Florida EVs May Be Charged 'Inductively' By One Mile of Highway (electrive.com) 149
A Norwegian company named ENRX "wants to inductively charge electric vehicles with 200 kW while driving on a section of highway in Florida," according to the "electric mobility industry" news site electrive.com.
"A one-mile section of a four-lane highway near Orlando is to be electrified." ENRX has teamed up with the Central Florida Expressway Authority and the Aspire Engineering Research Center for an initiative to build a one-mile (1.6-kilometre) section on a four-lane highway near Orlando that will inductively charge the batteries of moving electric vehicles at 200 kW.
The principle is clear: the electric vehicle batteries are fitted with a special receiver pad and charged as they drive over the coils embedded in the road. In the process, the energy is transferred from these coils to the receiver pad mounted on the vehicle floor, which according to ENRX should provide "a safe, wireless power supply" even at motorway speeds. Advantages of the 'Next Generation Electric Roadway system' mentioned include interoperability, different output power levels for different vehicle and battery types, or user-defined distance between the ground and the vehicle. In addition, the system (on the infrastructure side) is supposed to be maintenance-free after installation...
"When you can charge while driving, range anxiety and frequent charging stops will be a thing of the past," says ENRX CEO Bjørn Eldar Petersen... "Dynamic charging can reduce the need for large battery capacities, allowing cars to be equipped with lighter and more affordable battery packs."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader aduxorth for sharing the news.
"A one-mile section of a four-lane highway near Orlando is to be electrified." ENRX has teamed up with the Central Florida Expressway Authority and the Aspire Engineering Research Center for an initiative to build a one-mile (1.6-kilometre) section on a four-lane highway near Orlando that will inductively charge the batteries of moving electric vehicles at 200 kW.
The principle is clear: the electric vehicle batteries are fitted with a special receiver pad and charged as they drive over the coils embedded in the road. In the process, the energy is transferred from these coils to the receiver pad mounted on the vehicle floor, which according to ENRX should provide "a safe, wireless power supply" even at motorway speeds. Advantages of the 'Next Generation Electric Roadway system' mentioned include interoperability, different output power levels for different vehicle and battery types, or user-defined distance between the ground and the vehicle. In addition, the system (on the infrastructure side) is supposed to be maintenance-free after installation...
"When you can charge while driving, range anxiety and frequent charging stops will be a thing of the past," says ENRX CEO Bjørn Eldar Petersen... "Dynamic charging can reduce the need for large battery capacities, allowing cars to be equipped with lighter and more affordable battery packs."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader aduxorth for sharing the news.
Seems more suitable for buses at stops (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want to do it the hard way and not string up overheard wires, that is.
Also, 200 kW * 1 mi / 60+mph 3.3 kWh.
Which I guess just covers the mile driven and a little extra for most EVs. So yeah.
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Re: Seems more suitable for buses at stops (Score:3)
EVs get about 4 miles per kWh, so 1 mile of charging can give 13 miles of range according to your math.
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Re: Seems more suitable for buses at stops (Score:5, Informative)
You're assuming 100% efficiency. Conductive charging is probably the least efficient method of charging.
Inductive.
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From what I've read, that's not actually necessarily true when you get up to the size levels of a EV.
Basically, the system can be big enough and accurate enough to be within a few percent of a direct connection - at least when parked. Not sure about mobile attempts.
Anyways, because you normally need to use a transformer(which works on induction anyways) in cable charging, you just separate that into two parts, and with enough attention to efficiency, you aren't losing much over a dedicated single piece tra
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From what I've read, that's not actually necessarily true when you get up to the size levels of a EV.
Basically, the system can be big enough and accurate enough to be within a few percent of a direct connection - at least when parked. Not sure about mobile attempts.
Anyways, because you normally need to use a transformer(which works on induction anyways) in cable charging, you just separate that into two parts, and with enough attention to efficiency, you aren't losing much over a dedicated single piece transformer.
The inverse-square law would beg to differ.
At city-bus-scales, "almost as efficient" is a difference of many, many kW/hr of power-transfer; which of course translates to significantly longer charging times.
It may be just a spread-apart transformer; but it is spread-apart!
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> The inverse-square law would beg to differ.
You're in the near field.
Inductive charging for EVs is generally around 90%, which is 10% less than a plug, but 90% better than nothing.
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> The inverse-square law would beg to differ.
You're in the near field.
Inductive charging for EVs is generally around 90%, which is 10% less than a plug, but 90% better than nothing.
10% at those power levels is still a chunk 'o Watts.
And Near-Field is a marketing term.
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why does it have to be so spread apart ? If the cars had a standard wheelbase they could run in slots in the road, I suppose the section of the highway could be enclosed, it doesn't have to be a standard highway lane.
I dunno. I was just thinking of normal ground-clearances.
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They could get a lot more efficiency by using conductive instead of inductive charging. Maybe use the guard rail and have the car deploy small arms to run against it like a 3rd rail. If they really want to get it out of the way, just go overhead with the lines. You would hardly need any battery if you just ran these around the city! This would work especially well with busses, as they're on fixed routes so we could just electrify the busiest routes first, and then we'd have very very efficient electric buss
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lol. Yes. Mistyped. Conductive is the most efficient!
Figured that!
Just making sure the aliens hadn't slipped in some alternative physics while I wasn't looking!!!
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Re: Seems more suitable for buses at stops (Score:2)
Which EVs are those? The best ones top out at 3, but that's by sacrificing overall range by having a tiny battery to lug around. Bigger boys are 2.5 and down.
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I don't know what you consider "the best ones" vs "the big boys", but those are real stats from cars I have had over the years.
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I would say that parking lots and driveways would be the best way to do this. That way the private entities are paying for the technology.
Re: Seems more suitable for buses at stops (Score:2)
Re: Seems more suitable for buses at stops (Score:2)
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> That 200 KW is for every car on the 1 mile stretch.
No way.
Think of the number of cars in that stretch and the amount of cabling you'd need to power them all to 200k.
Consider the size of the equipment needed for a 8-stall Supercharger with 150k, for instance.
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They will not pump 200kW in the motorway all the time, that would not work. The system will need to know when there is a car overhead and turn on the power for that bit, so that the power transfer is directed.
Once you are doing that, it is trivial to work out whose car you are charging and to send them the bill.
In practice, very few cars will use this because they are not so equipped. The main point of the trial would be to see if the system still functions after having lots of traffic drive over it.
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Mathematically, though, this can't possibly scale to the level needed. If every car on the road had this, something would have to give - especially on congested city streets or expressways.
One thing I could see though - parking spots with integrated wireless charging pads. Park your EV over this thing and let it charge while you go shopping - no cable connection required. Or - in a city like Chicago where they depend on street parking - this could solve a huge problem with EV adoption by installing these
Who's paying? (Score:3)
Piling On (Score:3)
Who's paying for the electricity here? If this is happening on a large scale, you are talking about a whole lotta juice.
The roadways are solar.
Re:Piling On (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because contrarianism is a vote getter. Well, maybe, maybe not, we'll see in the election, but it does seem to get campaign funds at least.
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And some people don't even want the roads to be tax funded, they prefer toll roads so that the poor won't be able to get near their fancy neighborhoods. Some don't want anything to be tax funded, and want a return to the good old days of inequality.
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What BS is this that only rich crowd would benifit from it. Charging through induction while driving is actually a way to get cars cheaper as the need for bigger batteries are lessened. Yeah EV's are very expensive today, but they already have come down in price, and in a decade they will be just as expensive or even less are current ICE versions.
This Norwegian company already has a few of the pilot programs running in Norway and it's a succes, and that's why Florida wants to test it also in their state..
Yo
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Wow, what idiots modded you down?
Wow, you idiot didn't realize it was sarcastic?
Get your /s detector fixed, it is broken.
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This road is being built in Florida, not NJ. Nobody suggested that this scheme was supposed to cover 100% of all roads in the US.
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I think you missed a term in your equation...47MW of generation to cover the entire energy use of every vehicle transiting the NJ Turnpike would be a massive bargain. That 200KW number is not per mile, though, it is per vehicle, and roughly 650,000 vehicles per day drive on the Turnpike.
Assuming the average vehicle spends 30 miles on the Turnpike, that all of them are cars (about 15% are actually trucks), that those cars consume 0.35KW per mile, that's... what, about 660MW? Add losses for the inductive cha
Re: Who's paying? (Score:2)
Toll pass billed?
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The receiver could meter usage. It will probably be mostly used by commercial operators, not private car owners.
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So could the sender. Induction systems know who is getting the energy.
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So EV owners will self-report? Sounds, uh, unlikely.
Good point. The electricity company must be getting robbed blind because they rely on building owners to self report energy usage.
Oh wait, they don't, they have a tamper proof meter and these days often a radio transceiver that reports back the readings automatically.
The technology has been demonstrated to work and is reasonably efficient. It will probably be used by commercial operators mostly, where covering the cost of the efficiency losses would be worth it to reduce time when stationary.
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Unfortunately, nobody has ever figured out how to charge for electricity.
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Re: Who's paying? (Score:2)
Who cares? I'm parking my Tesla at Jim Creek [wikipedia.org].
How much loss? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone want to take a guess on how much energy loss will accompany this? Oh right, read the article:
Details on how the solution works exactly or how it differs from other systems for dynamic inductive charging are not mentioned in the press release. It is also not specified, for example, with what tolerance the vehicle must be moved above the ground coil – precise alignment above a charging pad on the ground is already an important factor in stationary inductive charging. The efficiency of the energy transfer is also not yet known.
. . .
ENRX are not the only ones working on “smart roads”, still the claims appear astonishing compared to one of the longer running projects in Gotland, Sweden. Here technology company ElectReon claims a fully electric 40-ton truck and trailer have reached speeds up to 80 kph and received an average power of 70 kW from the electrified roadway.
This may be May 7th, but the phrase still applies: This is not the solution you are looking for.
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My first reaction too was that they're going to lose a lot of energy to inductive inefficiency, but they are planning to power it with solar. While it's not ideal, at least that lost energy isn't going to burn something.
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Isn't this supposed to be a system to supplement battery power? Nobody is suggesting that it should be used on every road in the US. I suspect that most miles are driven during daylight hours, so again it would function adequately as a supplemental power system.
That said, I seriously doubt that this system will ever catch on - currently 0% of vehicles are capable of recharging on such a road.
Florida Man (Score:3, Funny)
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They'd probably be fine — Florida Man would have ruined the coils on purpose the month prior.
People ICE'ing EV charging spots, rolling coal, etc, makes me honestly think that someone with a low IQ would come up with the idea to rolling coal down the highway with something dragging off their truck to ruin the coils (a chain and anchor to compliment their rolling coal?)
Florida? (Score:2)
If it were my project, I would want to do it in a state with a legislature and governor less prone to rejecting science and objecting to green energy projects!
Cost? (Score:2)
Oh, and its 2023, not 1999, BEV range anxiety is m
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True, most BEV owners are single family residence owners. Otherwise, everyone else living in multi-family structures does not have access to overnight charging. So clearly, range anxiety could very well be an issue for most the population. The best way to solve this problem is of course to continue expanding the amount of charging stations there are.
This same technology could be used to cover the parking lot of the local grocery store and would be much more useful.
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* Single family residences with off street parking
Its going to be interesting to see how the phasing out of ICE vehicles is going to go in European cities and towns - thinking about several places I used to live in the UK, charging at home is going to be a nightmare.
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Why is charging at home going to be a nightmare?
I don't own an ev, but there's a few on my road. This road has no driveways or garages and yet people charge overnight. I wonder how that happens, where there mysterious street side sources of power are.
No it's going to be a nightmare. The solutions are clearly a hallucination.
Re: Cost? (Score:3)
Why is charging at home going to be a nightmare?
Not so much in the comfy suburbs where houses have three car garages. But many cities (Seattle for one) are promoting zero parking residential construction. That means on-street parking. Where you are never certain of getting a spot next to a charger. Or the meth addicts have cut the cables off to sell the copper.
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If you're living in Gotham City, then, well, shit.
Otherwise could your at least read my post, it's not very long.
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Looks like a technology looking for a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Range anxiety these days is held more by people who don't own EVs as opposed that do.
With experience you learn how much charge you need to complete the trip you are about to take. Most people will hop in their car with 1/3 tank of gas and go to work. But an EV with 50% charge gives them heebie jeebies.
What's the difference? Just experience. You are used to driving your gas car with a mostly empty tank and you know that a gas station is usually at hand if you need it. Over a month or two of driving it and you are used to the same thing in your EV. It isn't about the range.
This project may be technically interesting on some level but other than that it is jsut a waste of time. Not needed. And will never be implemented.
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If and only if it were widely deployed, this could allow EVs to be redesigned with smaller and much cheaper battery packs.
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But battery prices are dropping so fast that it seems unlikely that in-road charging this would be economically advantageous.
And doubly so given the likely maintenance problems it would cause.
This is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
And has always been stupid. It's a neat idea on the very surface level in a scifi sort of way but this and soloar roadways and walkways are just cash grabs trying to bilk some VC money. Stationary induction charging also sounds good and is more practical but it's just so godamn lossy that it's be downright criminal to standardize it today or the near future for vehichles. .
How many regular and fast chargers could have gotten installed for the money that has been invested and spent here? Those owuld have made a far greater impact on EV adoption.
Batteries will continue to get better and ranges will continue to improve and the idea of charge on the go for passenger vehichles will hopefully fall away for good (or focus on something like busses and light rail where it actually might make sense with overhead lines)
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And has always been stupid. It's a neat idea on the very surface level in a scifi sort of way but this and soloar roadways and walkways are just cash grabs trying to bilk some VC money. Stationary induction charging also sounds good and is more practical but it's just so godamn lossy that it's be downright criminal to standardize it today or the near future for vehichles. .
How many regular and fast chargers could have gotten installed for the money that has been invested and spent here? Those owuld have made a far greater impact on EV adoption.
Batteries will continue to get better and ranges will continue to improve and the idea of charge on the go for passenger vehichles will hopefully fall away for good (or focus on something like busses and light rail where it actually might make sense with overhead lines)
If you're gonna go to that much trouble, why not just go all the way and make the cars MagLev?
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Or how about better city planning so walking and biking are sufficient for most things, and better mass transportation; instead of paving the entire planet with tar and concrete
The only ones truly driving in cities are taxis, people who can afford limos, and delivery vehicles. The vast majority of people living in and visiting cities walk or use the public transportation.
That said, if you never want to leave your little city, then this isn't for you. Others like to get out and see the country which means being able to drive. While I'm also against putting concrete and blacktop over everything, certain realities exist. Unless you can think of a better way to get all that stuff i
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The only ones truly driving in cities are taxis, people who can afford limos, and delivery vehicles. The vast majority of people living in and visiting cities walk or use the public transportation.
Say what? Our census has questions on how people commuted to work that day. The latest census was 2021, so there was a fair amount of COVID influence on these results:
59.2% of people travelled to work in a private car,
6.2% took public transport and
2.9% rode a bike or walked.
17.4% worked at home.
When it comes to overall public transport usage, 35% of residents in my city use PT.
Or how about better city planning so walking and biking are sufficient for most things, and better mass transportation; instead of paving the entire planet with tar and concrete
Agreed.
Re: This is stupid (Score:2)
Unless you can think of a better way to get all that stuff into cities and to its final destination.
Trains. Diesel-electric freight trains running through all the poor neighborhoods.
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beeeecause you don't want to live on top of a factory where they make the things you need?
Re: This is stupid (Score:2)
you don't want to live on top of a factory where they make the things you need?
I wouldn't mind it. Living above a carpentry shop, for example. Until California finds two dozen carcinogens in the wood stains that they use.
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And has always been stupid. It's a neat idea on the very surface level in a scifi sort of way but this and soloar roadways and walkways are just cash grabs trying to bilk some VC money. Stationary induction charging also sounds good and is more practical but it's just so godamn lossy that it's be downright criminal to standardize it today or the near future for vehichles.
Not to mention the extra weight for the coils and whatever other circuitry is needed to support them (a giant high-current, high-voltage full-wave bridge, I'm guessing, plus probably large capacitors to smooth it so you aren't delivering pulses to your batteries), plus the whole problem of needing to get the voltage right on the other end to avoid burning out the batteries, plus extra contactors to disable charging while the battery is full so that it doesn't suddenly catch fire on the highway, plus circuit
Ya, but ... (Score:2)
It's in Florida. I'm not driving all the way from Virginia to charge my vehicle. :-)
But, more seriously: Florida.
F-Zero (Score:3)
Looks like F-Zero already saw this coming. How long until Formula E starts trying the same thing for motor racing?
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Please just stop (Score:5, Informative)
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Company probably does not know that -- they believe their own hype. Also, think they are the first ones to ever have this idea.
How about: parking spaces (Score:3)
The idea of cars driving on a highway, at highway speeds, charging as they go from the road... it's solving the problem in the hardest possible way.
A much simpler way: put an inductive charging coil in a parking space, and let it charge a car that is parked in that space.
I now expect inductive parking spaces to be the preferred future way for charging robotaxis. I know Tesla experimented with a tentacle snake charger [youtube.com]... the inductive charger is a no-moving-parts solution.
Plus, if this article can be believed, we may actually end up with a single world-wide standard for inductive EV charging, which would be pretty great.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/09/whats-the-state-of-wireless-ev-charging/ [arstechnica.com]
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Or if you're parked, use a cable. Unsexy tech, sure, but it's cheaper to install, cheaper to make, much more efficient and compatible will all the existing charging infra.
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Or if you're parked, use a cable.
Oh wow, thanks for sharing that, so helpful. Yeah, I use a cable just about every day when I park my BEV at home. I'm aware of the option.
much more efficient and compatible will all the existing charging infra.
Did you even read the article I provided, which says that inductive charging is in the same ballpark for efficiency as using a cable?
What's the cost to build it ? (Score:2)
Yeah, this won't waste electricity or anything. (Score:3)
You're putting a charge into a highway. The cars will be able to use a tiny fraction of that. The rest will dissipate as heat. I'd love to see the efficiency studies on this one.
Red Flag (Score:3)
strong magnetic fields (Score:2)
Strong magnetic fields have been shown to have deleterious health effects.
Oh, you mean "billed for" (Score:2)
The powers that be would dearly love to be able to bill people not just for driving but to be "charged" more for driving during certain times of the day, days of the week, on holidays, and to different destinations. They would also love to be able to shut off your vehicle if you're being accused of a crime, social or otherwise. Imagine if being put into Facebook jail also applied to your vehicle. "That'll never happen, you stupid conspiracy theorist." Really? All of this and more would be child's play t
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I have to wonder what this is going to do to various radio waves in the area. Perhaps the FCC has something to say? Or have they been bought off, again?
Low frequency with most of the power transferred through near field effects. No real effect on anything anyone would normally call a "radio wave", like kHz to to MHz. Of course, if you do end up radiating in those bands then the FCC will indeed expect to be "paid off" in fairly large fines, through their attached collectors called "the courts" and their enforcers known as "the police".
Re:FCC permit? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah but the government is evil and anything that stops me doing whatever I went whenever I want is unconstitutional.
Re: Damage to biological chemistry! (Score:3, Funny)
Especially if they've been vaccinated for polio!
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Inductive charging is terrible for 5G nanocells, too!
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The failed Koprowski vaccine is probably what created HIV due to botched trials in the Belgian Congo.
It was not. It has long been known that HIV was circulating years before this.
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Aluminium foil is cheaper, adjustable to more head sizes -- and recyclable!
Re: Damage to biological chemistry! (Score:3)
Good thing it's adjustable. You know where most of those heads are firmly ensconced. Could use an LED headlamp, too.
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Inductive charging electric vehicles would damage the body chemistry of anyone in the vehicles.
Then no one would survive an MRI.
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And the average person will be exposed for much less time.
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Then no one would survive an MRI.
MRIs don't transfer much energy in fact they typically operate in a regime in which the system is not actively charged while in operation to prevent interference. Having said that I certainly would not want to be in one during a quench.
I just remember stories about oxygen cylinders turned into missiles.
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Sounds like you're consuming too much iron in your diet