Intel increases consumer-product power consumption 50%

And now, gentlemen, there is a huge crowd of "scientists" who are really projecting to install a huge solar power plant on the Moon and send the power "down to Earth" at 2.45 GHz. They never heard about propagation loss and PROMISE 80% efficiency, from the Sun to the Earth!

Sorry. Perhaps this is too much opinion and not enough fact. This all started when an MIT prof did a computer simulation and convinced himself he can broadcast magnetic fields without electric fields. I have only seen one picture of a physical prototype and it was a 13 MHz generator and a big boxy antenna the size of a file cabinet. The near-field of 13 MHz is certainly not a few feet. All he is doing is using beam-directed RF. That is why it is 50% efficient. And please, remember that this 50% efficiency is on top of the efficiency to get the power to your wall plug-- so the 25% generation is now 12.5% to the device you are charging. No one has said this can substitute for AC distribution of energy--- it can't. It is a professor that got fooled by his software simulation and is trying to save face, the digital engineers at Intel got sucked in and they are putting on a brave face, but this is madness-- we are trying save every watt of standby energy with new laws and these clowns want to cut big power, the delivered power efficiency, by 50%? Dumb, just plain dumb. And the laws of physics cannot be improved upon or made cheaper with study or high-volume production.

"The M.I.T. group has demonstrated efficiencies of 50 percent at ranges of several meters." This would mean increasing the power consumption 100%! And in practise, it will be more if the desk embedded generator is ON for 24 hours, even if the battery is fully charged.

We already have a population problem caused by low fertility.

Power transmission at 70% efficiency is the LAST thing we need! What we really need are fewer "pilot lights," time displays, instant-on, etc. I made a rough count at home ... hundreds of pilot lights running all the time. I've been meaning to go watch the electric meter when the big loads are idle to see the total.

EMI-RFI-EMC and regulatory FCC and EU interference problems abound. Pumping high power unlicensed RF into the air is going to run into interference issues and regulatory - safety - EM exposure issues all over the place. It?s technologically charming - however lots of hurdles, regulatory, interference and safety issues. This would make BPL interference look like round off error by comparison. The exposure to the human body is going to be excessive.

And bathing the world in RF energy -- roast our brains? The concern about cell phones cooking the brain will go out the window. Or did I miss something really big here?

This is great! We can replace our incandescent bulbs with LEDs, and then use this Intel technique to power the LED without wires! I guess it?s two steps forward and only one step back, though. The substitution of an LED for a 60W incandescent should save more energy than the Intel wireless approach wastes. But as for powering or recharging a laptop or consumer electronics device?what a waste.