Beam Power Challenge | Green Energy News

March 20, 2005 – Vol.9 No.52

BEAM POWER CHALLENGE.

Imagine this: Electric vehicles flowing down a freeway, or around town, powered by electricity beamed from roadside transmitters. There are no batteries, no fuel cells, no of power transmitters.

Or imagine this: Battery electric vehicles that are never connected to a charging station by a wire. Pull to stop within a few feet of a power transmitter and a vehicle’s battery is automatically topped off, accepting a recharge. The driver never has to remember to plug in. Stop for a cup of coffee and the battery gets some juice. Pull into a spot in a mall parking lot and the battery gets rejuvenated. Effortlessly and without thought an electric car, truck or SUV gets recharged every time it stops.

The first dream is unlikely: So much electricity drifting through the air across long distances could be a health hazard. But the second dream - short distance through the air power transmission - that’s something to think about.

Often technologies are conceived for one application, but later find a home in another.

Some of the innovations that come out of the newly announced Centennial Challenges from NASA may, eventually, have terrestrial applications beyond what NASA has in mind for space.

Initially the Centennial Challenges will offer prizes of $50,000 each for winning technologies in two competitions, Tether Challenge and Beam Power Challenge. Anyone can compete - from garage-shop inventors to internationally-recognized research institutions.

Tether Challenge is to find a material strong enough to hoist satellites and other craft into space. In the competition, tethers are stretched to the breaking point; the strongest ones win.

Inventions in the Beam Power Challenge - which could become the dream of transmitted power to charge electric vehicles - will be tested by powering a robotic device that will carry weights up a cable.

Winners of the first two challenges will move into the second year’s competition for a top prize of $100,000. NASA plans on creating challenges in other technological areas and is seeking input (meaning yours) to find them.

NASA has allotted $400,000 for the first round of prizes (year one of Tether Challenge and Beam Power Challenge) but is hoping to spend $80 million over five years in the program. The competition will be managed and run by the Spaceward Foundation, with NASA looking over their shoulders.

Visit the Centennial Challenges at http://exploration.nasa.gov/centennialchallenge/cc_index.html , the Spaceward Foundation at http://www.spaceward.org/ .