Solar Power From Outer Space Could Reduce Fossil Fuel Dependence
Rising fuel costs have spurred some pretty wacky ideas. One that maybe isn’t so crazy is harvesting solar power from space. While the idea isn’t new—NASA and The US Department of Energy studied it throughout the 1970s—the time has come when it might not be too expensive to start pursuing it.
Pravna Mehta, the director of India operations for Space Island Group, a company working to develop solar satellites, thinks space energy has excellent potential. According to his vision, satellites would electromagnetically beam solar energy to ground-based receivers, where the energy would be converted to electricity and transferred to power grids.
Since satellites in high Earth orbits are unaffected by earth’s shadows, the energy would be available every day without fail.
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Unfortunately, it may be awhile before we see any concrete results from this idea.
While a 2007 Pentagon report encourages the development of space power, Charles Miller of the Space Frontier Association estimates that it will only be possible within the next ten years if we act now.
At the same time, getting into space isn’t cheap, the robotic technology to create solar satellites is not yet available, and someone has to take care of the billion dollar bill for the whole thing.
But with interest from Russia, China, the European Union, and India—and growing anxiety around the world about energy access— perhaps we might be using energy from outer space within our lifetimes.
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This is a topic I first wrote about back in June 2007.
We have many of the technologies in place to make this work.
The principle problem isn’t getting the equipment into space, but getting the energy back down.
There’s been the first successful trials of transmitting electricity through the air; albeit a technology at its very early stages…
Doesn’t all solar power come from outer space? DOH!
Oh, maybe the article is talking about solar collectors in orbit which can beam death rays at the ground? Excuse, me, not death rays, microwave power beams, as if there were any difference.
I am with Wayne on this one. The first and most important hurdle is transmitting the power. Until we can show wireless transmission of significant quantities of electrical power here on Earth, there is no reason at all to spend money researching how to collect the power in space.
Terrestrial experimentation is far less costly. Without knowledge of how to move the power without wires, something that would be valuable in its own right, anything involving collecting the energy in space would be a waste of time and resources.
Solar Power From Outer Space Could Reduce Fossil Fuel Depend | nerdd.net…
\r\nRising fuel costs have spurred some pretty wacky ideas. One that maybe isnt so crazy is harvesti…
This has long been a (really wild) solution looking for a problem. A list of issues (in no particular order)
1) It is really hard to get into high earth orbit, and you don’t want to do this in LEO… cause if you collect significant energy in LEO, then what isn’t it reaching?
2) Space solar power collectors are not particularly efficient. The best is <30%
3) Power falls off with the square of the distance that you have to transmit it… so the higher you put the collectors, the less proportional energy you get.
4) How do you get it down without cooking what’s under it? Even tightly focused beams spread a bit over that range, so you are going to be irradiating much more than just the ground collector.
5) Once you get it down, you have to re-convert it to electrical energy… at no more than 50% efficiency.
6) Sats, even geostationary ones, wander in ground track… this is because you can’t get perfect 0 degree inclination…. so your power downlink is going to have to track the ground collector.
7) if you try to do it below GEO, then your ground track covers a significant percentage of the earth’s surface… and you are passing in and out of earth shadow, with all sorts of associated heat transfer problems.
We could do much better with large scale ground based solar collection in the desert regions.
They say it will work 24hrs a day cos it’s above the clouds; what if it’s cloudy where you’re trying to beam it to?
Well the assessment from Oct 07 is here:
http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/nsso.htm Doesn’t look as crazy as it sounds. The folks working on this are not looking at death beams and such (that’s the military) lots of the people working on this never stopped after the 70’s when it was batted around before. They are actually people who believe in this kind of thing and have wanted to do it just because it would be applying science to make the world a better place. Believe it or not that’s the actual goal of many who go into the fields of science.
The space elevator would solve the transmission problems.
I want to believe this, I hope it’s true. Believe or Doubt[VOTE]: http://snurl.com/37ahn [www_thriveorfail_com]
Hey, if it means spending less hard earned money at the gas pump then I am ALL for it!
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi