Wireless electricity isn’t just a sci-fi dream anymore — it’s actually happening! Scientists around the world are building systems that can send energy through the air, and it’s already being used to power things like smart locks, sensors, and even electric toothbrushes. In the U.S. and Japan, researchers are testing ways to wirelessly charge drones, satellites, and even entire city grids. One of the coolest ideas is using an infrared beam, kind of like Wi-Fi, but for charging your stuff. Japan’s space agency, JAXA, is even planning to launch a solar power station into orbit by 2030 that could beam energy straight down to Earth. If it all works out, wireless power could make chargers and batteries a thing of the past — and seriously help the planet too! Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
00:00Pretty soon, you'll be able to charge your phone in your pocket while walking around the house.
00:05And meanwhile, your electric car will refuel while just standing in your driveway.
00:11Power will run to all your gadgets through the air, without any wires whatsoever.
00:16I know it sounds a bit sci-fi, but scientists have figured out how to do it.
00:21Don't worry, they're not going to zap electricity through the air like lightning.
00:26Instead, they'll use something much safer, magnetic fields.
00:31Let's say you have a special coil of wire that makes a magnetic field when it gets power.
00:36If you bring another coil close to it, that second coil absorbs the energy and turns it into electricity.
00:44That means you can power things without plugging them in, like a light bulb that turns on all by itself.
00:50And according to scientists at the World Health Organization, these magnetic fields are completely safe.
00:57Now, I suspect you've already used an early version of wireless electricity.
01:03When you place your electric toothbrush on its charger, or the phone on the charging mat, electric energy jumps between them.
01:11There's a special coil inside the charger that creates an invisible spinning energy field when it gets electricity from the wall.
01:18The toothbrush, or phone, has another coil inside it that catches this energy and turns it back into electricity to charge the battery.
01:28This is called electromagnetic induction.
01:31But this method only works for short distances and wouldn't be useful for powering your entire house.
01:37Some companies are already working to make this technology perfect and accessible.
01:42One company has invented their method to send power through the air, called AirCord.
01:48They use it in real-life products.
01:51One cool example is tiny video screens placed next to products in supermarkets with changing images.
01:57These screens don't need batteries or power cords.
02:01Another gadget that's running on this tech is a smart lock designed by the same company.
02:06Normally, smart electronic locks need powerful batteries, but this one stays powered without a battery
02:13and gets energy from a wide-charge transmitter in the ceiling.
02:17That transmitter is like an invisible power outlet.
02:20It works similarly to a TV remote, where you use an infrared beam to control the gadget from a distance.
02:27In this case, the transmitter takes electricity and sends it to all gadgets that need power as an infrared beam.
02:34The transmitter analyzes each device to see how much power it needs,
02:40just like a Wi-Fi router manages the Internet for different devices.
02:44If no devices need power, the transmitter goes to sleep,
02:48but it wakes up now and then to check if anything needs charging.
02:53Nikola Tesla, a brilliant inventor and electrical engineer
02:57who made significant contributions to the development of electricity,
03:00would be really happy to see all this come true.
03:04He believed he could build a system that would transmit electricity and communication signals
03:09through the Earth's ionosphere all over the world.
03:13To prove his idea, he built a special Wardenclyffe tower in New York.
03:18His plan was to use the Earth itself like a giant electrical circuit.
03:23In 1899, Tesla traveled to Colorado Springs, known for its big thunderstorms.
03:29He built a lab there to test his wireless electricity ideas.
03:34The high altitude and frequent lightning storms made it the perfect place for his experiments.
03:39Then he returned to New York, and with money from a wealthy investor,
03:44he started building the Wardenclyffe tower.
03:47Tesla placed iron rods and copper plates under the tower to help send power through the Earth.
03:52There would be a huge metal dome on top of the tower.
03:56By 1902, the tower and lab were mostly built, but Tesla ran into funding problems.
04:03The Wardenclyffe tower never worked as Tesla had hoped,
04:07and in 1917, it was torn down and sold for scrap.
04:12In any case, Tesla's idea only worked for short distances.
04:16The farther the electricity had to travel, the weaker it became.
04:21Scientists needed a way to send energy over long distances,
04:24and they found two viable solutions in the middle of the 20th century—microwaves and lasers.
04:31In 1964, engineer William C. Brown flew a tiny helicopter for 10 hours using only microwave power.
04:40Then, in 1975, Brown and a NASA scientist, Richard Dickinson,
04:46sent 30,000 watts of power over a mile using a research station called Venus.
04:52But there was still a problem.
04:54Half of the power was lost before it reached its destination.
04:58Over the years, technology kept improving.
05:01Computers, lasers, solar panels, and transistors became more advanced
05:06and opened new horizons for wireless electricity.
05:09It could eventually help us switch to cleaner energy from fossil fuels like coal and gas.
05:16New Zealand-based company M-Rod uses power beaming technology
05:20that starts with electricity from the power grid and turns it into microwaves.
05:26These microwaves travel through the air from a sending antenna to a receiving antenna,
05:31which turns them back into electricity that we can use.
05:34But there's a problem.
05:36Various kinds of waves work in different ways.
05:39Microwaves can travel long distances without losing much power,
05:43which makes them great for sending energy to remote islands or factories.
05:47But if you try to send microwaves all the way from space,
05:51you'd need a receiver the size of a city.
05:54Lasers can make the energy beam smaller and more focused,
05:58which means the receiver can also be tiny.
06:00But lasers can be blocked by things like clouds, fog, or dust.
06:06Right now, power beaming won't replace power lines over huge distances.
06:10But it could be used for smaller projects like charging flying taxis and delivery drones in the sky,
06:17powering robots in cities and factories, and replacing backup generators during emergencies.
06:22Countries all over the world are investing in power beaming.
06:27Europe is focused on clean energy.
06:29The Japanese space agency hopes to have a giant solar power station orbiting Earth,
06:35collecting sunlight, and beaming electricity down to us by the 2030s.
06:39The space station could send one gigawatt of energy,
06:43as much as a big nuclear power plant produces in a year.
06:47The space power station is still a work in progress,
06:50but the technology is getting better and cheaper.
06:53So, in the future, we might have a world where there are no more tangled wires,
06:59no more ugly power lines, and even free electricity for everyone.
07:04Japanese scientists are now working on another groundbreaking tech,
07:08a special machine that can turn sunlight and water into hydrogen fuel.
07:13This clean energy source could one day power cars, homes, and even entire cities.
07:19The current reactor is as big as a small house.
07:22It works by using photocatalytic sheets,
07:26which act like tiny solar panels that absorb sunlight and trigger a chemical reaction.
07:32This process splits water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen.
07:36It allows the hydrogen to be collected and used as fuel.
07:40Right now, the process isn't efficient enough to produce hydrogen on a large scale.
07:46Most existing methods of making hydrogen still rely on fossil fuels.
07:50But the scientists behind this new reactor found a better way.
07:55Instead of breaking water apart all at once, which wastes energy, their machine does it in two steps.
08:02First, it separates oxygen, then it collects hydrogen to make the process smoother and more effective.
08:08The team used a special photocatalyst that responds to UV light.
08:13And they found that under natural sunlight, the solar energy conversion efficiency was one and a half times higher than in the lab.
08:22In some places with stronger sunlight, the efficiency could be even greater.
08:27But still, at its current stage, the reactor only reaches about 1% efficiency, which is far too low for commercial use.
08:35Scientists believe that for this technology to become practical, they need to increase efficiency to at least 5%.
08:42To make this happen, they need better photocatalysts and larger reactors.
08:47And they would also need to find safe ways to handle a tricky byproduct, which is a highly flammable gas created during the process.
08:56But if they can boost efficiency, many scientists and companies will start mass-producing this technology, leading to clean, renewable hydrogen energy on a large scale.
09:08That's it for today.
09:09So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:14Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
Be the first to comment