Technology

I still remember this being an option in SimCity, late 90s version? The "disaster" event was the laser beam missing, and cutting lines through your city and starting fires. I'm sure Sierra's technology hasn't influenced the real thing though.

I wonder how much interference/potential damage these could cause. Last I checked microwaves can wreak havoc on electronics, even if it wouldn't harm people. Not very helpful to transmit power if every wireless communication system had to turn off to avoid frying.

In any case it seems like a novel concept, but only really useful for situations that cannot be reliably hooked up to a terrestrial grid. Figure for the cost to get one system in the atmosphere, you could get a comparable unit on the ground several times over for the same price. Not a fan of even more potential space junk in orbit either.

I highly recommend the hard science fiction books Delta-V and Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez. This concept gets explored there and I found the idea really fascinating. Hope to see this happen in my lifetime!

This could be cool. The beam width must be wide though or you end up with a death ray. See Powersat by Ben Bova for details

I'd be curious to know the efficiency loss for both converting to microwaves, and for the actual long distance transmission