Lasers Could Soon Power U.S. Military Bases—And Not Even Jamming Could Stop It

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 119 points – Lasers Could Soon Power U.S. Military Bases—And Not Even Jamming Could Stop It
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Lasers Could Soon Power U.S. Military Bases—And Not Even Jamming Could Stop It::We spoke to the project manager for DARPA’s POWER program, who explains how the wireless energy transfer technology will work.

25

"could"

"Soon"

Meaning, this is never going to happen.

Sure, it's possible to send power through the air - that much is already known. Sending significant levels of power over long distances is a whole other matter

and not even jamming could stop it, but clouds could

FTFY

Or anything reflective. Throw some strips of tinfoil at it (that's just chaff WW2 style) and it not only disrupts power it has a good chance of blinding a few of the troops on the ground too.

But what powers the lasers? Is it the jam? Does the jam power the lasers?

the end user converts that laser energy back into electricity using narrow-bandgap-tuned monochromatic photovoltaics

Is this specialized photovoltaic panels already exist or need to be invented first?

Well, photovoltaic panels are already only good at converting a specific range of wavelengths of light into energy. If you want to build more efficient panels (for normal uses), you often need to layer them, with different layers able to use different ranges of the spectrum.

Lasers (and LEDs for that matter) only produce a single wavelength of light, so there is some potential for using it to transmit energy. You just need to tune your laser and your panel to be on the same wavelength. So there's some tuning that needs to happen, but it's basically traditional photovoltaics we're talking about.

Although even then, I'm not sure what the theoretical maximum efficiency of these panels would be, there would probably still be a lot of energy loss. AND ALSO, I have some serious concerns with giving the military giant space based lasers strong enough to power a military base, that's generally called a death ray.

Somehow, I'm actually more comfortable with the military having small nuclear reactors...

Somehow, I'm actually more comfortable with the military having small nuclear reactors

Good, cuz they've had them for years on submarines and maybe some boats too lol