This key technology made it possible for Dr. William Brown from Raytheon, to demonstrate wireless power transmission with a microwave beams about 20 years later. In one of the first practical applications, the Canadians made an unmanned plane to facilitate communications in remote regions, and kept it aloft via microwave beams. This plane can fly at altitudes of 70,000 - 80,000 feet. India has also taken a great interest in this type of application. With 400,000 villages and 500 million people, installing power lines and even telephone lines represent a huge task.
Wireless transmission represents a viable alternative.
The risk to humans in the physical area of the power beams is minimal. At fence boundary of a receiver, the power density is less than the exposure to a microwave oven, 4-6 feet away, with the oven door closed. But the nuclear reactor community pushed their solution to go forward and WPT was not promoted. One configuration for a receiving antenna is called the Oceanic Equatorial Launch Facility. It would create a 5 gigawatt receiving antenna, up to 2 kilometers wide, suspended over ocean surface.