I P RATING GUIDE

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF ENERGY HOLD?

It’s hard to believe that just 200 years ago our main energy source was wood. Now we have a wealth of energy sources to choose from, including a growing range of renewable energy technologies.

But what does the future hold? How can we keep supplying energy to an ever-growing population? How much will it cost? And what impact will the energy choices we make have on our living conditions and our planet?

Five global megatrends including; population growth, climate change, technological innovations, higher living standards, and economic development, will shape Australia’s future. As a result, there’s likely to be more changes to the way energy is sourced, stored, transported and used.

Let’s take a closer look at the five megatrends:
Population. The United Nations estimates that the world population of about seven billion will grow by 27 percent to reach over nine and a half billion by 2050.1
Climate change. Australia is aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 15 percent below 2000 levels by 2020.2

Technological innovations. Innovation and information technology will improve the efficient supply and use of energy.
Higher living standards. Around 1.3 billion people still do not have access to reliable electricity.3 Many social, political and economic commentators have dubbed the 21st century ‘The Asian Century’ due to Asia’s projected political and cultural dominance which will help to lift millions of people out of poverty.
Economic development. Higher energy consumption is typically linked to increased gross domestic product.




2.4 billion people depend on biomass cooking stoves that cause up to 1.6 million deaths a year.4


So, how will these trends shape our future?
Renewable energy. The International Energy Agency expects electricity generation from renewable energy sources to increase from 21 percent in 2012 to 33 percent by 2040.5

Smart meters. Real-time data will help energy users decide how they use energy. Discover more about smart metres here.
Thinking local. More electricity will be generated and used on-site with rooftop solar panels and cogeneration facilities, for example.
Energy storage. As battery technology improves, it will be better able to support renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power. Innovation in energy storage has already resulted in graphene technology used in batteries, which may be able to store more energy than existing lithium batteries.
Energy security. Australia’s energy security will remain strong due to our abundant availability of different resources. However, higher production costs and strong international demand mean that energy costs are likely to increase.
Electric cars. Electric cars do not produce tailpipe emissions and cost 50 percent less to run than petrol power cars. We compared the two here.
Increasing production. Australia is the world’s ninth largest energy producer. Our production could more than double by 2030.6

Energy demand. Australia’s demand for more energy has slowed over the past 50 years, but global demand is increasing, especially in Asia.
Growing exportation. Australia’s abundant energy resources and proximity to Asia mean that we will continue to export energy resources.

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Wireless electricity? It's here

Katie Hall was shocked the second she saw it: a light-bulb glowing in the middle of a room with no wires attached.

Looking back, it was a crude experiment, she remembers: a tiny room filled with gigantic copper refrigerator coils -- the kind you'd see if you cracked open the back of your freezer.

She walked in and out between the coils and the bulb -- and still the bulb glowed.

"I said: 'Let's work on this. This is the future.'"

What's the trick?

"We're going to transfer power without any kind of wires," says Dr Hall, now Chief Technology Officer at WiTricity, a startup developing wireless "resonance" technology.

"But, we're not actually putting electricity in the air. What we're doing is putting a magnetic field in the air."

It works like this: WiTricity builds a "Source Resonator," a coil of electrical wire that generates a magnetic field when power is attached.

If another coil is brought close, an electrical charge can be generated in it. No wires required.

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"When you bring a device into that magnetic field, it induces a current in the device, and by that you're able to transfer power," explains Dr Hall.

And like that, the bulb lights up.

Wireless homes

Don't worry about getting zapped: Hall assures that the magnetic fields used to transfer energy are "perfectly safe" -- in fact, they are the same kind of fields used in Wi-Fi routers.

In the house of the future, wire-free energy transfer could be as easy as wireless internet.

If all goes to WiTricity's plans, smartphones will charge in your pocket as you wander around, televisions will flicker with no wires attached, and electric cars will refuel while sitting on the driveway.

WiTricity has already demonstrated the ability to power laptops, cell-phones, and TVs by attaching resonator coils to batteries -- and an electric car refueler is reportedly in the works.

Hall sees a bright future for the family without wires:

"We just don't think about it anymore: I'm going to drive my car home and I'm never going to have to go to the gas station and I'm never going to have to plug it in.

"I can't even imagine how things will change when we live like that."

World outside

Beyond these effort-saving applications, Hall sees more revolutionary steps.

When Hall first saw the wireless bulb, she immediately thought of medical technology -- seeing that devices transplanted beneath the skin could be charged non-intrusively.

WiTricity is now working with a medical company to recharge a left-ventricular assist device -- "a heart-pump, essentially."

The technology opens the door to any number of mobile electronic devices which have so far been held back by limited battery lives.

"The idea of eliminating cables would allow us to re-design things in ways that we haven't yet thought of, that's just going to make our devices and everything that we interact with, that much more efficient, more practical and maybe even give brand new functionality."

What's next?

The challenge now is increasing the distance that power can be transferred efficiently. This distance -- Hall explains -- is linked to the size of the coil, and WiTricity wants to perfect the same long-distance transfers to today's small-scale devices.

For this reason, the team have high hopes for their new creation: AA-sized wirelessly rechargeable batteries.

For Hall, the applications are endless: "I always say kids will say: 'Why is it called wireless?'"

"The kids that are growing up in a couple of years will never have to plug anything in again to charge it."

*UPDATE (March 17)

It's great to see so much discussion of this technology on social media and the comments thread.

There seems to be a lot of interest in the contribution of Nikola Tesla's experiments to the development of this technology. Dr Hall discussed Tesla briefly in her interview with Nick Glass:

Nick Glass: Given that Tesla and others realized all this over a Century ago, why's it taken so long?

Dr Hall: I don't think they realized exactly what we've done. They were certainly dreaming of wireless power -- there's no question about that. In those days, it was a different problem, because they were really thinking about: how do they get the power from where it's generated to where it's used. And in that case they might have been thinking about Niagara Falls generating the power and getting it to New York City -- and that's a long distance.

We're not proposing that the technology we have here at WiTricity would be used for that kind of application. When we came around, power's already being transferred by wires to homes and rooms and things of that nature, so we had a much different problem, which was really just this much shorter distance.

As WiTricity has mentioned on its website, its Highly Resonant Wireless Power Transfer technology is also distinct from Tesla's creations -- and is efficient enough to be economically viable.