WIRELESS Electricity : Can RI think systematically and innovationally about the future?

What would you do if you could walk into your home or office and automatically recharge your electric appliances with out plugging into the wall sockets? Park your electric car in the garage overnight and it recharges automatically? Move your HDTV from room to room without a bunch wires? Or even drive along the highway on free energy?

WHAT IF ALL YOU NEEDED WAS ONE DEVICE IN YOUR HOME TO PLUG INTO AND IT WOULD GENERATE ALL OF THE ELECTRICITY YOU NEEDED AT NO ADDITIONAL COST?

This could be the future here in RI, if only we had a creative and forward thinking legislature and state government.

Gov. Carcieri has been pushing for an off-shore wind farm to help the state overcome its energy dependency. But simply generating more electricity is not the solution to the energy or economic problems. We need to move further and faster if we are ever to catch up with the future. That future is wireless electricity.

And you ask, What the heck is that? And how does it apply to RI?

Check out this article by Paul Hochman at FastCompany.com


Wireless Electricity Is Here (Seriously)



Once we produce electricity from our wind farm, what are we going to do with it?
Sell it to National Grid to sell where ever it wants at whatever price?

What if instead, we sell to homes, buildings, and municipalities to power their wireless electricity generators (inductive devices mentioned in the article). These would recharge batteries on mobile devices and create electricity on any wireless equipment within the immediate range of the generator. For example, have an induction device implanted in your garage and on your electric car and recharge the batteries at night without plugging in. Wild thought but it is possible.

Just up the road in Massachusetts, people are already working on the basic engineering. Is anyone in Rhode Island thinking or planning along these lines?

Check out this video




Once Rhode Island was the manufacturing capital of the United States because we took advantage of the tremendous resource of water power on the Blackstone River. Samuel Slater changed forever the textile industry in America when he captured the power of the river. He changed the nature of energy production and use in his industry by replacing animal and people power with water power to spin thread and weave cloth. The use of water power was extended to a wide range of industries thereafter and served as the basis for Rhode Island's manufacturing industry in the early 19th century.


Today we are exploring the possibility of producing electric energy based on our wind resources. But the money and jobs are not to be made in the harvesting of the wind. The money and jobs will be found in transforming that free energy into electricity, it will be made producing products and systems that people can easily use and in more cost effective energy products.


Wireless electricity has the same potential of radically altering the nature of the commercial use of electricity and competing with traditional generating technologies.

As we ponder the bankruptcy of the state in the short term, are we going to forgo the future and long term? Here is an area which offers potential and is directly related to our needs for generating a new economic base.

Give it some thought and let me know what you think. It might bring back the Lively Experiment that has been RI.

Welcome to Rhode island

Some years ago I had the opportunity to be working in the middle east on a USAID funded agricultural development program in what is today Yemen (then it was North Yemen.)

Trying to understand the complexities of the area, I asked a Yemeni counter-part to explain why his people were allowing themselves to be caught up in the global and regional power struggles when there were so many other more immediate issues there in Yemen.

He said, "Let me tell you a story -The Story of the donkey and the scorpion."

Once there was donkey who was walking along a path when he came to a rushing stream. The stream was wide but fairly shallow. The path the donkey was following lead across the stream and up the side of the small canyon. As he stepped into the water a small voice called out,

"Hey Donkey!"

The Donkey turn in the direction of the voice but saw nothing.

"Hey Donkey, can you give me a ride?"

The Donkey turned and looked until his eyes fell upon a scorpion standing in the path.

"Hello!?" responded the Donkey.

"Hello! I see you are going to cross the stream. Can I ride on your back and get across? asked the scorpion.

"No," answer the Donkey. "I don't trust you. I'm afraid that you'll sting me."

Waving his hook tail with the sharp poisonous spike, the scorpion replied, "No I won't. Why would I?"

"I don't know. I just don't trust you. Your sting can kill me."

"Why," said the scorpion, "would I want to kill you if you are carrying me across the stream? I would drown."

"True," said the Donkey. "Ok! Climb up and get on my back! I'll take you across."

The scorpion climbed up the donkey's leg and position himself on the donkey's back just above the shoulders.

"Are you ready?" the donkey asked.

"Yes!"

The donkey started out into the stream, the scorpion comfortably seated between the donkey's shoulders. They were in the middle of the stream when suddenly the donkey felt a sharp pain in the base of his neck.

"You stung me!" cried the donkey. "Now we are will both die. Why? WHY DID YOU STING ME?"

The scorpion chuckled. "Because that's what I do. WELCOME TO THE MIDDLE EAST."

I thought at the time, how appropriate. The Arab/Israeli war had been going on for decades blowing hot and cold. Yet when you look at the region you see tremendous potential. Just think, the financial power of Saudi Arabia, the technological and entrepreneurial power of Israel, and the untapped labor potential of the Palestinians working together, what a global powerhouse. Instead they are engaged in a suicidal dance that threatens the world.

Today, I would change the ending. In light of the level of discourse here in Rhode Island between the Unions and the Governor, I would say, “Welcome to Rhode Island."