4

Viziv Technologies claims that they are researching the ability to send and receive electricity using the Zenneck Surface Waves.

August 2019 press release

Viziv Technologies, LLC, and Baylor University announce a new research partnership aimed at commercializing an entirely new means of delivering electrical energy wirelessly over long distances. Over four decades in development, Viziv’s systems use a phenomenon known as a Zenneck surface wave to propagate electromagnetic waves along the interface of earth and air. Viziv’s ultimate goal is to provide the capability to safely, economically and efficiently deliver electrical power virtually anywhere in the world through the use of surface wave technologies.

There's a big tower they built similar to the one Nikola Tesla built. I haven't seen a single proof of concept that verifies that it works.

https://www.figtreecapitalventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/tesla_tower_texas.jpg

If this is proven technology, I would think everyone would be talking about this. This could be the single greatest technological revolution since the steam engine.

Oddthinking
  • 140,378
  • 46
  • 548
  • 638
Finesser
  • 49
  • 2
  • 1
    Are you asking about the Zenneck wave *specifically*, or [wireless](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power_transfer) [power](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/56767/) [transfer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lslHtCUSfN4) in general? That "works" well enough, it's just not really viable for large-scale provisioning of whole communities for a [variety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law) of reasons. – DevSolar Sep 23 '20 at 07:52
  • I did want to add a link to [fading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fading) to the word "reasons" but was a bit too slow to fit it in the 5-minute edit window. ;-) – DevSolar Sep 23 '20 at 07:59
  • 6
    Hello @Finesser, I really appreciate the effort you put in this question but I am having trouble imagining how we can answer this. If this is about the theory of wireless power transfer and Zenneck Surface Waves then Physics.SE might be a better fit. If you are skeptical about the fact that this could be a commercial product, then it seems this is an ongoing current event because the quote you give says that they are still researching and developing. So what is it *exactly* that makes you skeptical? – Jordy Sep 23 '20 at 09:38
  • electricity cannot be 'transmitted' reliably through air without being impractical for any sort of power-usage purposes. a 'Zenneck' wave is a fancy way of saying an EM wave coupled to earth, running parallel to the earth. The fact that a wave has the 'Zenneck' quality does not improve the efficiency of transmission. – tuskiomi Sep 23 '20 at 20:30
  • 1
    @tuskiomi I'm not familiar with Zenneck waves, but I can imagine a situation in which a certain guided mode of propagation leads to particularly low loss transmission, like a soliton. – 0xDBFB7 Sep 24 '20 at 14:46
  • @0xDBFB7 In this case, 'low loss' will be at most, 1.8% efficient. – tuskiomi Sep 24 '20 at 14:48
  • @tuskiomi looking at the wikipedia page for Somerfield-Zenneck, it falls off as e^-d / sqrt(d) because of the dispersive characteristics, so it's at least reasonable that the characteristics could be better than air. – 0xDBFB7 Sep 24 '20 at 14:48
  • @tuskiomi it's still nonsense, but do you think we can really disprove it without a detailed analysis? – 0xDBFB7 Sep 24 '20 at 14:49
  • 1
    @tuskiomi ah - how did you arrive at that figure? I might be missing something here. – 0xDBFB7 Sep 24 '20 at 14:49
  • Does radio count as transmitting electricity? – user253751 Sep 24 '20 at 16:51
  • 1
    @0xDBFB7 80% input power conversion efficiency * 50% modulation efficiency * 98% antenna efficiency * 75% reception efficiency * 80% receiver power conversion efficiency. This gives at most, 23.5% efficiency if you build a capturing apparatus over the entire plant. The average US citizen lives 19.06 miles from a power plant, and if the receiver is as big as the transmitter, that corresponds to 32.6 urad of arc length, which works out to 0.00021% efficiency with a dipole emitter. 1.8 was a generous over-estimation. – tuskiomi Sep 24 '20 at 20:04
  • @tuskiomi Brilliant, back-of-the-envelope proof! Thanks! – 0xDBFB7 Sep 24 '20 at 20:17
  • @0xDBFB7 back-of-the-envelope-best-case-labcondition-nobel-prize-winning-if-you-can-achieve-a-fraction-of-the-given-number proof. – tuskiomi Sep 24 '20 at 21:02
  • 1
    Can electricity be transmitted wirelessly over Zenneck surface waves? Yes, but that's not the question you should be asking. The question you should be asking is "Can electricity be *efficiently* transmitted wirelessly over Zenneck surface waves?", to which the answer is "no". – Mark Sep 26 '20 at 00:35
  • This question is clearly spam. – Daniel R Hicks Sep 26 '20 at 17:40
  • I’m voting to close this question because it is spam. – Daniel R Hicks Dec 04 '20 at 16:20

0 Answers0