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Rayons-X ( X-Rays ):

Wireless Power

Rectenna panel made by the LGI-Actes Laboratory at University of La Réunion

Wireless Power Transportation and Grand-Bassin were the themes of the programme " Rayons-X " (X-Rays) presented by the Bogdannoff Brothers on the France 2 television channel on Saturday October 2nd, 2004. The programme duration on the air was two minutes, at prime time, just before the 8 p.m. evening news. In spite of some basic errors that are usual with the major information media, the great benefits of this programme were the association of WPT research with Reunion Island for the millions of people in the audience. This is an excellent thing and we may thank for it the Bogdanoff Brothers and the team of XD Productions. It may be possible to replay the programme from the following Internet address :

http://rayonsx.france2.fr/

Please find hereafter :

* The script of the programme by the Bogdanoff Brothers,

* The comments and notes by the University of La Réunion,

* A selection of images from the Rayons-X programme broadcasted by France-2 on October 2, 2004.

* Translation of the script of the programme by the Bogdanoff Brothers

Igor : Hello, welcome to Rayons X. Our meeting is made possible by electricity. Just like your fridge or your washing machine, your TV set is currently connected to an electrical outlet.

Grichka : But a little more than a century ago, an outstanding researcher, Nicolas Tesla, made proposals for a revolutionary system that would allow the transportation of electricity without any wire at all.

Igor : The idea came to Tesla one evening in 1892. While observing a thunderstorm, he noticed that electricity may travel through the air, without wires. And one hundred years later, thanks to the work of Tesla, it becomes possible to transport electricity without using copper wires.

Grichka : Indeed, on May 16th, 2001, on Reunion Island, a 200 Watt bulb was successfully lit without using any electrical plug.

Igor : Electricity arrives on the rim of a canyon through a high voltage power line. There, a generator converts electrical energy into electromagnetic energy, known as microwaves. Next, a parabolic projector sends the microwaves some 700 meters down the valley, where they are re-converted into 220 volt AC electricity.

Grichka : And then, of course, whole aspects of our society may well change.

Igor. Yes, because all the electrical appliances would then be freed from their outlets. Your computer could operate in the street, while cars could be powered permanently by wireless electricity. Scientists even considered the construction of power stations in orbit around the Earth.

Grichka: Well, we are for sure on the eve of an extraordinary technological revolution that may be compared to the invention of electricity itself more than a century ago.

Igor : The only problem is that we do not know yet the long terms effects of a strong continuous field of microwaves on living beings.

Grichka : When these problems will be solved, and that you may operate without risk your fridge in the middle of a desert, then nothing would seem impossible any more.

* Comments and notes by the University of La Réunion

Note 1 : on May 16th, 2001, the LGI-Actes lab only made a technological demonstration in a gymnasium, over a distance of 50 meters. Now, in 2004, we achieved mastery of all the aspects of wireless power transportation, especially the synchronisation of several magnetrons in order to form an energy beam. This result makes now possible the construction of an operational system for the village of Grand-Bassin.

Note 2 : the transportation of electricity by microwaves is a new technology that differs much from the technologies used for telecoms, even if they use the same waves : for WPT, the energy of the waves is recovered as such, while the communication systems only recover the modulation of the waves to apmplify it later using locally available energy. Therefore it is advisable to use a different vocabulary, and we prefer the terms of "projector" and "collector" rather than "transmitter" and "receiver".

Note 3 : wireless power transportation make possible the realisation of space power systems in orbit with unit production levels in the order of tens of gigawats, well suited to the needs of megacities. To warrant safety, the collectors need to spread over large areas, with relatively low power densities, which for the time exludes use for cars, at least directly, and a distribution network will be needed on the ground from the collection zones, taht will be similar to the light spots made by spotlights. But in the future, trains may well operate from space power, and cars may run on hydrogen made with the difference between the production capability of SPS systems and the instant total effective consumption of energy by users.

* Selected images from the Rayons-X TV programme broadcasted on 0ctober 2nd, 2004

WPT

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