This may sound ridiculous first time you hear it, but Japan is thinking about solar power from panels located in space to mother earth, or to be more exact, the nation of Nippon itself. According to the Nikkei (one of Japan’s biggest newspapers), the government plans to ask local technology companies to participate in the endeavor as early as next month.
The project is aimed at finding ways on how to convert solar energy into microwaves first before converting them back into energy on the surface. This would make it possible to generate solar power regardless of the weather on earth.
A satellite is already scheduled to be launched in 2015 in order to collect initial project-related data. The Japanese government hopes the space solar energy system to be in place and ready by 2030.
Via Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]
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Idiots, we already tried this in Sim City 2000…there WILL be fires.
Hahaha, Well played, sir.
About the engineering failures of this idea. When you add up the inefficiency of turning energy into electromagnetic energy, the fact that energy is lost just going through the atmosphere, the fact that the only efficient way of getting it through the atmoshpere is by laser (good luck aiming that from outer space onto a receiver on the ground), the fact that turning electromagnetic energy into usable energy is still inefficient, you end up with something around 5-10% of the energy you collect in space actually ending up on the ground.
Um, hello…it’s resource-free energy! 1% efficiency is still 100% free. No dumb arguments about the costs – the US wasted 100’s of billions on a safari in Iraq; the same amount for a possibly endless energy supply, failure or not, seems worthy.
The only reason to not do it might be better watt/$ return on sea-current-driven-power, or pumping up fusion research.
To appearances, this kind of solar power wouldn’t have an environmental impact, unless perhaps the microwaves screw up the migration of butterflies or zap planes out of the sky.
So launching tons of stuff into space is resource-free?
LOL oh the hilarity. On another note, aren’t microwaves succeptible to interference from well… every other form of microwave? The idea sounds too good to be true.
We might have enough technology in 2030 to make this possible.
This is an idea so stupid that one knows without even being told that it was concocted by a government. Honest, hard-working people and profit-seeking companies have to be careful how they spend their money, but government, since it gets its money at the point of a gun, has the liberty to spend it as foolishly as it wants. All that’s necessary is that the foolishness somehow add to the perpetuation of its crime — usually through inviting large industries to share in the plunder via “contracts” and “services”.
This idea was developed by Peter Glaser at Arthur D. Little, a think tank-consulting firm, in the 1970’s. It is quite feasible, although the costs are uncertain. Because the arrays see the sun most of the time, and are above the atmosphere, they produce several times as much energy as solar cells on earth. The big problem identified then was protecting airplanes from flying through the beam.
Yes, the concept is 40 years old now and the technologies are converging with the need. If you really want to save money and duplication of effort, the Americans, Japanese, and other savvy partners could coordinate a program. Gordon Woodcock and friends have submitted to the Augustine Commission the old Gerard O’Neill idea of using the moon for construction materials. All you need from earth are tools, electronics, and people. Heavy lift is not required. Variations on existing lifters will do. Having said that, Powersat Corp. proposes a starter enterprise that splits a big-boy sat into hundreds of smaller (easily liftable) ones, each feeding in cloud fashion a central transmitter which then feeds to a ground rectenna. It is no longer necessary to waste time with the naysayers, the bird-fryers, and weaponization freaks. They’re all irrelevant and wrong. It’s time for action.
Rob, the airplane problem killed the idea before the oil glut. It was felt at the time that all airliners would have to be retrofit with wire grids on the windows so that if one flew through the beam the occupants would not be fried. I suspect the electronics on the plane would be a worse problem. Any progress on this issue that you know of? Such details are not irrelevant.
The airplane problem is a non-issue – as the “beam” would need to be focused, you create a “No-Fly Zone” around it. Juast as civil and commercial aircraft are peohibited brom flying through many places – notably military bases.
As i understand it, the aperture of the beam at reception is diffuse rather than concentrated, hence the kilometers-wide rectenna. A grid climber bent on suicide by having lunch atop the rectenna would be disappointed in his lack of success at death-by-SBSP beam. He would be escorted to his psychiatric evaluation long before that could happen.
Seeing as how a plane would clear the breadth of the beam within seconds, I don’t see a health problem for its occupants. I would be more concerned with having lived with a micowave oven in the kitchen for the last 30 years.
Besides, as with any civil utility installation, the rectenna site would be secured with barbed wire electric fencing, security cams, and reasonably-paid personnel. Site locations will be remote and, if need be, FAA will have a handle on best routing of air traffic, as R.D noted.