I would project that the drain from all possible drone charging is orders of magnitude less than the e.g. coronal loss or the static radiation that blasts my ham radio.
Any legal action would need to be able to document that loss, one would think.
The amount could be estimated by looking at how much flying the drones do between charges, or by suing for access to charging/position telemetry of the units.
Napkin-math time: I see 4 motors, searching the model-number suggests each has a max draw of ~380 watts, so let's assume it averages 1000 watts in operation, for 6 hours a day, with a local cost of electricity at $0.20 per kilowatt-hour, and this continues for one month.
1000*8/1000*$0.20*30 = $36 per month per drone.
That's not give-a-penny-take-a-penny territory.
I previously pointed that out to someone in another comment, however I did not use 50 because the video-presentation continues with:
> The current in the power-line was approximately 300 amperes [...] a higher power-line current would result in a proportionally higher charging power. As future iterations of this system become more efficient, the ratio of time spent flying and time spent charging will significantly increase.
The point remains that once you reframe the electrical situation in financial terms, you will realize it is not just gleaning discarded ergs, and is instead significant enough to raise questions of theft and justice.
Not sure how that plays out in terms of the weight/packaging of the drone but seems feasible for at least larger drones.
I suspect we are talking about 24 watts as compared to eg 1000 megawatt 500kv line. This is seven orders of magnitude difference. Totally lost in the noise.
This is again technically plausible but ethically irrelevant.
It's like the fallacy in: "It's OK for people to steal goods from that store, because the parent-company is very big and one theft won't even show up on their monthly financials and they've got spoilage and breakage too."
> I suspect we are talking about 24 watts
The video demonstration shows 50 watts of input.
Napkin-math: Suppose one drone uses 1000 (battery) watts flying around, and does so for 4 hours each day for a month. (Made possible by an improved version of this research that charges at 200w.) That's 4 kWH. The electrical price is $0.20/kWh.
That means siphoning $24/month for one drone. That's not a casual "keep the extra penny", that's a Netflix Premium subscription.
Effective immediately, all airspace below 500 feet near powerlines is now classified as Class M airspace (for money). If your registered drone is detected nearby, you’ll be charged per second.