| Your post consists almost entirely of factual errors: You'd lose too much power in the beaming process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer#Microw... "Rectenna conversion efficiencies exceeding 95% have been realized." Here's another experiment that achieved 84% efficiency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power#Microwa... you'd have a death ray beam that destroys anything that flies between it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_transmission#Common_s... A bird flying above a rectenna on actually proposed designs would feel warmer and keep flying. but then you'd need a collector dish the size of montana. There are no collector >dishes< involved, as far as I know, rectennas don't need a parabolic reflector. Parabolic dishes add directionality, but increasing the effective aperture is a better design for power receiving. Proposed collector area is typically on the order of one or a few squares mile, which compares favorably to the footprint of existing power generation schemes. The best idea might be something like in the movie Moon where the power is stored chemically, then shipped back to earth. The power wasn't stored >chemically< in the movie. |