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Guys, This is Greg Kushnir, founder of Emrod. I am excited and humbled by your support. At Emrod we have safety and environmental considerations at the core.
by Emrod 6y ago
Guys, This is Greg Kushnir, founder of Emrod.
I am excited and humbled by your support.
At Emrod we have safety and environmental considerations at the core.
I’m happy to explain why our tech is not only safe but also has a far smaller environmental footprint than any powerlines, communications antennas, etc.
As with any new transformative technology, there will always be sceptics. All we can do is rely on solid science and engineering, listen to the public and address their concerns.
I invite you to engage us in an open honest conversation. We would love to hear your concerns, thoughts about possible applications, or even just drop us a line to say what you think about wireless power.
- Zenbit_UX 6y agoCool tech. Out of curiosity have you considered using this technology as a backup source for hospitals and other critical infrastructure? Maybe via dedicated access tunnels underground in a city or a rooftop antenna in a more rural area? Not sure if this is as big a problem in NZ but in Canada beavers and squirrels can and do shutdown sections of the grid - as can falling trees and large frozen branches in the winter. I can see a rural hospital benefitting from a redundant dedicated power source.
- Emrod 6y agoYou are spot on. this is one of the best use cases for Emrod tech
- etimberg 6y agoHow do you reconcile the fact that this would still require local storage or generation resources at the receiving end? If to make this safe there are lasers to detect beam intrusions and shut off the link, users who require a steady supply could never depend on your technology. This is due to the fact that there is no way to reliably forecast when a bird will fly in front of the link and shut it off. Since the receiver will still need storage or generation, it's probably more economical to just do that in the first place.
- Emrod 6y agoHi, not sure how you came to the conclusion that "still require local storage or generation resources at the receiving end". the whole point is replacing those with a steady connection to the national grid. the only difference being it would be wireless rather than copper based. A transient object like a bird would not have a significant affect on continuity of supply. it is very small compared to the Tx/Rx surface and doesn't linger in the beam path. Wouldn't you agree that replacing expensive imported polluting fossil fuel generation with a cleaner and cheaper locally sustainably generated energy is worthwhile?
- ddingus 6y agoIs the Rf exposure to the bird significant?
- throwaway189262 6y agoElse where in thread someone said 100 mw/cm^2. Not great, not terrible. Maybe 1/5 of putting bird in a microwave. Cooking time would be long but you may be able to get it to work
- ddingus 6y agoFrankly, I have concerns about birds. Insects are sub wavelength, so they won't be impacted, or at least the impact won't be obvious. But the birds moving around... Guess we shall see. That's what field tests are for.
- etimberg 6y ago> doesn't linger in the beam path. You cannot guarantee this. The bird could decide to fly directly down the beam path and there's nothing you can do. Directly from the article: > The system uses a net of lasers surrounding the beam to detect obstructions, like a bird or person, and it automatically shuts off transmission until the obstruction has moved on. Since there are so many possible obstructions that could occur, I suspect that the link will continuously turn on and off. This will be worse than before so you'll need local storage or generation to account for these unplanned outages.
- mNovak 6y agoWouldn't a generator serve this role more easily? Less physical infrastructure, and what happens if the remote (only a few km) transmitter is also blacked out?
- Emrod 6y agoYou could use a generator. You could also use a steam engine to power your car. But most of us prefer the cleaner, safer, more efficient solutions :) Wouldn't you agree that replacing fossil fuel based generators with a cleaner and cheaper alternative is worthwhile?
- mNovak 6y agoNot exactly a fair comparison, and dodging the point. Use a hydrogen generator if you prefer. Or a battery for that matter (as indeed our cars are headed). Point is it might be easier to be self-reliant (calculated local storage) than contrive a secondary power delivery pathway.
- scoopertrooper 6y agoI can't imagine generators that are used to accommodate intermittent power loss would contribute materially to overall carbon emissions.
- timerol 6y agoI have a few questions: As mentioned in a top-level comment, this could be incredibly dangerous, depending on the properties of the microwave generator. Can you say what the maximum level of power density experienced outside of the laser boundaries will be? Can you give attenuation figures? The Powerco project is listed as "a few kilowatts." What range of distances do you intend to test? How do you expect weather to affect efficiency? Have you tested the transmission in a driving rain? Or will you turn off the system in inclement weather?
- Emrod 6y agoThis is NOT "incredibly dangerous". This is the sort of lazy internet commenting that doesn’t rely on actual research. There will always going to be sceptics. All we can do is rely on solid science and engineering and engage people to address genuine concerns. The distances we are looking at are progressive from a few hundred meters to a few kilometres. Range is only limited by line of site and an antenna size which is practical. Mind you, we can reduce antenna size and increase range by using passive relays. At the moment we are working with about 60% end to end efficiency. This is not influenced by weather as we are using near-field atmospherically agnostic frequencies.
- throwaway189262 6y agoHow do you handle rain scatter? I'm not an RF engineer but my understanding is that rain scatters GHz range signals quite effectively. It doesn't absorb them, but it would unfocus the beam. How is this being handled?
- superkuh 6y agoWhat frequency are you using and over what bandwidth? How many dB down are your sidelobes from your main beam? Are you using parabolic reflectors for your primary antennas, how big are they relative to your wavelength (what's the beamwidth)? What role do meta-materials play, are they the collimating relay? What about the sidelobes on the relay? Why do you think 100 mW/cm^2 is 'safe'? You must know from experience this is enough for tissue heating, even from sidelobes many dB down. Over what ranges do you think this is feasible? With, say 20 km of free space path loss in the 2.4 GHz ISM and 40 dB antenna gain at each end you're going to be at least 50 dB down. Doesn't this mean for things like transmitting power to islands this tech is not useful? Even if you start at 1 KW in (60 dBm), over 20 km the receiving antenna is going to get about 0-10 dBm, or milliwatts. With the same generous setup at 1 km and 1 kW you get 10 watts at the far end. This just doesn't work out.
- jsharf 6y agoWow, it's cool to see all of the collective knowledge that people bring to hackernews comments. Very interesting questions! Hope Emrod answers them.
- mNovak 6y agoSeconding all the above questions.. For micro-power IoT, maybe there's a play, but bulk power delivery this seems a stretch. In case anyone's wondering, 40dB antenna at either end is reasonably some 14ft across at 2.4GHz, so no small thing.
- Emrod 6y agoWhat are you basing your statement on? have you actually done the math?
- myself248 6y agohttps://www.rfwireless-world.com/calculators/Horn-Antenna-Calculator.html https://www.rfwireless-world.com/calculators/Horn-Antenna-Ca... for instance. Put in a 3 by 5 meter aperture, and bam, 40dB on the nose.
- killion 6y agoI was wondering how the 70% efficiency compares to copper. I assume copper isn't 100% efficient, but how efficient is it? Thanks for answering questions here!
- RobLach 6y agoCompared to this, extremely small, but compared to the overall economics, quite significant. Here is a chart of transmission losses from the source to the end user across US states: http://insideenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/State_Losses.png http://insideenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/State_Los...
- Emrod 6y agoEnd to end efficiency is absolutely critical for making any wireless power endeavour viable. Beyond delivery loss, don't forget that there are other CAPEX/OPEX considerations. For example, an underwater cable from an offshore wind-farm might be a more efficient means of energy delivery but it's installation and maintenance cost would be much much higher and require more time to deploy than a wireless solution. That is inevitably a significant part of any economic benchmarking.
- mNovak 6y agoCan you clarify the 70% efficiency claim in the article? I assume this is 70% efficiency of DC conversion of received power, and not any sort of end-to-end metric?
- Emrod 6y agoReporters sometimes tend to pretend they are novelist and get many details wrong (to put it mildly) 70% efficiency is the current state of the art limit for solid state based Tx. we loose close to 0% in the atmosphere and our Rx is well beyond 90% efficient.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoThanks, but that doesn’t really clarify anything about your technology. What end-to-end efficiency are you getting and at what distance?
- Emrod 6y agoTheoretically any distance is possible. Practically, we are limited by antenna size considerations. For example, we are currently looking at powering an island across a distance of 30km with an end-to-end efficiency of around 60%.
- henearkr 6y agoWow! Please do set up an aggressive schedule to build the first space solar station. The Earth urgently needs its Dyson swarm already. With such distances under test you are very close to the goal. I bet Musk will be your best friend if you brief him with such project ;)
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago> we loose close to 0% in the atmosphere and our Rx is well beyond 90% efficient. > an end-to-end efficiency of around 60%. Have a listen to yourself. Straight from The Donald Trump School of Self-Promotion. Just straight up bovine manure.
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- giantg2 6y agoWhat safety measures do you have in place for beam squint under frequency deviations? What band is it operating in? Also curious, what are the advantages over a maser?
- Emrod 6y agoIts in the article. ISM band. typically 2.4-5.8GHz. there are a number of safety measures. some based on a feedback loop, laser safety screen and others. cant go over all those details in a gimmicky article :))
- giantg2 6y agoThanks for the info. Good luck with the company.
- throwaway189262 6y agoWill this disrupt other signals in the ISM band? If E2E efficiency is 60% there's maybe 30% radiating uncaptured? 400w is enough to jam anything else using the band for a long ways, maybe a kilometer?
- giantg2 6y agoIt could be that the radiating efficiency of the hardware is only 60%, ie lost to heat or in some other phenomena in the circuitry. I'd imagine they'd never get approved blasting 400w per kW erratically.
- throwaway189262 6y agoYeah he replied elsewhere that capture is over 90% so maybe not problematic
- Emrod 6y agoNo "erratic blasting" intended :) this is NOT like a strong WiFi. We are using a strictly point to point collimated beam that is expected to meet nothing but clear air. It shuts down if/when any transient object is about to enter the beam path. Also, don't forget that the important figure you should be looking at is power density rather than total power
- browserface 6y agoThis is great. happy to see someone picking up Tesla's project of 100 years ago.
- cmroanirgo 6y agoMy first knee-jerk reaction was rather negative. But I came across this: > The system uses a net of lasers surrounding the beam to detect obstructions, like a bird or person, and it automatically shuts off transmission until the obstruction has moved on. ...which seems to be proof that you're aware of it's dangers and have taken steps to mitigate it. This is a good sign in my book. I also note that the beam is controlled by > relays, which are like “lenses” extending the beam beyond line-of-sight by refocusing it, are nearly lossless If you've not reached coherence, how do your control diffusion? Do you have plans to have 'relays' at very regular intervals in order to constrain the beam to an (cross sectional) area so that it remains safe for organic life?
- Emrod 6y agoWe use coherent beaming. The interval between relays largely depends on topographical, regulatory, and environmental conditions. In any case, all our systems are designed to be absolutely safe for any organic life form. Despite initial perception (mostly driven by the 5G frenzy I presume), if you do the research you'll realise that it is the most environmentally friendly solution out there. This is how EBDs can go green! No ELF, no people or animals immersed in RF or electrocuted, no carbon emission, no cutting through forests and rivers with huge pylons and no underwater cables disturbing marine life. I hope this addressed your concerns?
- wankeler 6y agoTransmitter is a cw maser?
- Closi 6y agoNo underwater cables disturbing marine life, but 20% more turbines to make up for the efficiency loss!
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoAnd also 20% more gas for when it's not blowing or sunny or the dam is low. We don't have high capacity (centralised nor distributed) grid scale batteries in many places yet. What it boils down it is, even if this works, which I doubt, 20% transmission loss makes this a niche market at best.
- pkphilip 6y agoHow would you prevent electricity theft in a system like this?
- thehappypm 6y agoIt would be pretty easy to simply stop the beam altogether if it’s interrupted on the receiving end. No power for me = no power for you.
- anilakar 6y agoYour Linkedin profile mentions a US patent for "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR LONG-RANGE WIRELESS POWER TRANSFER", yet the only Google result is that Linkedin profile or yours. Is the patent application still unapproved and thus unlisted, or has it been rejected?
- itcrowd 6y agoThe patent is easy to find, but not yet public because it is still pending approval. I am interested in the technical details disclosed in it. https://patents.google.com/patent/AU2019904254A0 https://patents.google.com/patent/AU2019904254A0
- cmbailey 6y agoAlmost all patent applications are published after 18 months, even if they are still unapproved, or indeed will never be approved. The major exceptions are if the inventor files for nonpublication along with withdrawing the application (usually because they think it won't be patentable) or the US Government classifies it.
- femto 6y agoWhy use lasers? Why not just monitor input power and output power, and if the difference is too great infer that the power is being lost somewhere (ie. being absorbed by an obstruction) and back the power off until the losses/obstruction go away? Either have a dedicated radio /other data link to send this information between the rx/tx, or the information could be modulated onto a power beam if there happens to be one running in that direction. Such a system would be inherently safe compared to defining a beam width with lasers, as it is directly monitoring the thing that causes damage (absorbed power). (I guess this idea can no longer be patented if it is novel, as this comment has just established prior art!)
- anderspitman 6y agoI for one would prefer for it to turn off before it detects my head blocking the transmission.
- ajuc 6y agoPreasumably you fire a non-destructive laser rays around the beam to shut down the beam when something moves to blocks it.
- throwaway74858 6y agoHackerNews commenters can always be counted on to do two things: assume that they are more informed than anyone else and refuse to read the article. When an actual expert shows up they often waste effort on the first comments before the good comments have shown up. This was a good effort from an expert and answering questions in no way damages credibility or disproves the efficacy of the technology or any of the other nonsense that has been asserted by a community in decline.