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The development of a pollution-free transportation system for the millennium is provided by the recharging of a vehicle's non-polluting on-board energy storage unit (batteries, flywheel, whatever) as the vehicle travels unrestricted down the highway. This futuristic concept is called “VEHICLE REMOTE CHARGE - All Electric Vehicle Transportation via Wireless Power Transmission”. The MOBILE VEHICLE RECHARGE utilizes microwave or laser technology for the mobile recharging of an energy storage unit on a non-hydrocarbon-fueled vehicle as well as sophisticated guidance systems to track and guide the energy beam to the vehicle. Thus the system uses military technology in a commercial application. The transportation system incorporates technology from both the automotive and defense industries to combine the two in a commercial venture.

Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are solid state devices that convert thermal energy into electrical energy. Using the nighttime sky, or deep space, with an effective temperature of 4°K as a cold sink, the TEG module presented here can produce electrical power at night. The “hot” junction is supplied energy by the ambient air temperature or some other warm temperature source. The cold junction of the TEG is insulated from the surroundings by a vacuum cell, called a Vacuum Pod™ improving its overall effectiveness. Studies have shown that with particular TEG module designs, a temperature differential across the TEG can be achieved that will produce an estimated 10mW/cm2. This is comparable to the energy available from photovoltaic cells in the noontime sun. Therefore a prototype Nighttime Solar Cell™ is being built and will be tested to determine the effectiveness of the cold junction insulator as well as the influence of other system parameters.