In today’s world we mostly understand the effects of global warming. This understanding has lead to the production of greener technology and greener power sources. This is all fine and dandy but there is an essential area that we are clearly missing in the “greenafacation” for the new technological world. What does it matter if your laptop uses one fourth of the energy of the older models if the way you power you computer is not energy efficient. Well, you might say that you are using solar energy or wind power. This is not what I mean. What I am talking about is the transfer of the power from the source to the product that will be using the power. At the moment, on average, there is 7.2% of energy “lost” in the transferring of energy by the time that it reaches your computer that you are reading this on. This 7.2% does not just apply to your computer, but all electronics. This is something that may not seem like much, but if you think about the amount of energy we use every day then you may get an idea of just how much 7.2% acctualy may be.
At the moment, we can transfer energy through the air. Actually, we have been able to do this at least on small scale since the 19th century. This technology has come a long way from then and now we are able to send electricity across the nation wirelessly but it has not been put into place yet. There is a plan in the workings for solar farms in space, which would be able to collect solar energy 24/7 and beam the electricity down to local stations to be delivered to your computer at a much more efficient rate than the method which is currently used. If we were to do this, then it would increase the energy efficiency of all electronic products that run off of power transferred this way.
I could not find the exact percent of how much electricity is “lost” through beaming transition of power. But even if the amount of lost electricity only decreases by 3% then every powered device on the planet that is powered through this would be 3% more efficient causing a huge difference in the long run.
This is an important part of our switching to a “Greener” Earth that at the moment we are missing. We must do everything we can to save our fragile planet. It is good that we are putting up wind farms, solar farms, and all of that good stuff that makes sustainable power but we must show the government that we also need to make alterations to the way in which our power is transferred.
