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Laser Powered Future

1 points by BracketMaster ↗ HN
Just had the random thought that instead of having batteries, we should just install actuated lasers everywhere that can track solar panels on our portable devices to power them.

Feel free to tear into this probably really awful ides.

2 comments

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BracketMaster
I say laser because its kinda hard to make narrow beams with traditional waveguides.
PaulHoule
40% efficiency is great for a laser, and 40% is great for photovoltaics so that is 16% end-to-end at best.

The Us Govt is working on laser satellites to beam power to earth anyway:

https://www.energy.gov/articles/space-based-solar-power

The Gerard K. O'Neill proposal of beaming microwaves from space gets revisited from time to time.

The solar array looks better and better because it can be something like a space blanket with a film of semiconductor evaporated onto it and is so lightweight it might be affordable to launch the materials from Earth.

This problem affects the microwave link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinned-array_curse

and probably means the transmitter is a separate space blanket with an antenna array printed on it. It looks less good.

All of this tech targets a market (terra firma) that has the most competitive energy markets in the solar system. People are struggling with how to fuel airliners and I wonder if an airliner could have enough stored energy to climb from JFK to 40,000 feet and then pick up a beam to cross the ocean.