There are certain world changing innovations that few if any people could have predicted. A lot of web 2.0 fits into this category - Twitter for example. I think even Facebook’s influence was a huge surprise as was blogging.

On the other hand, there are inevitable world changing innovations that almost everyone could have guessed would be successful. I’ve always said the dominance of ebooks is inevitable. I think the iPhone was an obvious idea just hard to execute.

Another inevitable idea I think few people are talking about is wireless electricity.

I think wireless electricity will be as big if not a bigger trend than battery technology, which seems to be on everyone’s “hot” list. (People talk about batteries the way they used to talk about plastics) People are working on this, and the technology is getting ever closer to being put to use.

Take a moment and really imagine a world of wireless power. Get past the joy of not having to plug in your cell phone, and think about bigger things that require power.

Take your car for instance.

People are pretty skeptical about electric cars. Yeah, we all talk about how cool they are, but most of us don’t consider ever owning one. Recharging your car just seems impractical.

But what if instead of recharging a battery, your car is actually powered by electricity that comes from towers built alongside the road? Hell, if Verizon can make almost the entire U.S. map red with cell phone coverage (my apologies to AT&T and Luke Wilson), certainly we can get full wireless electricity coverage in major cities?

What if airplanes were powered by electricity from solar-powered satellites? How cheap could we make it to fly from San Francisco to New York?

Okay, that last one is REALLY far-fetched, but that’s the point. I can’t begin to guess how wires and heavy batteries are currently standing in the way of some major innovations, and how breaking free from these wires will open the flood gates.

If I was in any way connected to technology around wireless electricity, I would work 24/7 to commercialize it. The possibilities are endless and about as much of a sure thing as you’re going to get in revolutionary technologies.