[LINK] Some shocking news about wireless electricity

[Richard Chirgwin]

Stewart Fist wrote:
> Adam writes about Witricity:
>
>   
>> Of course no details on how much energy is used in the power emitting
>> device.  To drive a 60 watt light bulb I'd guess it's pretty damn
>> high!  I know I need 5 watts to drive a 300 mW circuit.  But then I
>> don't have lab and bottomless pit of money to throw at R&D :)
>>     
>
>
> Whatever the technology, it still has to obey two fundamental laws of
> physics
>
> 1. you can't get out more energy than you put in
> 2. Inverse square law
>
> Then there's the inherent inefficiencies in electronics, and in transforming
> one form of energy to another.
>
> In combination, this will always mean that such devices are enormously
> inefficient -- at a time when everyone has begun worrying about the power
> being consumed by their digital alarm clocks and TV standby.
>
> I thought this announcement was about the most ridiculous I'd heard since
> the announcement that they were going to use the power lines to distribute
> HDTV.
>
> I can imagine that there are some minor uses, but as a consumer product to
> charge cell-phones, it is in cloud-cookoo land.
>
>   
Entirely agree, Stewart. The big brains in this stupid toy seem entirely 
incapable of connecting dots. "I have an idea. How about we find a way 
to waste huge amounts of electricity to no real purpose except that some 
twits don't like having to actually plug in the mobile phone to charge it?"

As Theodore Sturgeon said: "Eventually, humanity will evolve into a 
finger and a button, and anytime the finger wants anything, it will 
press the button, and that will be the end of humanity because the 
finger will be too damn lazy to press the button."

RC