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- darkism, on 04/30/2009, -0/+11Except there are no cloudy days in space.
- lothar250, on 04/30/2009, -0/+9What does that have to do with anything?
- Bukowsky, on 04/30/2009, -0/+8whatever works, right?
- flangepiece, on 04/30/2009, -0/+7I'm moving to this space place, it sounds nice.
- whiledo, on 04/30/2009, -0/+7I think the article was trying to dumb it down a bit too much. It's microwaves, and yes, they can and have been used to transmit energy. Hell, you probably use microwaves to transmit energy on at least a weekly basis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite
As for your question about why they haven't replaced power cables, there's the tricky matter of what happens if you get in the path of the microwave beam... - LordBytor, on 04/30/2009, -0/+6The technology has existed for some time, it's just far cheaper and easier to use transmission lines. You have to have to build fairly large rectennas to receive and deliver the power, plus I believe it's not as efficient when sending power over short distances, and if you were trying to beam power over large distances on land you would run into line of sight issues etc...
- whiledo, on 04/30/2009, -1/+6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite
"In space, collection of the Sun's energy is unaffected by the day/night cycle, weather, seasons, or the filtering effect of Earth's atmospheric gases. Average solar energy per unit area outside Earth's atmosphere is on the order of ten times that available on Earth's surface" (Granted, this is tagged in wikipedia as [citation needed])
Other stuff directly from the wikipedia article to address your questions:
"Many problems normally associated with solar power collection would be eliminated by such a design, such as the high sensitivity of conventional surface solar panels to corrosion and weather, and the resulting maintenance costs. Other problems may take their place though, such as cumulative radiation damage or micrometeoroid impacts."
As far as costs goes:
"So how much money could an SPS be expected to make? For every one gigawatt rating, current SPS designs will generate 8.75 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, or 175 TW•h over a twenty-year lifetime. With current market prices of $0.22 per kW•h (UK, January 2006) and an SPS's ability to send its energy to places of greatest demand (depending on rectenna siting issues), this would equate to $1.93 billion per year or $38.6 billion over its lifetime. The example 4 GW 'economy' SPS above could therefore generate in excess of $154 billion over its lifetime. Assuming facilities are available, it may turn out to be substantially cheaper to recast on-site steel in GEO, than to launch it from Earth. If true, then the initial launch cost could be spread over multiple SPS lifespans." - DarthLamp, on 04/30/2009, -0/+5Now all we need is for the World to get past petty economics and divert resources into making an array of satellites that can sustain our energy needs indefinitely or for at least the next few hundred years.
Who am I kidding... the World working together? lol - RogerStrong, on 04/30/2009, -0/+5>> SolarEn plans to....
...**IF** they get a few $billion more in investment.
Lots of people have had similar plans for decades, with the same IF. - rhett803, on 04/30/2009, -0/+4"Gundam 00" had something extremely similar to this. In which all of the world, save a few 3rd world countries, were powered by "solar towers" which connected to the "solar ring". The solar ring being rings around the globe in space, covered by solar panels. It was really the fuel behind the wars, political backstabbing, and mass murder power plays. It even dealt with having a giant death ray on the rings that destroyed countries using solar rays. It was awesome.
A really great Gundam series. I strongly recommend it. - inactive, on 04/30/2009, -0/+4Tesla beamed sizable amounts of energy via radio waves a 100 years ago.
NASA once transmitted over 30KW at over 80% efficiency a mile back in the 70s. - cemsity, on 04/30/2009, -1/+4Wasn't there something like this on Simcity 3000? IRC it was called the microwave power plant.
- lothar250, on 04/30/2009, -0/+3Yeah you're right, it does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_trans ...
Interesting read too. But yeah the technology would need a lot (a LOT) of tweaking til it's ready for a project of this magnitude - kingofinternet, on 04/30/2009, -1/+4NWO NWO NWO
9/11 INSIDE JOB - LonelyTylenoL, on 04/30/2009, -0/+3...and the radiation is many times more intense.
- ansecos, on 04/30/2009, -0/+3Now all we need are gundams.
- whiledo, on 04/30/2009, -0/+2Queue the hordes of repetitive comments about death beams from space.
- darkism, on 04/30/2009, -0/+2More like something out of SimCity 2000.
- RogerStrong, on 04/30/2009, -0/+2Heh. Here's a guy today on Digg who links the NWO not just with the swine flue, but with UPC barcodes:
http://digg.com/world_news/The_day_of_tribulation_ ...
Also with fluoridation, robot soldiers, "femine", WWW, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes. - LiamIsOnFire, on 04/30/2009, -1/+3It does exist - I'm not too sure of the technicalities but I know it has something to do with magnets... they aren't used currently because they are quite inefficient (about 40% efficiency if I remember correctly).
- minorgods, on 04/30/2009, -0/+2Plus the space hamburgers grill 10X faster@
- L0C0loco, on 04/30/2009, -0/+2Space based solar power where the PhotoVoltaics are placed in orbit is not cost effective. We have been watching this technology for quite a few years and the cost of placing a kg of mass in LEO (let alone GEO) makes this too expensive by at least a factor of 10. If you instead place a thin mirror membrane in orbit and reflect the sunlight to solar collectors on the ground, you greatly reduce the mass to orbit and, therefore, the overall system cost - and $/kw-hr. Plus, nearly all of the maintenance can now be done on the ground. Even with this, you will need to significantly expand the capacity of the electrical grid to transmit the power from the sunny place where the power is generated to the yucky place far away where most people can afford to live.
It is much better just to produce lots of cheap, low efficiency PV materials that can be used to roof a home or business - on site where the power is used. The small excess or shortfall can be distributed by the current electrical grid. Space Based Solar Power sounds cool, but will only serve to distract us from the practical things we can begin to do today. Time is of the essence. - Hexxagonal, on 04/30/2009, -0/+2Believe it or not not all power is used in the American southwest where sun is plentiful
- endyminion, on 04/30/2009, -0/+2It's non ionizing microwaves that they'll be using. It wont do anything if you get in the way except maybe give you cancer one day.
- PityDaFool, on 04/30/2009, -2/+3This is idiotic. It's cheaper to build 100 solor panels on the ground than put 1 in space.
- Nintendesert, on 04/30/2009, -3/+4I just don't see how that can be more cost effective than building more solar panels in the American Southwest. I think it's just a scheme to steal money from the taxpayer coffers that can be better spent on more economical and efficient clean energy projects. If it is good economics to build this, then let's see it with nothing but private sector investment.
- marsbeyond, on 05/03/2009, -0/+1This is not new and not dumb. Spirnack has a patent for turning hurricanes with this device. That is new. Turning Katrina would have saved billions of dollars in damage costs. Using laser power transmission at a wavelength that is invisible to the human eye and reduces the size of the rectenna from 70 miles in diameter to 600 meters in diameter is not dumb. Using the the waste heat generated by the PV rectenna array to keep algae photo-bioreactors warm and producing twice as much green crude for plastics, medicines, and liquid fuels is not dumb. If you want to put solar cells that still cost ten times what they should on your roof by all means go ahead! Those solar cell companies are just ripping you off upfront. That's dumb!
- masterstghm, on 05/02/2009, -0/+1Hey, SimCity 3000 had cold fusion plants.
- Suzilla, on 04/30/2009, -0/+1Ah, but, if you STORE the energy in the form of hydrogen, derived from water (or other materials) electrolyzed using photovoltaics, your delivery issue now becomes a problem already solved. Moreover, since such solar / hydrogen generating stations are going to be in more or less remote, desert areas anyway, you reduce the risk to life and property in the event of a hydrogen-fueled mishap.
- infinityredux, on 04/30/2009, -1/+2WTF they stole my idea
- masterstghm, on 05/02/2009, -0/+1My money is on oil.
- jpowell180, on 05/02/2009, -0/+1Not at all - the wavelengths of the microwave radiation would be harmless to life, while still allowing the rectenna to collect it and convert it to electricity for the grid.
All these concerns were worked out before you were born. - deathcapt, on 05/01/2009, -0/+1This is dumb. I hope they get their funding rejected. My money is on Solar thermal generators.
- dotorg, on 05/01/2009, -0/+1You're an idiot
I suppose I could run down the list of reasons why, but you seemed to have made a pretty good list yourself. - Prayer4theDying, on 04/30/2009, -0/+1"Planet's Primary, Alpha Centauri A, blasts unimaginable quantities of energy into space each instant, and virtually every joule of it is wasted entirely. Incomprehensible riches can be ours if we can but stretch our arms wide enough to dip from this eternal river of wealth."
CEO Nwabudike Morgan
"The Centauri Monopoly"
/Alpha Centauri - JasonDelta, on 05/01/2009, -0/+1I never said space wasn't conducive towards generating solar energy. All I said is that based on current solar array technologies, we can only achieve 20-22% efficiency. So that means from the 1367W/m^2 of solar intensity we receive at 1 AU, a solar array can only generate ~270 W/m^2, requiring an array of 740000 m^2 if the system is supposed to produce 200 MW. That's a truly MASSIVE array. Add on to that the fact that solar arrays cost approximately $1000 per watt, and we're talking $200 billion just for the solar array alone. That doesn't even begin to touch on the launch vehicle costs, which will also be horrendously expense.
In short, do your homework before trying to prove someone wrong. Thanks. - JasonDelta, on 05/05/2009, -0/+1No, but clearly you are. Anyone who knows even a little bit about the space industry knows that new technologies take decades to become viable options. Sure we can produce solar cells with higher efficiencies here on Earth in controlled conditions, but space is a ***** of an environment to design around with wildly fluctuating temperatures and a lack of atmosphere. We have had 20% efficient multijunction GaAs solar cells for a lot longer than they have actually been used in space. It will likewise be a good decade before you see those super high efficiency solar cells become acceptable for use in the space environment.
Hey, but I have an idea for you. Google TRL levels and you'll find out exactly why it takes so long to get new technologies into space. - designerutah, on 04/30/2009, -0/+1Plus you can worship the great Ra 24/7!
- inactive, on 04/30/2009, -0/+1It would be extremely insignificant compared to the temperature rise already created by green house gasses and change of albedo cause by melting ice cover.
- JasonDelta, on 05/01/2009, -1/+2I actually just did a project on this in a space technology class I took last quarter at UCLA. We were supposed to determine whether this sort of concept was viable or not. Obviously I'm far from an expert, but even very liberal number-crunching will show this concept requires prohibitively large solar arrays, as well as an enormous transmitting antenna on the spacecraft that would be capable of "beaming" the energy back to Earth. Without a doubt absolutely NOT viable at all at this point given the costs involved and the shear size of the spacecraft required. Perhaps when we get solar arrays with efficiencies closer to 50%, but current 20-22% arrays are just not good enough - currently it's about $1000 per watt of energy, so just do the math right there and you can see it's a LOT of money. I have a hunch this company is just out to steal investment money...
Realistically, we're better off just placing enormous arrays here on Earth in rarely-used desert areas. Sure, we don't get the same solar intensity on Earth, but the costs involved would be tremendously less and would be far simpler to employ. - smeatish, on 04/30/2009, -1/+1"...is a Reality"
What, have they launched the panels? I'm all for being excited about the future, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. - didgital, on 04/30/2009, -2/+2I'm not sure the amount of energy/emissions from building and launching the space based system has been put into the equation. Putting a lot of hardware up there generates a lot of crap, which affects the net benefit.
- LonelyTylenoL, on 04/30/2009, -3/+3I see what flu did there.
- jpowell180, on 05/02/2009, -1/+1This idea is not new - in fact it's probably older than you are.
- marsbeyond, on 05/02/2009, -1/+1Solar Energy on the ground is at best available 8 hours a day. Solar energy from space would be available 24 hours a day seven days, a week. Sunlight in space is also effectively ten times as intense, meaning it is ten times more effective, meaning you have to put up ten times LESS of it, and you would have to use TEN TIMES LESS land for the laser PV array rectenna. Clean renewable baseline electrical power, with ten times less land used on the ground? Is any of this getting thru your thick skulls? When you combine space based solar with laser PV array rectennas over algae photobioreactor greenhouses anywhere on the planet you have an unlimited inexhaustable energy supply that can replace all fossil fuel burning on the planet for centuries to come. Long term, there simply is no other answer. Turn the earth into a park, move industry into space.
- marsbeyond, on 05/02/2009, -1/+1Jason are you a complete ***** or what? Solar cells by NREL have been shown to be 41%, and the Russians supposedly have cells that are 60% efficient already. Jeeze have you heard of google? Google it.
- leapingstan, on 04/30/2009, -1/+1And then you can install a pirated dish and still the energy for a fraction of the pirce.
- rtechie, on 05/01/2009, -1/+1Contrary to what JasonDelta was saying generating solar energy in space is fantastically efficent, the same array with 10% efficiency under ideal ground conditions gets at least 20% in space. The problem is getting the power FROM space. So far, the only approach that has been developed is some form of microwave laser tuned to reduce atmospheric occlusion as much as possible, and that's not very much. Virtually all the energy will be dumped into the atmosphere.
It's unlikely this method will every take off for this reason. It would require some sort of "space elevator" type wire technology to transmit the power. - OldSkoolSlacker, on 05/01/2009, -0/+0The nicest thing about putting the solar panels in space, instead of on top of individual houses, is corporations can still hold the keys to all the electricity generation and charge everyone for it. Sounds like a wonderful idea.
- lothar250, on 04/30/2009, -3/+2FTA: "SolarEn plans to convert the captured solar energy into radio frequencies that would then be sent back to earth."
As far as I know there's no such technology yet? Otherwise we wouldn't need A/C cables anymore, right? So it's pretty gutsy to say they want to start beaming energy down to earth starting from 2016. -
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