Magnetic Coupling to Deliver Wireless Power

Posted on June 18, 2007
Filed Under Innovation |

Now this is something that I have been wanting for a long time, cordless power delivery.

It sounds complicated, but the result demonstrated by the American team this month was a dramatic success. Using two coils of copper, the team transmitted power 7ft through the air to a light bulb, which lit up instantly.

The implications for this are significant, beyond the convenience of not having to plug in to power up. Electrical wiring requires pure unalloyed copper and consumes about 25% of all the copper mined annually, whereas most non-wire copper applications, e.g. plating operations, utilize a high degree of recycled copper, in some cases 100% recycled. For reasons I am not educated on the electrical products industry does not use recycled copper (even though purity could be achieved through an electrolysis process).

Our current known supply of mineable copper is expected to run out around 2050 based on current consumption of 18 million tons annually, which means that barring new discoveries or mining in space (which seems unlikely given the logistics of getting the copper back to earth) we will have to reduce our dependence on copper by using less of it and using more of what we have already mined.

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