• jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org
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      5 months ago

      It at least wasn’t uncommon (not sure about now) for radio stations with towers ontop of or near their buildings to just use the ambient energy for lighting, so it kinda sorta exists – it just probably isn’t a great idea.

      • Darohan@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        Surely if there’s enough ambient energy to light multiple bulbs, there’s also enough ambient energy to cause some serious problems for the radio hosts’ health?

    • Power loss is the main issue; I think there’s an inverse square law in there somewhere. But there has been progress in improving that; every do often you hear about some research that’s improved the efficiency of transmission.

      Nicola Tesla really believed in this, and pushed it hard. He envisioned giant towers broadcasting out power to communities.

      But, to continue with my (again, newly invented head canon): it works in Federation starships because there’s no loss. It’s an closed environment, and they obviously have advanced field technology if they have energy shields, tractor beams, scanners, and transporters. They broadcast power throughout the ship, and as long as you’re in it, you’ve got an essentially infinite supply (on the human scale). No energy is lost, because the ship structure/hull itself re-absorbs any energy not harvested by a receiver, so inefficiency loss is negligible. Leave the ship, whatever tech you have has to have its own power supply, and that can run out.

    • credit crazy@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I believe Tesla tried tried doing this when he was trying to figure out the best way to distribute this new found electricity however it was very difficult controlling where the wireless energy enters the electronic as it would lash out to anything metal or conductive