Solar Power Stations in Space Could Be the Answer To Our Energy Needs (theconversation.com) 233
Amanda Jane Hughes, Lecturer, Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering at University of Liverpool Stefania, and Soldini Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering at University of Liverpool, write: A space-based solar power station could orbit to face the Sun 24 hours a day. The Earth's atmosphere also absorbs and reflects some of the Sun's light, so solar cells above the atmosphere will receive more sunlight and produce more energy. But one of the key challenges to overcome is how to assemble, launch and deploy such large structures. A single solar power station may have to be as much as 10 kilometres squared in area -- equivalent to 1,400 football pitches. Using lightweight materials will also be critical, as the biggest expense will be the cost of launching the station into space on a rocket. One proposed solution is to develop a swarm of thousands of smaller satellites that will come together and configure to form a single, large solar generator. In 2017, researchers at the California Institute of Technology outlined designs for a modular power station, consisting of thousands of ultralight solar cell tiles. They also demonstrated a prototype tile weighing just 280 grams per square metre, similar to the weight of card.
Recently, developments in manufacturing, such as 3D printing, are also being looked at for this application. At the University of Liverpool, we are exploring new manufacturing techniques for printing ultralight solar cells on to solar sails. A solar sail is a foldable, lightweight and highly reflective membrane capable of harnessing the effect of the Sun's radiation pressure to propel a spacecraft forward without fuel. We are exploring how to embed solar cells on solar sail structures to create large, fuel-free solar power stations. These methods would enable us to construct the power stations in space. Indeed, it could one day be possible to manufacture and deploy units in space from the International Space Station or the future lunar gateway station that will orbit the Moon. Such devices could in fact help provide power on the Moon. The possibilities don't end there. While we are currently reliant on materials from Earth to build power stations, scientists are also considering using resources from space for manufacturing, such as materials found on the Moon.
Recently, developments in manufacturing, such as 3D printing, are also being looked at for this application. At the University of Liverpool, we are exploring new manufacturing techniques for printing ultralight solar cells on to solar sails. A solar sail is a foldable, lightweight and highly reflective membrane capable of harnessing the effect of the Sun's radiation pressure to propel a spacecraft forward without fuel. We are exploring how to embed solar cells on solar sail structures to create large, fuel-free solar power stations. These methods would enable us to construct the power stations in space. Indeed, it could one day be possible to manufacture and deploy units in space from the International Space Station or the future lunar gateway station that will orbit the Moon. Such devices could in fact help provide power on the Moon. The possibilities don't end there. While we are currently reliant on materials from Earth to build power stations, scientists are also considering using resources from space for manufacturing, such as materials found on the Moon.
To earth? (Score:5, Funny)
By cable? This is like ....
Profit!
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Energy Diversity I feel is one of our biggest problems.
We have lobbyist from both sides saying how the other side is just a bad bunch of people. But the truth is the World needs Diverse Energy, This diversity still includes Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas, but it also needs a ramp up in Solar, Wind, and may other novel sources. They are tradeoffs on every source of energy, Energy Diversity can help mitigated such issues.
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Energy Diversity I feel is one of our biggest problems.
We have lobbyist from both sides saying how the other side is just a bad bunch of people.
That would be Greed talking.
...They are tradeoffs on every source of energy, Energy Diversity can help mitigated such issues.
Totally agree, but I hope you do understand that "tradeoffs" here result in billions of dollars being shifted from one group of greedy people, to another group of greedy people. There's an obvious reason cannabis is backed by thousands of doctors and yet government lobbyists from competing industries demand that it remains illegal. Greed won't allow alcohol, drug, or tobacco profits to get screwed with, no matter the societal cost. Same will go for the energy industry, but the
Re:To earth? (Score:4, Informative)
First off, I'd would love to stop using fossil fuels, they make a mess and global warming is gonna bite us.
(this goes to the expensive fossil fuel comment)
I'm not form the 'show me' state, but I'll believe it when I see it. From what I can tell most 'renewable' sources are still not well developed and cost more the fossil fuels. If they cost less ( per kilowatt) they would have already taken over the industry. Shell corporation is more then able to pivot and become a major provider of solar wind etc. They have deep pockets. The question is , is the technology viable and will it produce the same or better product ' aka cost + profit' if it did then it would already be the winner. It doesn't.
So why aren't we going away from fossil fuels, greed, or efficiency you take your pick. Me I have enough income I will be able to pay for electric if it goes up 10 or 20% but there are lots of people out there who would really be hurt by that change and Grandma not being able to afford air conditioning is the pits. Replacing fossil fuels will not be a short term winner for the consumer , no matter how you frame it, unless there can be some serious improvements in renewable generation. Also, nuclear still has a serious waste problem and I don't know of any coal plants that have poisoned a area the size of road island for 1000 years , so it has at least a reputation problem ( if not a real risk problem) that needs to be dealt with , which is why it gets so much resistance.
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Renewables have actually become cheaper per kilowatt recently, the reason the switch isn't happening is due to subsidies to the fossil fuel industry - both official ones and unofficial ones in the form of US military spending.
You may also want to look up Centralia, PA, and the issues of radioactive particles in coal power plant exhausts, fly ash spills, and mountaintop removal mining.
Re:To earth? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:To earth? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The cost of newly installed utility-scale solar is now around 6.8c /KWH. Onshore wind generation costs even less.
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Replacing fossil fuels will not be a short term winner for the consumer
I agree completely. I'll be dead long before it pays off, so why bother.
Re:To earth? (Score:5, Informative)
I could not decide whether to mark your comment overrated or to post my rebuttal. I have decided on the latter.
See Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2019 [irena.org]
Power generation is not the only issue in phasing out the use of fossil fuels, of course, but economical replacements are coming.
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I'm not form the 'show me' state, but I'll believe it when I see it. From what I can tell most 'renewable' sources are still not well developed and cost more the fossil fuels. If they cost less ( per kilowatt) they would have already taken over the industry.
This argument is interesting, but sometimes seems like an argument that since they aren't cheaper right at this very minute, we shouldn't use them at all.
The vaunted internal combustion engine didn't show up like Venus rising from the ocean, fully formed either.
But if I might note, there's a little more than just the rock bottom cost - which is hard to figure out anyhow - do we include the cleanup costs for TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima, or the deaths in Canadian towns that get obliterated by Petrotrain
Re:To earth? (Score:4, Informative)
> coal power should've been made illegal long ago
Should have, and would have been except for one little thing.
Back in 1970, fifty years ago, some folks anti-war who were into peace signs and such were really worried about nuclear weapons research. They had made a name for themselves protesting and underground teat of a bomb in Alaska. Generally they were very worried about nuclear research. As it happened, they were need up sharing an office with some other hippies who who were focused on the environment. The two groups got along pretty well and together formed an organization around both peace and green, which they called Greenpeace.
For fifty years or so the green movement, led by the example of Greenpeace, fought against having nuclear research and therefore nuclear power, simply because Greenpeace had leadership from two different groups with different concerns. They insisted solar-electric was the only way and it was just a couple years from ready. For sixty fucking years. That's why we're still burning coal today.
We're still burning coal decades after we could have gotten rid of it precisely because of what GP said - people who favor one particular power source demonizing people who point out that another clean source is actually ready to use today, and has been for decades. All because some people 50 years ago happened to end up sharing an office space.
One of the founders of GreenPeace, Patrick Moore, has written more about this for anyone interested.
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When half the country, including half of the government officials, are try to stop you - beating them all is expensive. Yep, it costs more to do something when people such as - oh the president, for example, are trying to make it more expensive and difficult for you.
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Expensive? What? The reason why oil & gas dominate is because they're plentiful, easy to extract, and enormously energy-dense.
Fossil power is at least as expensive as renewable power now, and the environmental costs are much higher. It's expensive. Its energy density is only useful for niche transportation uses - mostly large aircraft.
What's the value of raising the civilization of Earth to unimagined levels of weath, fueling advancement, and providing food, productivity, and comfort to billions of people?
And also driving much of the late 20th and early 21st century's wars, causing global warming and a great deal of more immediate environmental destruction. That was then and this is now - there are cheaper, better, less destructive forms of energy now. So what is the value? Historical value?
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using expensive
Expensive? What? The reason why oil & gas dominate is because they're plentiful, easy to extract, and enormously energy-dense.
This is very true. The energy density of petrocehmicals is very impressive indeed.
what's the value
What's the value of raising the civilization of Earth to unimagined levels of weath, fueling advancement, and providing food, productivity, and comfort to billions of people?
There might be some value in continuing that though, don't you think? So unless you are a believer in abiotic petroleum in virtually infinite quantities, do you suggest we just fold up the tents and have most of humanity die as we go back to the 1600s?
Even if we were to go full nuclear, we'd still need battery techonlog to transport ourselves around.
Re: To earth? (Score:3)
What about station keeping? Would have thought the photonic pressure on something that big would be enough to push it away from the earth?
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Most of the time you don't need peak power; the losses you get from the cosine are not very large.
No. The real problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
...is that this is 1940s thinking trying to jam itself into an already solved early 21st century issue.
It was solved with solar panels and wind going dirt cheap [wikipedia.org] (well, water cheap - as it is on the level of hydro today), and batteries becoming affordable storage both for individual homes and utility-level projects.
Much how we never went down the road of the portable nuclear reactor in every car - using batteries and solar [global.toyota] instead.
Because we don't live in a retro-futuristic 1940s imaginary future of cast iron casings hammered and glued onto nuclear technology. We live in the ACTUAL future.
It's just not evenly distributed yet.
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I have looked into having solar installed on my property. Besides the fact I'm told it can't be put on my roof and needs to be in a huge array in my front yard to upset my neighbors as a eyesore, the cost to break even ( I live in a fairly sunny part of Tennessee) is well over 10 years and that is not counting maintenance.
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Why would you expect the cost to break even to be below 10 years? As soon as it gets anywhere near that level, commercial installations will pop up and make it unprofitable (by lowering electricity prices) for roof installations. 10 year break even on something with a 30 year life and practically no ongoing maintenance is an amazing deal!
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Grid-scale solar (big arrays in the desert) are less than half the price of individual rooftop installations.
Rooftop solar is most cost-effective when it is done as part of the original house construction. This is now required in California for new homes.
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Re:To earth? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's "beamed" down over a wide area where it's picked by a rectenna array.
I love how people always hand-wave away this part as if it's trivial.
It would be far easier and cheaper to just triple up on ground based solar and some storage. We know how to do that. We've got extensive experience doing that. It doesn't require lofting tons of material into space. It doesn't require figuring out how to beam power down in a way that's not going to be dangerous or an ecological hazard. It doesn't require extensive conversion losses, atmospheric losses, etc.
Hell, it's even possible to make ground-based solar and storage largely immune to the CME you wrongly call the real problem. They are definitely a potential problem, but not the real problem.
The real problem is that space-based power is infeasible at the current time, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
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It's "beamed" down over a wide area where it's picked by a rectenna array.
I love how people always hand-wave away this part as if it's trivial.
Yeah, people tend to use theoretical maximum possible efficiencies and minimum possible cost for transmission, but real world efficiencies are not nearly as good, and real world costs have never even been calculated.
It would be far easier and cheaper to just triple up on ground based solar and some storage.
Ground based solar is certainly the starting point. If space solar makes any economic sense, that means that ground based solar is already a big win in the optimum locations. Space based solar power uses as a starting point the assumption that the solar arrays are dirt cheap.
The point of space
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The point of space based solar would be to fill in solar power to other locations where ground solar is a poor choice; and to fill in the 24 hour part.
That assumes that we don't invent a way to move power around on earth first. If we could figure that out, we could deploy solar where it was sensible and ship the power to other places. And then maybe those places it would be better to use another renewable energy source, and we should ship that excess power elsewhere.
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It's "beamed" down over a wide area where it's picked by a rectenna array.
Or, you could just use mirrors. They have a significantly higher power-to-weight ratio.
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Or you could just not use mirrors and simply install more solar panels...
Do it with mirrors? [Re:To earth?] (Score:2)
It's "beamed" down over a wide area where it's picked by a rectenna array.
Or, you could just use mirrors. They have a significantly higher power-to-weight ratio.
They do, and people have looked at it... but the problem is that the beam spread of an orbital mirror is half a degree, and the law of conservation of etendue says that there's no way to reduce that. Half a degree is 1 km of beam spread for every 100 km distance, and hence if you want one solar intensity at the center of the spot, the mirror needs to be 1 km in diameter for every 100 km of distance.
PLUS about 50% for cosine loss (the mirrors are tilted), and added beam spread for surface ripple. (If the
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AFAICS most of the problems with CME in space seems to be that the solar wind and magnetics cause small forces beyond the meagre capabilities of some satellites. Engineer the attitude/altitude adjustment system with a very conservative worst case scenario.
This would parallel the situation with the grid. A solar storm asserts only a comparatively tiny amount of power on the grid (ohh, the voltage can jump a telegraph key!!! scary!!!). The problem is that it tries to induce DC current in a system simply not d
Inefficiency = heat. Beaming mostly heat (Score:2)
> picked by a rectenna array. There's a conversion loss, but the over abundance of supply should make up for that
My understanding is that over a distance of about 1 meter, efficiency is between 10%-30%, meaning 70-90% of the power is lost in the first meter. With increasing distance, the free-space path loss is of course much higher, following the inverse square law.
So let's just say 1% of the power is converted, the other 99% is lost. Of course lost doesn't mean it disappears - it ends up as heat. Fo
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Most of the rectenna designs use a large enough receiver that birds can fly through the beam and cattle can graze under the antenna with no problems.
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Just wait until you start punching holes in the Van Allen belt. All those ugly particles that bounce off and away, not to mention most global radio communications, depend on the stability of the Van Allen belt and the predictability of space weather.
Screw that up, and climate change doesn't matter; the climates will disappear, and us, with them.
This another in a series of Sounds Good, But Bad Idea. No one wants to discipline themselves as to the nature of the problems, which amount to resource disparity and
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I think maybe you mean the ionosphere, not the van Allen belts. Beaming radio waves through the van Allen belts, or the magnetosphere, wouldn't have any more effect than sunlight does.
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Not sure your references, but a high concentration of solar energy being concentrated through the Van Allen belts has no historical precedent. Sunspots from 93Mmi away have a huge effect on how radio performs on earth. Imagine a remodulation of those waves and directing them onto the surface of an iron planet, us.
Not a good idea.
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This idea has been looked at since the 1970s, and so far the primary obstacle has always been the long ROI. With modern corporate executives playing Musical Chairs every couple of years I don't expect any investments in a project that has a return on investment extending past 10 years, since they'll have rotated out to leach off a new industry before it starts to make a profit.
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Few want to recognize that the root problem is population size.
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Even a stabilized population can't burn at the rate we're burning. And while we can agree on population problems, staying on-topic is a good idea.
Re:To earth? (Score:5, Insightful)
TFS notes,
But one of the key challenges to overcome is how to assemble, launch and deploy such large structures.
That's not the key challenge.
As you note, getting that power back down is the key challenge. You obviously need to concentrate it, because there's not much use in beaming something more diffuse than sunlight down to earth. But once you concentrate it you run into all sorts of issues with the beam path back to earth.
With all of the pie-in-the-sky schemes to generate solar in space, I've never seen a feasible plan for getting that energy back to earth. Almost all of them would be cheaper and better if they just made more earth-based solar panels and some storage.
About the only time it's feasible to generate power in orbit is if it's going to be used there.
Re:To earth? (Score:5, Funny)
Have Tesla build a battery factory and then just rain charged batteries down from space.
(this post should be taken as a joke)
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I've never seen a feasible plan for getting that energy back to earth. Almost all of them would be cheaper and better if they just made more earth-based solar panels and some storage.
And keep the generator in correct orbit. An orbital solar station of a size capable of generating something worth sending to Earth will also be the mother of all Solar Sails. It will get blown off its orbit in a matter of seconds.
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It will get blown off its orbit in a matter of seconds.
Hyperbolic much? (No pun intended.) The pressure is on the order of ten micronewtons per square meter.
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With all of the pie-in-the-sky schemes to generate solar in space, I've never seen a feasible plan for getting that energy back to earth.
Almost all of them use rectenna technology. [wikipedia.org] The same technology that powers RFID tags. I've never heard complaints about the cost of those devices. RFID tags are ubiquitous. Maybe there's some scalability concern, but the primary barrier has been around safety.
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The rectennas would end up being an appreciable fraction of the area of the solar cells. So what is the point?
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The rectennas would end up being an appreciable fraction of the area of the solar cells. So what is the point?
Only if the beam was purposely reduced in intensity for safety. A highly focused beam could be much smaller.
My point is there are two main challenges, safety the energy beam, and deploying such structure in outer space. They are roughly equal in difficulty, but neither is insurmountable.
There are theoretically some advantages to such scheme, such as a near continuous power availability, and access to light that it typically filtered out by the earth's atmosphere. However, it's extremely risky.
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It would not be as intermittent as terrestrial solar.
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Conveniently doubles as a weapon.
Power density [Re:To earth?] (Score:2)
Conveniently doubles as a weapon.
No, power density is too low.
You just can't get a spot size low enough to be seriously damaging over the distance from GEO (the assumed orbit for almost all proposed SPS concepts) to Earth-- it's just too diffuse.
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Sure, why not? [wikipedia.org]
Cables: resistance is not futile (Score:3)
Sure, why not? [wikipedia.org]
Why not? Because resistance losses over 24,000 miles of cable will mean your power received is almost zero.
And, no, superconductors are heavy and have too low tensile strength to be space elevator cables.
If you really could transmit power 24000 miles at high efficiency with cables, the terrestrial solar power problem is solved-- you can put solar cells in deserts around the Earth and have 24 hour power.
And you think Starlink is ruining the sky (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nah. These won't be in low earth orbit. They'll orbit close to the sun where they can capture the energy best. Then they'll use a photon beam to send the energy to us. All we need then is some kind of panels down here to capture that energy.
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which at some point would be on the night side
No, there are a lot of orbits that would stay out of the shadow and still provide good connectivity to the rectenna field. This has been known since NASA explored the concept in the 1970s.
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Just turn on no disasters mode and it's fine! (Score:5, Funny)
Just turn on no disasters mode and it's fine!
Re:Just turn on no disasters mode and it's fine! (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, that is what happened this year?
Can we switch it off now, I know disaster mode is fun for a little while, but it makes the game boring, when you are unable to catch up to all the problems going on.
Hold on there is a Godzilla attacking my Nuclear Plant, while an earthquake is happening.
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Just having Godzilla and Mothra duke it out around the nuke plant will create plenty of ground shaking!
News? (Score:2)
Why is this particular piece of work, by this particular group of Brits, being posted to Slashdot today? What's special or newsworthy about it?
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Slashdot has an agreement with Taco that it must continue to publish science stories. The actual frequency wasn't stipulated, so the current owners pick a random one to post between every few thousand political stories.
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No, the no-fly zone would only be slightly larger than the rectenna field, the satellite will be in geostationary orbit. Even then the no-fly zone is more a precaution to not destroy the aircraft electronics as it flies through the microwave beam rather than any danger to personnel.
It would be our only path to a renewable baseload (Score:2)
The supporting structure for such an array, even we could lift the cells themselves from Earth, would be more than we could life from Earth. Building anything like this would require lunar or asteroidal mining.
Weapons potential (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have an energy beam of high enough power density to transfer usable amounts of energy to the ground, you have an energy beam weapon to fry anything you aim it at - or anything it gets aimed at by accident.
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That may be pretty much the point. How else would you get WMDs into space and not violate the respective treaties?
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That may be pretty much the point. How else would you get WMDs into space and not violate the respective treaties?
By spreading a dozen metric tons of pure bullshit between here and the fucking moon in an effort to try and convince the stupid and ignorant masses that such a device somehow isn't technically a WMD. That's how. (And yeah, the masses are stupid enough to fall for it.)
Nothing involving modern designs that serve obvious dual-use, is a mere accident. Nothing.
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Nothing involving modern designs that serve obvious dual-use, is a mere accident. Nothing.
Well, there is always abject stupidity. But even with that, _somebody_ is pulling the strings and knows what the real purpose is.
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This was the plot of one of Asimov's iRobot short stories. A space based satellite station that beams energy down to the earth went rogue and locked out humans from its control. The humans were panicking expecting that some city would get vapourised when the beam was misaligned.
**SPOILER AHEAD**
The station worked perfectly. No one was vapourised. The AI locked the humans out due to the First law of robotics: "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." It
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No, from geostationary orbit to the ground (35,000 kilometers) the beam spreads out well below any sort of dangerous level. The rectenna farms would be very large to capture the spread out beam. The engineering for this was done in the 1970s, I'm surprised so few people actually understand how this works when I did by 6th grade.
Paging Dr. O'Neill, Gerard O'Neill (Score:2)
As we don't have a link to the original paper, I have to note that what I see there was first seriously discussed in the mid-1970s, lead by Dr. Gerard O'Neill of Princeton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
For more information on what Dr. O'Neill was proposing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Weight of a Card (Score:2)
Sloppy journalism. A single playing card, on its own, is about 2 grams. The cardstock that playing cards are made of has a "weight" of 280 grams per square meter, but I don't know anyone that plays with cards that are one square meter in size.
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Notice they didn't say "a card" or "a playing card?" There's a reason.
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They didn't say "playing card", could just as well be "credit card", "wedding invitation card" or "card"(board).
Pointing out sloppy journalism...
Yup, half an answer to the problem (Score:2)
Didn't bother reading TFA, but the /. post was definitely a little light on the question of getting all that power from orbit to the surface. I suppose Tesla could build big rocket powered batteries and fly up and charge them, and bring the power down that way...
Really now, solar energy in space is as old as useful satellites in space, nothing innovative there, the actual unrealized innovation is the way to safely harness the death ray that is required to get the power from space to the ground. Also the b
I like this idea (Score:2)
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This idea comes up every ten months or so and I love it. I think, though, that it should also double as a weapon. They should call it "Operation Magnifying Glass."
Funny how you assume a weapon somehow isn't the primary purpose, but unfortunately no intelligent humans are laughing right now because we know our fellow man far too well.
Therefore, "Operation Dumb Fucks" will go forward as scheduled, lead by the Chief Brainwashing Officer, Mark Zuckerberg.
Not New (Score:2)
1. Getting that much mass to orbit. IIRC it should be geostationary.
2. Assembling something that complex in orbit. Once again, I think it needs to be geostationary
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The whole project is extremely expensive and risky. That's why it hasn't happened yet.
Although, this project meets all of the criteria for an Elon Musk project. All of the basic technology exists, but it's too risky for most investors to make the final push. I know he follows Slashdot on Twitter. It would be interesting if he weighed in on this topic.
Refer To Science Fiction Describing This (Score:2)
I recommend this book [amzn.to], titled "Powersat" for many of the technical, speculative, political, tension/cooperation between governments and private companies, sexual and interpersonal issues related to launching a power satellite. As the main character, Dan Randolph, found out, there are many forces in play that will resist the development of such a clean energy source.
Seriously though, this is science fiction (until it's not...) This article has tons of speculative "coulds", "shoulds" and "in theory." It's fun
bullseye (Score:2)
SimCity 2000 (Score:3)
I remember doing this decades ago with the 'microwave powerplant'. Nice to see real life catching up.
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Another Problem (Score:3)
Has anyone solved the problem of the robot caretakers for the solar power stations coming to believe the power stations are God?
I've seen this before (Score:2)
Solar station in space never made sense (Score:2)
Just like sustainable fusion energy. (Score:2)
This idea will always be 20 years in the future.
This again? (Score:2)
It was a bad idea in the 70s and it remains a bad idea now. I cannot imagine any civilization for which it would be good.
With a fully developed SpaceX Starship [space.com], you could get stuff to GEO for about $4000 / kilo ($2k to LEO, another launch for refueling). If you got 2x efficiency from solar panels in space compared to on Earth, those panels would have to cost more than $4000 / kilo to manufacture before you'd see a return on investment.
This page [quora.com] indicates a price per square meter of $75, or roughly $300 p
Solar sail would push it out unless... (Score:2)
I suppose it would have to be geostationary. But the energy collector (aka solar sails) would push the contraption and eventually knock it out of the orbit into the space. It would have to be fueled to counter this pressure.
In what orbit? (Score:2)
"A space-based solar power station could orbit to face the Sun 24 hours a day"
Well, yeah, you could ... but that'd be a problem. Because you'd need a ground station to send the power down to for distribution.
The only current satellite that does anything like this is SDO, the Solar Dynamics Observatory. It's in an inclined geosynchronous orbit, so it's out of the sun-earth line to stay in sunlight ... most of the time. But it still has 'eclipse seasons' twice a year when it can't see the sun: https://www. [nasa.gov]
Too expensive (Score:2)
Plans like this have been proposed at least 13 times that I can recall, going back to 1960 and the most recent in 2016 https://www.discovermagazine.c... [discovermagazine.com].
They always come down to "we can do this, let's build solar on the moon and beam it back to Earth!" Except the cost to build it is approximately
Is it REASONable? (Score:2)
"There is no master but Master, and QT-1 is His prophet."
sure sounds great! (Score:2)
There's absolutely no way anything could go wrong by increasing the total amount of energy the earth captures from the sun.
From an environmental standpoint... (Score:2)
... getting all those panels up into space is likely going to nullify the benefits of solar. Think about the environmental impact of the amount of fuel required and throwaway rocket components for the thousands of rocket launches required to loft and assemble all the necessary components. Sure, you'll get higher efficiency once the system is orbited, but you have to get it all up there first.
And so far, we haven't figured out any way to get to orbit short of burning an awful lot of hydrocarbons (or use an a
This is just not viable nor affordable (Score:2)
There's no reason for this to be done in space - none at all.
So, we want maximum sun, then concentrate the bulk of a massive solar drive around the equatorial regions if you want.
Even this isn't strictly necessary, with the advances made in solar cells.
The idea is the security of localised, independent, off-grid infrastructure - distributed.
It is not reliant on just a few sites, but rather an entire network and can scale.
Sure, it's going to rely on wind power and other renewables for the mix and probably nu
Not economical (Score:2)
Additionally, it has been calculated that to make the power received competit
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone knows the Library of Congress is not a unit of area - Rhode Island is.