Microwaves strong enough to do real work are dangerous. Servicemen are warned about this when working near radars, and I read somewhere that Siberian MiG pilots often amused themselves on the runways by zapping rabbits with their fire control radars. Really dry climates would be great for receptor sites (that's why microwave radio astronomy is often done in places like the high desert) but these places also tend to be very far from the users of electric power.

Don't get me wrong, if they can get his to work, I'm all for it, I just wonder if this is another Popular Science article in the making. Some discusions of the potential down side and what has been done to take it into account might be valuable.

Oh, and BTW, masers exist in nature. Radio astronomers have been studying them for years.