TPM:

Researchers at Stanford [sic] University are on to a new technology that could take the hassle out of charging an electric vehicle. Based on magnetic fields, the system would enable cars and trucks to charge in motion. Weirdly, at the end of your trip you could end up with more “fuel” in your tank than when you started.

The basic principle behind the system is magnetic resonance. The phenomenon was initially developed into a charging device a few years ago by Marin Soljačić, an assistant professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Soljačić was looking for an efficient way to power up cell phones and other small electronic goods wirelessly, over relatively short distances. The path he pursued was resonant coupling, which refers to the interaction between two objects that are tuned to the same frequency. The objects can exchange energy with each other, but have little effect on other objects.

Where Soljačić experimented with a 60-watt light bulb, the Stanford [sic] team is looking at slightly larger objects, namely, entire highways.

The Stanford [sic] team is headed by Shanhui Fan, an associate professor of electrical engineering, who envisions revamping basically the entire national infrastructure so that “you’ll be able to drive onto any highway and charge your car.”

This is really cool, although someone needs to tell TPM that the junior college about which they are writing is called stanfurd.