Lynne Kiesling
Wired has some interesting, short articles right now on power technologies: wireless power transmission by converting electricity to lasers or microwaves and then re-converting them to electricity, broadband over power lines (BPL) deployment, and the effect of wind farms on wildlife, particularly birds in the Altamont Pass in California.
Here’s one question I have about the wireless power technology: how much energy does it take to transform the power to microwaves and back? Is any lost in the transmission? Those two questions make a big difference in how energy efficient the technology is, as well as whether it’s likely to be economically feasible.