to be extremely challenging.

stcredzero 7y ago
I've seen numbers for microwave power transmission efficiency ranging from 75% to 84%. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/shu2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/shu2/

newsoul2019 7y ago

That is a fascinating idea, a plane being "handed off" from one beaming tower to the next, like a cell phone

anticensor 7y ago
It would be very interesting to see airplanes powered by Tesla towers.
salawat 7y ago
The ATC systems required would be prohibitive, rest in peace any birds that fly into\through the beam, maintenance of the towers, and emitter tracking would all be huge problems. Also, where/how is all that electricity getting generated/transmitted to the emitter, and what complications does that introduce? What about environmental conditions? How does that effect the efficiency? Does a storm front blowing through suddenly make regular ICE planes a better idea again? Oh, yeah, don't forget the security aspect. Those emitters are more than 'interesting' enough to be weaponized in the wrong hands. I mean, beamed power sounds cool and all, but you actually have to take into account a heck of a lot of variables first.

ph0rque 7y ago

As long as we're discussing beamed power, why not have just enough power to reach cruising altitude (presumably above any clouds), then use solar panels to continue flight? This would admittedly limit long-distance flights to just daylight, but still better than what is currently possible.

petschge 7y ago
Let's run the numbers for say a Boeing 767. It has a wing area of 290 m^2 and the main fuselage of 5 meter width and 60 meter length, so lets assume another 200m^2 of surface area. 490m^2 of solar panel can generate 0.2 * 490m^2 * 500W / m^2 = 49 kW. Compare that to the 800kW that the APU in the tail supplies to keep electric and hydraulics running if the main engines fail or the well above 200 MW that the main engines put out.