Simcity Microwave Power by 2050?

Politburo writes "The Drudge Report supplies this interesting Senate testimony. Dr. David Criswell, director of the University of Houston's Institute for Space Systems Operations, proposes that we develop robots to assist in the construction of a lunar solar array. The power from this array would be beamed to recievers on Earth, either directly or via relay satellites. Dr. Criswell predicts that with this project, "the average American income could increase from today's ~$35,000/y-person to more than $150,000/y-person." He also attempts to put to rest the idea that microwave power is unsafe, saying, "Each power beam can be safely received, for example, in an industrially zoned area." I wonder if he's ever played SimCity 2000" And coming soon, Godzilla from a drop-down menu.

Comments

I hope people know

[Anonymous Coward]

That this wasn't invented in SimCity. It's a real idea the game developers thought might be used one day.

Better put

[bersl2]

the fire department on stand-by...

Re:Better put

[Nemith]

the fire department on stand-by...

Well they would be, but I needed some more money for street repair so I cut their funding and now they are on strike.

Funding...

[E-Rock]

He should stop telling everyone how safe it is and start telling the military that it could be adapted into a weapon "in times of crisis". He might actually get some funding that way. ;)

That this is a dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

From last week. Same scientist and everything.

brings to mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

...ants and a magnifying glass.

Fully automated solar array in Michigan

[swordboy]

Energy Conversion Devices has developed a 30 Megawatt solar machine the size of a football field. The device produces nine miles of solar cell at a time. The amorphous solar cells are not great in terms of ultimate conversion efficiency, but they are unique in that they will put out much more power over their life time than the energy used to produce them. They are great on a watt per dollar basis.

Re:Fully automated solar array in Michigan

[Smidge204]

That whole post is misleading. Their website isn't that much better.

In case anyone thinks it's a "solar powered machine that produces 30MW or power", which I did the first few times I read it, it's actually a manufacturing plant that produces enough solar cells every year to generate 30MW of electricity combined.

Stupid grammar... of course, the first thing I though of was "One (American) football field = 48,000 sq.ft. * ~100 watts solar energy per sq.ft. * ~15% efficiency = 720kW... how the hell are they claiming 30MW?!"
=Smidge=

Average income?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr. Criswell predicts that with this project, "the average American income could increase from today's ~$35,000/y-person to more than $150,000/y-person."

Yeah, right. The "oil billionaires" who buy up the microwave technology and become "microwave billionaires" will be rolling in it, while the rest of us still putz along at $30K/year. Yet thanks to statistics, the "average" income will indeed go up.

Remember, averages are highly skewed by outliers.

Re:Average income?

[jefeweiss]

The cost of energy is gradually built into pretty much everything in the current economy. It would take some time, but the cost of any consumer good or service you can imagine would come down considerably if the cost of energy drops to near zero. Consider housing manufactured and erected in a zero energy cost environment. Most of the costs of concrete, and anything made of concrete are energy costs. The cost of energy is built in at every level of the construction process. Brick? Basically cooked (with energy) silica. Steel? Melted (again with energy) ore. All the transportation costs? Oil can be made from coal, or shale the reason it isn't done now is that the expense of the energy to do it is higher then the cost of oil. And anyway electrolysis can make perfectly clean hydrogen and oxygen should we choose to go that route.

The point is that when you are thinking of energy costs you are thinking mostly about your electric or gas bill, which is small compared to your total expenses. But the cost of energy overall to the economy is almost omnipresent. The cost of paper is pretty much the cost of trees + cost of energy to make paper + cost of labor. The cost of trees is cost of labor + cost of energy used by vehicles, machines etc + cost of logging rights. The cost of the vehicles is cost of energy used to make them + labor + capital costs, etc, etc.

The reason that people don't realize the true expense of energy to the economy is that it is implicit in the cost of everything.

Re:Average income?

[Grishnakh]

The cost of energy is gradually built into pretty much everything in the current economy. It would take some time, but the cost of any consumer good or service you can imagine would come down considerably if the cost of energy drops to near zero.

Yes, consumer goods would become much cheaper with cheaper energy, but the majority of people's paychecks go to pay for housing (and taxes). That's not going to get any cheaper no matter how cheap energy gets, because most of the cost of a house is in the land value (which has nothing to do with energy), and in the labor of building the house. Building materials aren't that expensive, but paying laborers US-scale wages to put them together is. And since land value is dictated by location, location, location, that's not going to change with energy costs either.

The Matrix is becoming reality.

[ApheX]

"...proposes that we develop robots to assist in the construction of a lunar solar array..."

Yup. We're screwed.

But will it explode?

[QuackQuack]

Will it explode after exactly fifty years like my power plants in Sim City do?

Re:But will it explode?

[whterbt]

No, not until God clicks Actions -> Disasters -> Microwave Oops.

Popcorn

[Anonymous Coward]

I got an idea, Let's hack it and make it pop massive amounts of popcorn in an evil professor's house!

No chance

[Krapangor]

the ecofundamentalists will shut this project down because these invisible rays interfere with the morphic field of their crystal beads and their carrots.

Great

[Zygote-IC-]

Just another weapon for the machines when they rise.
What, the unstoppable cyborgs sent from the past to kill our future leaders wasn't enough? Controlling our nuclear arsenal not enough?
Why don't we just send up the robots to build the solar array in a big ass cube and call it a day?

Sure, sure

[Erwos]

"The average American income could increase from today's ~$35,000/y-person to more than $150,000/y-person."

Unfortunately, he doesn't exactly say how besides "increased investment opportunities". Uh huh. Ditto for the comment about raising the average third world income to $20k.

In fact, the entire testimony is rather short on details, and seems to omit such essential items as how much it would take to build the whole system.

-Erwos

Re:Sure, sure

[lowmagnet]

Of course, when everybody is making $150,000 per annum, the inflation rate will make it seem like $35,000.

Why the wild claims of increased income? Surely there has to be some OTHER way of justifying this?

Re:Sure, sure

[Bastian]

Or how the hell we're going to build solar cells and gigantic microwave transmitters out of moon rocks.

Or how we're going to build robots sophisticated enough to figure out how to build solar cells and microwave transmitters out of moon rocks.

Hell, we're already having a hard enough time making robots that don't walk/roll straight off the table without even slowing down.

Re:Sure, sure

[MetalShard]

Actually, the standard of living is much higher than it was 50 years ago. Houses are larger, people have multiple cars, TVs, phones, etc.

Most people choose to work longer / harder to make more money. At any point you could change jobs and do something like become a teacher. You would get plenty of time off every summer plus school holidays, but in turn you would only make a third (maybe less) of your current salary.

You have chosen to work more to get more stuff instead of living a healthier, more joyous life.

Re:Sure, sure

[spektr]

Of course, when everybody is making $150,000 per annum, the inflation rate will make it seem like $35,000.

Who cares about inflation rates anymore when roasted pigeons fly into your open mouth?

Re:Sure, sure

[Bazzargh]

He could achieve this goal by devaluing the dollar to 1/5 of its current value (or so).

There's about $0.6 trillion in circulation in the US. Supposing for simplicity's sake that multiplying the available currency by 5 would devalue the currency to 1/5 of its current value, that means we need an additional 2.4 trillion dollars.

A dollar bill is 66x156mm, so that currency has an area of about 24,710 square km. Now, New Hampshire is roughly 24,000 square km.

I think we can safely conclude that his plan involves covering New Hampshire with a microwave collector constructed entirely from dollar bills.

Re:Sure, sure

[jamesl]

Initial Value = $35,000
Ending Value = $150,000
Number of Periods = 47
Rate of Return = 3.1%

Not exactly reaching for the moon, is he?

Re:Sure, sure

[Artifex]

Right, he also doesn't mention how raising the average income to 150K just makes the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer.

No kidding, especially when almost all the people involved in energy production get thrown out of work. You know, like the people making enormous amounts of money to do dangerous offshore drilling, etc., and the little industries that cater to them. Not to mention all the Native American reservations and senior citizens that rely on oil rights for big and small checks every month. Alaska's economy, largely supported by fossil fuel taxes, might literally "go south" with any major shift away from those fuels.

And yes, if the average income is about $150K a year, the CPI will rise to meet it, though it may lag a quarter or two as people spend their income on luxury goods first. Housing generally costs 1/3 of Americans' income (can't quote you a source, but that was the figure we used in my economics classes) so suddenly the average apartment will rent for over $4K a month. Those who are recently out of work will find that their $300 weekly unemployment checks are almost worthless, but state governments won't have the funds right away to approve increases. Most peoples' savings will be wiped out. Not to mention that the government won't be able to maintain relativistic price supports for milk and other foodstuffs, and many farms (mostly corporate these days) will go under, causing potential shortages, though the crisis pricing may keep too many from going under if they rise quickly enough...

If you want an example of what happens when monetary supply is suddenly shifted outward and the basis of income for large quantities of people suddenly disappears at the same time, just look at good old post-cold war Russia right now. Those who managed to gain control over useful capital before the change are now extremely wealthy, while the unemployment rate soars, food is scarce, and so many kids are orphaned and hungry that it's now become a major center of child abuse and exploitation. Not to mention all the diseases that people can't afford to treat, running through the population.

Microwave energy would be a great resource, but until we change our society, it won't be "free." However wrongly, our economy and society is based on energy as a tradeable commodity, and we can't ignore that.

Re:Sure, sure

[MrResistor]

The processes to take a rock, extract the elements you need, and turn them into a solar cell are pretty well understood. It's the understanding of the process that's difficult, once that's out of the way automation is trivial.

The conceptual problem I think you're having is that you're picturing some sort of humanoid general purpose robot that walks around doing this in the same way a human would. That's a stupid way to design a robot. The proper way is to design a specialized single purpose machine, or perhaps a series of them that hook together. Basically, all we're talking about is a variation on a bread machine.

Inflation

[jmv]

the average American income could increase from today's ~$35,000/y-person to more than $150,000/y-person.

I'm willing to bet that inflation will have more to do with it than microware power :)

Re:Inflation

[in7ane]

150 = 35 * (1 + x) ^ 47
x = 3.14%

Yep, that's not an unreasonable average rate of inflation over the next half century. So implementing this project will result in wages only matching inflation, not growing along with GDP (about 5% - can't be bothered to lookup). As someone else pointed out - "a few billion apiece for the people who control the power".

But please, don't give the machines a power source that is solar based...

Re:Inflation

[vidarh]

Even if he is talking about $150,000/y-person in todays dollar value he doesn't seem to take into account that 1) there's no chance in hell that the world will be willing to rely on being on the good side of the US (or any other country for that matter - this doesn't have to do with which country is being the single source supplier, but the risk of relying on a single energy source controlled by a single country), so regardless of price there is just no way the US would corner the market, 2) any potential competitors have a long time to improve technology and bring down the price differential, 3) if it's so bloody cheap and can provide so much income you'll quickly face competition from Russia, India, China, Europe and prices will plummet even further (which is good for consumers, but which means profit margins will be unlikely to be anywhere near what he suggests).

It boils down to: While having "unlimited" "almost free" energy would be great, any suggestion along the line of "this investment is guaranteed to bring ridiculous profit" about almost anything legit will be bullshit - if profit margins are significantly above average returns on investment investors will be queuing up to invest in it AND to fund competitors.

And in this case there is a long list of countries with launch capabilities that will have a significant political and economical interest in competing, and in the case of China even actual ambition to develop.

But of course if one party starts a project like this it could be the factor to finally kickstart another space race.

Nonsense

[locarecords.com]

..

This is a non-idea if ever I heard one. What is the point of going to all that trouble when we have ample power supplies here on earth (contra to our current moral panic about power supplies). Fair enough to try to build a justification to increasing lunar exploration but this is far too easily shot down.

I think we need more political imaginaries - if you try to justify most space projects in terms of economic benefits likes this you are liable to look a fool. Space projects are fundamentally state financed projects (due to their horrific costs and risks) and will remain so for the foreseeable future. But we should be seizing the possibility of exploring space as a project for mankind.. dreaming the impossible..

Re:Nonsense

[LaCosaNostradamus]

What is the point of going to all that trouble when we have ample power supplies here on earth (contra to our current moral panic about power supplies).

Is this a troll?

You really don't see the point of reducing -- even eliminating -- all those coal- and oil-fueled power plants? I do see the point -- they consume irreplaceable fuels, leave us with significant pollution, and are nearly incapable of distributed generation.

And as for suggestions of fission and fusion alternatives ... HA! Don't make me laugh. I live too close already to a plant that was saved from a severity-one nuclear accident by a quarter-inch of a stainless steel liner. Nuclear power's current incarnation is a failure, and should be rolled back into a niche product, even re-routed into small reactors like those being proposed. As for fusion ... you know, I have heard about fusion power all my life, and those highly-paid rat bastards haven't produced a single watt of commercial power yet. It's another failure, and we've given them at least 40 solid years of primarily research and some development to demonstrate that. Fusion funding should ALSO be rolled back and committed to things that can produce a useful watt (which was the point, remember?) within 5 years. All those fusion billions could have been almost carelessly spent on hot-water systems of glass, tar paper, copper tubing and wooden frames, and resulted in a great deal more power independence, lack of pollution, and overall positive power production. Fusion's billions now belong to solar power.

Re:Nonsense

[drinkypoo]

A shitload of small fission reactors seems like a completely reasonable thing to me, especially these new designs which allegedly cannot melt down. Installed in arrays with their own turbine houses and generators, they will provide an extremely fault-tolerant power system without polluting our air. While doing something with the waste is certainly an issue which must be addressed, the fact is that solar only works when the sun is shining. This is fine for industrial purposes but you still have to provide power to households, whose demand is greatest at night. In order to solve that problem, you either need some way to run power from one side of the planet to another (impractical) or generate the power off-planet and beam it back.

So the solution seems to be, nuclear on earth, solar in space. Some combination of the two is probably the best way to go. But I don't think we're ready to eliminate nuclear just yet.

Another thing which has not been considered enough (I think) is nuclear in space, perhaps on the moon. The power could be beamed back and even a meltdown would be a minor event. If we ever come up with a good high temp/room temp superconductor, and get a space elevator built, THAT is where I would put the nukes. Then you could just run the power back on wires :P Of course that's unlikely but it would be slick.

Re:Nonsense

[locarecords.com]

..

At present we are in an interesting situation whereby all the forecasts from the 70s about our impending running out of Oil/Gas/Coal have been proved to be completely wrong. Additionally we are now experimenting with geothermal, hydroelectric, solar and nuclear (fusion and fission).

Granted there are risks and uncertainties with some of these technologies but the costs of flying equipment to THE MOON and then sending microwaves back to the earth.. come on.. that is hardly a feasible or practical solution to our energy problems here.. surely!

In any case the moral questions about building solar banks across the perfect untouched surface of the moon would be interesting to see develop... and expensive...

eh $150,000?

[NanoGator]

Details of that new income figure were a little light. Anybody got a more detailed explanation of what he meant by that, or should I chalk it up as "ooo people'll wanna make 150k, I'll get their vote!"

Can't say I'm terribly worried about mishaps relating to this type of technology. We've been working with Microwaves for a very long time. I'm sure a reasonably safe system can be developed and launched cheaply. I'm more concerned with construction on the moon. Seems like it'd be a PITA to both construct and maintain. Do we really want to put our energy dependency in a very difficult to reach place? What if an angry country figures out a way to fire a missile up there?

Only $150,000?

[szquirrel]

the average American income could increase from today's ~$35,000/y-person to more than $150,000/y-person

It better be a lot more than that. By 2050 inflation alone should push a $35,000/year income to $225,000/year (assuming the inflation rates of the last 47 years stay about the same over the next 47).

Re:Only $150,000?

[bulletman]

Why doesn't anyone understand this? He means that the $150,000 figure is in today's dollars. It's the present value of the future salary.

Our duty is clear: To build and maintain

[birder]

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.
They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall
mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by
small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is
clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you.

Re:What about the 'whoops'?

[TWX]

Something that I've reasoned through, with my lack of engineering degree, is that the last satellite could be fixed so that in order to transmit, it must receive correct transmissions from strategically placed tight-beam ground signal transmitters. If it loses reception, it stops microwaving power. This way, if it drifts off course or is mis-aimed it won't send anything. Also, if someone were to attempt to take control of the satellite to aim it at a city or target, the satellite's repositioning would cause it to lose contact with it's ground-based failsafes and not function. It would also require a secure method of communicating from the ground, which would have to be kept secret so someone couldn't build their own ground based transmitters, but this would prevent the mis-alignment from being hazardous. If my idea works, which I have absolutely no idea if any of this is feasible.

I think that it sounds cool though.

FYI, SimCity reference

[phorm]

For all those that are "too cool" for SimCity... Microwave power was a great way to provide good-level, affordable-cost power to the citizens of your city. An array in space would power your land-bound power-station nicely, but the downside to this was that every so often it would miss the power station (oops) and fry something in your city.

Maybe if they play Simcity for awhile, they'll realize that this invention might work much better if they do, in fact, build such a power plant with a few fire-stations nearby... but I'd imagine a real-world application would have some form of laser-alignment system that has the array blocked until it's properly aligned with the receiving station.

Re:What about the 'whoops'?

[KDan]

The main problem would more likely be what if a cold current of air changes the refractivity of some part of the atmosphere just a little bit so that the beam goes just .1 of a degree off and cooks up a residential neighbourhood instead of providing it with electricity...

Before you answer that microwaves don't get refracted that much by air, please recall the scale of volume we're talking about, as well as the fact that the beam also has to go through the upper atomsphere which, full of ions, probably does scatter microwaves.

Daniel

Practical?

[cybermace5]

Seems to me that the Moon is awfully far away for this to work.

First of all, you'd have to get all the equipment up there. Not only is that amount of equipment extremely expensive, but putting that much equipment on the moon is mind-bogglingly expensive.

Second, you have to get the power here. Now, it's all well and good to say "Let's just beam it with microwave" but the moon is a few hundred thousand miles away. Even a concentrated laser beam will diverge to a diameter of a mile or so over that distance; microwave will be even worse. You just diluted your power density a whole lot: is it still a higher power per unit area than simply placing your solar cells directly on Earth's surface?

Re:Practical?

[Gaijin42]

Uh, we bounce lasers from earth to the moon, all day long, every day. They are measuring the distance to the moon, using the speed of light. It doesn't diverge any practical distance at all.

Read here

We are hitting a reflectr 46cm^2 thats A LOT less than a mile deviation. the 46cm is just for things like vibration, and aiming issues.

BTW, this laster tells us the moon is drifting away from the earth, at 3.8cm per year!

Re:What about the 'whoops'?

[LMCBoy]

They could, you know....turn it off.

It's not hard to think of very robust failsafes. The microwave satellite could have a modest optical laser pointing exactly parallel to the microwave beam. This would bounce off a mirror at the receiving station on the ground and back to a detector on the satellite. If that signal was interrupted, then the assumption is that the laser is no longer hitting the mirror, so you have a pointing error. So then you immediately shut down the microwave beam, or divert it harmlessly into space. Okay, it wouldn't work on a cloudy day, but this could be one of several failsafes; I'm sure people can think of more (GPS, temperature sensors placed around the receiving dish, IR camera on the satellite monitoring the surface temperature around the receiver, etc.).

that's some beam density

[TheSHAD0W]

Interesting... The proposals I've seen for solar power satellites require a "rectenna farm" of several square miles. This would be nice for several reasons, including a low beam intensity; if the beam strayed, it wouldn't flash-cook anything it touched. To try and erect such a large contiguous antenna array over an industrial area would be an enormous challenge. I suspect they're basing it on using a greater beam density, which could cause all sorts of problems; even assuming the beam could never go off target, there might be quite a bit of radiation around the fringes of the receiver.

Compared to this, I think a plain ordinary nuclear reactor would be lots safer.

Economics

[Bastian]

If we all make an average of $150,000 (which we probably will in 2050), will we really be any richer, or is it just going to be inflation?

I just fail to see where that huge amount of money comes from. I know that I'm not spending enough money on electricity to jump my spendable cash from $30,000 to $150,000 should electricity become mind-bogglingly cheap or even free - my annual income is in the $20s, and I can afford to pay for electricity. What is the USA filled with rich bastards I haven't met who somehow succeed in finding wasy to jack their annual electricity bills up to $120,000 a year?

Re:Sweet!

[AGMW]

... and when it switches off, will the DING be heard world-wide?

What I haven't seen explained...

[avdi]

...is how this is superior to putting a network of power generation satellites in earth orbit. What's the benefit of taking them all the way to the moon?

Lunar microwave power article from Space.com

[joelparker]

Space.com article about Criswell,
including some commentary here

Excerpts:

Not everyone is ready to hook up to Criswell's lunar power supply, however.

"My own feeling is that he may well be right, but the idea is downstream," said Bryan Erb, president of the Sunsat Energy Council, based in Houston, Texas. The group backs a first-things-first approach, namely the building of satellite power stations in Earth orbit.

"It takes a big investment to get back to the moon," Erb said. "I just don't see a graceful migration path to get to a lunar power system without a massive up-front investment," he said.

Taking a wait-and-see attitude is Paul Werbos, program director for control networks and computational intelligence at the National Science Foundation. He recently co-sponsored with NASA a workshop that looked over the Criswell plan, among other space-research issues.

Werbos said that a critical aspect of Criswell's idea is use of tele-autonomy, that is, how to coordinate human beings on Earth with on-the-job robots stationed on the moon.

"That's the key concept in my mind in order to build any kind of large-scale space power system -- on the Earth or on the moon," he said. "How do you get robots smart enough to do their job under a kind of loose supervision arrangement?"

Re:The fools!

[Valdrax]

The sad thing is that SimCity 2000 did as much to demonize microwave transmitted power as it did to popularize the idea. Glaser's original design poses very little risk to life around the unit because the beam would be very diffused. Learn more about the idea here.

Um.... the moon, like, moves...

[HarveyBirdman]

Realtive to the Earth's surface, that is.

I remember the early ideas for solar power sats way back when, and they almost always involved geosynchronous satellites so you don't have to aim at a moving target. Not as optimal as an LEO, but I believe for a focused beam most of your losses are in the atmosphere anyway, so another 20,000 miles or so of space is a good trade for the issues of aiming or relaying.

Now in the past few years we keep seeing these wacky plans to put the arrays on the moon (very far away and down in another gravity well making servicing a really big issue, robots or not), and beam the energy around via realy satellites. It just seems so wastetful. The only advantage I can think of is that the lunar array could *maybe* be built so large that the transmission losses don't matter.

It just seems like geosync is such a better solution, though. You could incorporate the next generation of communication satellites into the power arrays.

Re:barbeque

[AGMW]

how would you stop birds and insects etc flying through the beam and becoming incinerated ?

I'm thinking probably we can't. A mate of mine used to work for ITN (Independent Television News - UK Broadcaster) and he said you'd regularly get birds falling out of the sky if they flew to close to (ie through) the microwave links.

Nice

Issues of Weaponizing this System

[Dukeofshadows]

This reminds me of the nuclear debates of the late 1940s. Do we use one of the most efficient energy transmitters conceiveable to power our planet or empower our government? Though it sounds like science fiction, the US army toyed with the idea of using focus solar energy as a weapons system early in the cold war (I've seen the films where they built a prototype complex and incinerated large I-beams of steel as if they were Dreamsicles next to a lighter). The US Army proved that microwave solar technology could be used to relay electricity from extraordinary altitudes in the mid 1960s. In Japan the University of Kyoto is already toying with development of a space-based satellite using an area of 1km^2 to generate solar power then beam it back to earth. The potential for near-limitless energy is especially appealing, though fossil fules would sitll be used in most of our transportation systems for some time to come (no one I know has a mass-market purely-electrical car with over a 150 mile range or better speed than 60 MPH, please send in any info on e-cars that are better).

My concern is that any nation putting this sort of system into place risks misalignment of the beams and having a solar laser of incredible power strafing across the landscape. It would be extremely tempting for terrorists or rogue governments to either put these is orbit themselves, or more likely sabotage/take over those already in place. We would then be forced to either destroy the satellite or launch military strikes on the offending parties, mandating the development and refinement of rapid-deployment and anti-space missile technology. Granted, this is a dual use system whose benefits far outweigh the detractions, but the military application of such a solar energy system seems so obvious that it must be considered.

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[Pendersempai]

My concern is that any nation putting this sort of system into place risks misalignment of the beams and having a solar laser of incredible power strafing across the landscape.

This is so preventable that it makes me laugh.

Make the communication two-way. If the reception dish loses its lock on the power beam or if the transmitter loses its lock on the communication beam, the whole apparatus shuts off until it can be inspected.

The paranoia around such a non-issue just goes to show how stinkin' awful humans are at gut-feel cost-benefit analysis. You've seen it happen (as a Disaster) in SimCity 2000; therefore, it must be a real risk.

Ditto for those who are afraid of flying, living near a modern fission plant, or sharing files on KaZaA.

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[calethix]

"My concern is that any nation putting this sort of system into place risks misalignment of the beams and having a solar laser of incredible power strafing across the landscape."

That's why it should be tested in Florida first. Until the bugs are worked out, we can blame any mishaps on the Xindi.

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[drinkypoo]

My concern is that any nation putting this sort of system into place risks misalignment of the beams and having a solar laser of incredible power strafing across the landscape.

That's impossible! When you use microwaves, it's called a MASER.

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[vlm]

Low beam density makes it a useless weapon.
The whole concept is that you could make a system with a beam density low enough that the focusing antenna is reasonably small, yet, with the beam density high enough that its not cheaper to just slap down solar cells on the ground.

Essentially you are getting more power from the cells in space, so as to offset the transmission and "shipping" (rocket launch) costs.

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[trg83]

>What's the delay (speed of light) between moon transmission and earth reception?

I'm not going to calculate the arc traversal and such, but here's the delay: The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s. The center of the moon is about 238,700 miles from the center of the earth. Although the light would not have to travel even that far, I will use that as a basis for my calculation.

299,792,458 m/s * (1 mi / 1609.3 m) =~ 186287.5 mi/s

So, 238,700/186287.5 ~= 1.28 s.

My guess is that the beam could traverse a very wide arc in 1.28 s and kill many people--though it would probably be a quick, painless death.

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[malakai]

After reading the article, it appears the max power of the beam that reaches individual substations is 20% of noon-time sunlight.

I think the FUD slashdot users have built into this system can now safely be ignored.

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[brandido]

Did you RTA? The article states that:

The intensity of each power beam is restricted to 20%, or less, of the intensity of noontime sunlight. Each power beam can be safely received, for example, in an industrially zoned area.

Based on this, even if the lasers did go "strafing across the landscape" the biggest problem would be slightly darker tans or maybe one or two more cases a year of skin cancer :)

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[lazlo]

OK, here's my quick off-the-cuff calculations on this:

assumptions:

the beam is 3.6Gw (which is a fairly large amount...)
collector is 100 M on a side (10,000 sq m)
nearest un-shielded habitation is 2km away
out-of-alignment condition will be noticed immediately, but will take one speed-of-light rtt to shut down (note, if the collector is on the lunar surface, but relay satellites are in geosync, then the rtt from the geosync satellites is about .6 seconds, as opposed to the approx 2 seconds rtt to luna)
worst-case scenario is a prostrate person occluding 1 sq. M of space.

calculations:

The beam is delivering 360 Kw/sq m, 100 watt-hrs/sq meter /second. Worst-case, the beam travels the 2km in exactly the 2 seconds of rtt. The hundred meters of beam width will pass over any point along that path in approx .1 seconds, adding 10 watt-hr/sq meter, i.e., 10 watt-hr to our worst-case prostrate person. If I'm doing my calculations correctly, that's about 9000 calories. I occlude about 1 square meter, and mass about 100 kilos. One calorie raises one gram one degree celcius, so that energy would raise my body temperature by .09 degrees celsius, which I doubt I would notice.

Now, the *really* worst case scenario would be if the beam traveled the 2Km in .000001 seconds, and then stopped dead for 2 seconds. That would deliver 200 watt-hrs, elevating the temperature of prostrate people in the vicinity by about 1.8 degrees celsius, which would probably be noticable, but unlikely to be deadly (and extremely unlikely to melt the ground to a puddle of glowing magma...) (of course, all of this assumes that the person is absorbing 100% of the transmitted energy.) However, it seems to me that there are reasonably simple ways to make this sort of failure much more difficult (I'm thinking that the relay station is in two components, a transmitter and a colimator, tethered together with the center-of-gravity of the entire structure being in geosync and tidal forces providing tension on the tethers. Put a wave-guide assembly between the transmitter and the colimator so that mis-alignment will turn it from a wave guide into a reflector. That would mean that a drift off-target would require the entire assembly to move, so you've got a lot of inertia guaranteeing that drift will tend to be constant, as opposed to jerking far off target and then stopping suddenly)

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[drinkypoo]

Electronic Supercharger? Sounds like something the rice-boys cooked up. An Electronic Supercharger(currently available) can only push 1.5PSI over regular, not enough to make a significant difference.

Just how would the supercharger allow the engine to run off hydrogen anyways?

I didn't say electronic, I said electric, though it will be both electronic (electrically controlled) and electric (electrically driven.)

I refer you to a Ford page on Hydrogen Internal Combustion which was the first link in a google search on "hydrogen supercharger gasoline"; hydrogen and supercharger for obvious reasons, gasoline because we're talking about gasoline engines. Ford is also using high compression pistons, but with the use of an electric supercharger, this should not be necessary, only a good idea. A set of high compression pistons for a 4 cylinder car costs approximately $500 (for forged pistons) plus another $100 in rings, so it's not all that expensive, but investing in the labor is pretty significant. Ford is also using coil on plug, which is also not necessary, but certainly makes the ECU program a lot simpler.

I direct you to the following paragraph:

Designing a gasoline engine to burn hydrogen fuel has typically resulted in significantly lower power output--until now. Ford researchers have shown that with supercharging, the hydrogen ICE can deliver the same power as its gasoline counterpart and still provide near-zero-emissions performance and high fuel economy. The centrifugal-type supercharger provides nearly 15 pounds per square inch (psi) of boost on demand.

Ford is using the same engine in which they ordinarily burn gasoline, but with higher compression and different fuel injectors.

As far as an "electronic supercharger" (if I put an electronic boost gauge in my turbo system, that's effectively an electronic supercharger, a meaningless term if I've ever seen one - again, you want the word electric or perhaps the phrase electrically driven) goes, the ones sold on ebay won't even provide 1.5PSI over regular. They can't compress air. They're just fans. However there are real live electric superchargers such as one from Visteon spoken of here.

Note that on some cars, the so-called electric superchargers such as e-Ram may improve power by improving the dispersion of fuel into the fuel-air mix by creating a vortex effect in the intake and thus in the combustion chamber, but they could also worsen it through the same effect, in the case of vehicles with a tuned intake. Most intakes are built for price and not performance, which is why intake porting alone can produce several horsepower, but on those which are designed for power, the e-Ram will likely decrease performance.

Also, the simple installation of an actual supercharger on a car without a MAP, or Mass Air Pressure sensor, will cause the car to run lean, thus likely leading to detonation. Most cars which do not use "speed density" methods for deciding how much air is entering (at such and such speed, so much air) use a MAF or Mass Air Flow sensor which determines airflow based on either the deflection of a reed or the difference in temperature of a hot wire not in the airflow, and one which is. Since denser air will carry away more heat, this system will work to a certain degree for supercharged systems, but in many cases they're not up to the task. I believe some modern Mustangs use pressure sensors.

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[wayward_son]

So will this be the Microwave power from SimCity 2000, or the Ion Cannon from Command and Conquer?

Aaah, The glory days of mid 1990's gaming.

Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System

[Pendersempai]

right, because space systems don't fail, airplanes don't crash, reactors don't explode or melt down, and no one gets busted using Kazaa...

Right, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You, AC absolutely suck at making intelligent risk management decisions. Seriously: pay someone else to make them for you.

EVERYTHING is a risk. You can't get around it. Breathing our atmosphere puts you at some risk for respiratory ailments. Letting the sunlight touch your skin increases your risk for skin cancer. Stepping into an automobile is a TREMENDOUS risk, absolutely DWARFING the combined risks faced by a man who travels twice every day by plane, lives IN a nuclear power plant, and shares his music on KaZaA.

Yes, it DOES happen that any and all of these will lead to at least one consequence worldwide. We aren't interested in a categorical "has it killed people?" but rather in a question of degree: "What proportion of people exposed to this risk suffers the consequences?" We're interested in expected values. And the probability of suffering the much-feared consequences of flying, living near a power plant, or sharing music is VIRTUALLY NIL.

Review insurance policies. Living near a plant does not increase your life insurance premiums. Neither does flying. Are you better equipped to assess these risks than paid actuaries?

No...

Woo

[rf0]

Now I can heat my food by just holding it out the window

Rus

No indeed - some experiments to date

[another_henry]

A low power has been demonstrated. William C. Brown demonstrated a flying helicopter powered by microwaves - they are picked up by rectennas (rectifying antennas) which are enormously efficient at converting back to usable electrical energy. (50 to 85% DC-microwave-DC efficiency).

This site also has some interesting information on beamed-power research.

There are even competitions!

Re:No indeed - some experiments to date

[splattertrousers]

...they are picked up by rectennas...

I think Cartman had a rectenna once.

Re:Zoned areas...

[Scutter]

Not any different than current flight zone restrictions. Seen any aviation charts lately? The ones I use are a veritable maze of restricted areas. In fact, a "microwave power zone" would likely be a heck of a lot smaller than your typical Class B or even Class C airport (both of which are controlled airspaces).

America's Moon

[handy_vandal]

Dr. Criswell predicts that with this project, "the average American income could increase from today's ~$35,000/y-person to more than $150,000/y-person."

As an American, I'm happy to imagine my income going from "most affluent nation on the planet" to "even more affluent".

But as a human being I have to ask: what about the rest of humanity? Do they get a share?

Re:Net positive energy?

[Mr. Slippery]

I've never heard of solar cells being net positive in terms of energy -- the materials and manufacturing processes always involve far more energy than the cells can produce in their lifetimes.

That hasn't been true for a long time now. Photovoltaics repay the engery invested in them in the first few years of their life, and everything after that is gravy.

Gimme a break

[KrackHouse]

Give me a break, a rogue government is much more likely to buy a briefcase sized nuke than construct trillion dollar space laser. If we can torch a terrorist in a car in the middle of traffic without killing innocent civilians nearby then I say more power to them.

Re:Gimme a break

[IthnkImParanoid]

If we can torch a terrorist in a car in the middle of traffic without killing innocent civilians nearby

You meant after a trial, of course. Right?

Re:Gimme a break

[BrianH]

Depends on what the terrorist is doing. If the terrorist is running out to buy a bagel and coffee, then yes, he should be arrested and tried. On the other hand, if he's got a trunkload of sarin gas and is on his way to give everyone in Manhattan a very bad day, then we should simply kill him before he has a chance to activate his weapons.

Anyone who advocates giving EVEY terrorist a trial is a misguided idealist. Anyone who advocates killing every terrorist without a trial is a coldhearted fascist. Reality, as always, demands a solution somewhere in the middle.

Re:Gimme a break

[ViolentGreen]

The problem with this is that intelligence can be wrong. We saw the US bomb several places thinking that Saddam or is cronies were there. They weren't. If we just start zapping people out of the sky, innocent people are going to get zapped from false intelligence.

Re:Gimme a break

[Fizyx]

If we can torch a terrorist in a car in the middle of traffic without killing innocent civilians nearby then I say more power to them.

Pun intended?

Re:Gimme a break

[Lord Kano]

Anyone who advocates giving EVEY terrorist a trial is a misguided idealist.

Our constitution requires it. There is a difference between sniping someone before he can activate the switch on a bomb and in killing a known terrorist just because we can get away with it.

Everyone who can be brought to justice, should be brought to justice. In a court of law. Pure and simple.

I hate child molestors even more than terrorists, and those perverts should have their day in court with a fair trial.

LK

Re:Gimme a break

[JeanPaulBob]

If we just start zapping people out of the sky, innocent people are going to get zapped from false intelligence.

Yeah, but if we outlaw zapping people from the sky, only people from the sky will zap outlaws.

Er... Wait...

Re:barbeque

[CmdrGravy]

well, actually yes I do but then that may be because I work in KFC

Fried birds for dinner anyone?

[TheVampire]

And when the dead birds, bats, and butterflies ( etc. ) start piling up around the reception point, ( not to mention the random idiot in an aircraft that just happens to forget about "restricted airspace" ) what do we do then?

Oh, and lets not forget the satellites and other spacecraft that might fly through the beam while orbiting the earth.

TheVampire

Re:Net positive energy?

[WOV]

Yes it has - that statistic dates from ca. 1974, when solar cells were essentially hand-assembled from purpose-grown silicon crystals. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory did a study on this a few years back, estimating ca. 3 years' energy payback from hugely conservative assumptions - Here, in PDF form. However, current efficiencies are slightly better than they were at the time, and silicon production has improved as well...(check shellsolar for their latest.) Silicon being your major material and energy cost here, in most cases...the rest is just frames, glass, and wires. If, as it appears, Uni-Solar/ECD has finally got their production line unscrewed, they'll ahve even better efficiencies,a s they use a thin-film process.

Re:What about the 'whoops'?

[Johnny5000]

Remember when we had the War on Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore? It'll be just like that.

Lots of problems with this

[retro128]

I'm already seeing several problems with this.

First of all, the moon is not geosynchronous. Since the moon does not stay in a fixed position over the surface of Earth, how are you going to be able to have a centralized power station receive this energy? Oh you could build hundreds of them, but everyone would have to take their turn. And besides that this sounds like an "American" project. I'd love to hear about how they plan on getting power when the moon happens to be on the other side of the planet.

Relay satellites will not work. Yes, I read the bit about the relay satellites, but that's ridiculous. They would work fine for radio, which only needs miniscule amounts of current in order to work, but if you want to generate enough electricity to power even a lightbulb, you are talking about an enormous amount of radio power. There are only two ways a radio beam can be "bent": Either you bounce it off of something, or you have a station repeat the signal. In the case of power generation, the latter will not work...How are you going to regenerate that much power in a tiny satellite? And if you could, what would be the point of having the lunar base to begin with? Using the satellite as a passive relay would cause enormous power loss.

Besides all this, there's just too much complexity here. Every time you convert from one kind of energy to another there is always some loss involved. So what this guy's proposing is that you have a solar array on the moon, which converts sunlight to electricity at about 20% efficiency, which then converts this electricity to microwaves, which is then beamed down to earth, but never to a fixed location because the moon doesn't stay in one place relative to the surface of the earth, so then you could possibly go though relay satellites which would cause insane power loss. When the beam gets to earth, probably about 4% of its original strength, it's then converted to electricty again and might be able to power some blinky LED's, if you're lucky.

Wouldn't it be easier just to build a massive solar array HERE ON EARTH??

Refraction is neglible.

[G4from128k]

The main problem would more likely be what if a cold current of air changes the refractivity of some part of the atmosphere just a little bit so that the beam goes just .1 of a degree off and cooks up a residential neighbourhood instead of providing it with electricity... Lets check the math on this one. Air has an index of refraction of about 1.000292. The .000292 portion is roughly proportional to the density of the air, which is roughly proportional to the absolute temperature of the air. Assuming a 40,000 foot air column and a beam-to-atmosphere incidence angle of 50 degreees (power to a city in the far north or south from an equatorial-orbit power station), the deflection angle due to refraction is about 0.02 degrees or about 14 feet in total.

This 14 foot refraction is also roughly proportional to the absolute temperature of the air. Between summer (35 C) and winter(-35 C), we have a temperature range of about 23%. So the beam will wander about only about 3 feet over the most extreme temperature variations that are likely. (This calculation is only an approximation, but I am sure it is accurate enough to show that refraction is not a big deal.)

Others will have to comment on scattering.

Re:Refraction is neglible.

[mrtroy]

Lets say that the beam is 10 foot wide. Make the earth recieving station 100 feet wide.

Then, have sensors detect if it ever varies more than 20 feet outside the center of the recieving station to send a signal to turn the microwave off.

Build this station in the middle of deserts, or away from cities, the extra power consumed to transport it to cities is nothing in comparison to having a major accident in a residential area.

Pretty simple suggestions, but why not try and make use of this?

Re:Average income says nothing

[vidarh]

If you think there's hardly a wealth gap at all in Africa, you really, really need a better grasp of reality.

If anything, the wealth gaps in Africa is ridiculously large. You have people in most African countries that are close to the wealth levels of the richest people in the developed countries, yet the poorest people live on much less than most poor people in the developed countries, and make up

And I just can't agree with you about the "rewards". Most of the wealth held by the richest couple of percent today are in the hands of people who INHERITED their fortune or significant parts of it, and who might have grown that fortune mostly by letting investment advisors shuffle paper, and dictators or ex dictators who STOLE IT from their people.

There are a few exceptions, but often their stories will be about people who takes someone elses inventions and understand how to sell it better. Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, for instance, both fall in that category. Very few people have become wealthy as a result of true innovation of product as opposed to innovation in product placement.

no, really, it's safe.

[twitter]

Come on, now. We know that US power industry would only use a reliable OS like NT for control and only point them at safe industrial areas like Bohpal.

Just kidding. We should do this and do it right. More megawatts is better megawatts. Grow, Grow, Grow!

Once again, the wrong way

[Twillerror]

Once again someone is going about feeding a huge number of consumers ( the human population ) with centralized sources. Although this is convient it does not scale.

Why not put solar panels on everyones house. Or on the top of building and have them feed battery array.

Or create lots of small fuel cells instead of one big coal power generator.

Or have our new cars charge themselves and then the power grid with solar/fuel cell combos.

Microwaves power is such a cool, but stupid idea. Kind of line nuclear power. Lets create a really expensive solution that leave nuclear waste for our kids to deal with, great....think outside the box people.

Re:What about the 'whoops'?

[Anonymous Coward]

So then you immediately shut down the microwave beam...

Don't forget that you can't communicate with the moon faster than the speed of light.

1. Beam drifts off the receiver and points at your head.
2. Receiver loses power and sends command to moon to retarget the beam.
3. The vitrous humor in your eyeballs begins to heat up.
4. 1.3 seconds later, the moon station receives the command to shut off, and does so.
5. The vitrous humor in your eyeballs starts to boil, and you start screaming and flapping your arms. A bunch of construction guys are watching you and wondering wtf.
6. A shaft of microwave beams 250,000 miles long takes another 1.3 seconds to slide into your head.
7. Having absorbed over 2.5 seconds worth of the highest concentration of microwave energy that man can generate, you taste like chicken and look really gross.

And that's if the system works perfectly.

A largely discredited idea.

[WOV]

Documented convnetional solar photovoltaic prices (ca. 15% efficiency, residential / commercial rooftop type cell, price per Watt capacity):

1976: $100.00

1981: $9.83

1985: $8.74

1992: $4.74

2000: $2.70

2003: $2.50 (ish. This last one approximate.)

If it gets down to about $1.10, your total system cost with racks, inverters, etc. will be ca. $3.00 /Watt for a grid-tie system. Your payback (money, on a home-equity loan) would be well inside 10 years, your energy payback within 3. Most analysts and manufacturers are calling this point about 2010 - 2012 at current industry growth rates.

The cost decline there is mostly associated with major increases in manufacturing scale (25%+ annual growth rates over the last 10 years.)

At the end of the day, you don't need to do anything that exotic to make solar power economically feasible. Bring the US R&D budget up above $100M, (currently ca. $85M,) keep the market increase rate where it is, and we'll get there.

Meanwhile, the increase in panel efficiency associated with leaving the atmosphere does not make up for the enormous cost of heaving something into space. And while I'll defend the energy payback period of photovoltaics, I will no longer do so once you have either launched them atop a gigantic chemical rocket or manufactured them in a factory on the (freaking) moon.

FYI, old-tech warning

[Spamalamadingdong]

Maybe if they play Simcity for awhile, they'll realize that this invention might work much better if they do, in fact, build such a power plant with a few fire-stations nearby... but I'd imagine a real-world application would have some form of laser-alignment system that has the array blocked until it's properly aligned with the receiving station.

You don't use lasers for the alignment, you use microwaves. Actually, you use microwaves of roughly the same frequency as the transmission to you, and you modulate them with a pseudo-random encrypted stream of phase changes a la Code Division Multiple Access.

At the power transmitter, the beam from the ground is captured at many points along the array. The pseudo-random phase changes are subtracted, and the result determines the shape of the wavefront as it's arriving from the ground. This wave-front is then reversed, sending a stream of energy directly back to the transmitter which sent the alignment (actually, phase-reference) beam up to the satellite. Safety features:

1. The system is cryptographically secured against redirecting the beam.
2. The use of the phase-reference beam automatically compensates for variations in the refractive index of the atmosphere.
3. If the reference beam is lost, the myriad small emitters which form the power-transmitter phased array go out of coherence and effectively transmit all over space in a half-dipole pattern.

This addresses all of the major concerns. The real crime is that this was being written about in the late 1970's, and 20 years later people still have no clue about the groundwork. For this, I blame over-simplified games like... Sim City.

Re:What about the 'whoops'?

[size1one]

"the upper atomsphere which, full of ions, probably does scatter microwaves"

to test this theory the next space shuttle will jettison several microwaves in a tight cluster towards earth.

It could also be a space elevator of sorts.

[ahfoo]

There have been a number of attempts to use ground based lasers to send smal objects into space without the additional burden of the fuel payload. But with a system like this in place it's not too hard to imagine designs of vessles that could harness the energy for flight.

A giant orbiting laser pointed at your planet?

[Lonath]

Been tried before. Probably still not a good idea.

Re:bad idea -- inverse square law

[LowneWulf]

Yeah sure if you were projecting radiation in all directions, there would be an inverse square law. But you'd also be bathing half the planet in microwaves, which would be rather stupid, hence why they would not do it that way.

Same thing with helicopters. They aren't gonna bathe the countryside in energy just to get a whirlygig in the air.

It's simple conservation of energy. If you transmit X joules of energy, it all has to go somewhere. And odds are they're going to spend a lot of time to ensure most of it goes towards the thing consuming (or at least distributing) that energy.

Ultimate weapon

[XNormal]

Do you really need any weapon more powerful than offering the whole world power at less than a tenth of current prices and then be the one that can pull the plug?

Dr Criswell

[XNormal]

Is the NASA curator of the moon rocks brought back by Apollo. He'd better know what resources are in moon rocks. He also spent the last 20 years figuring out what they can be used to produce using other moon resources such as hard vacuum and plentiful solar energy. Low gravity and having no clouds, dust or wind also helps build lightweight structures and with minimal maintenance.

Insightful? RTFA

[malakai]

I know, I know.. it's slashdot. 99% don't read the articles. But come on...

Each terrestrial receiver can accept power directly from the Moon or indirectly, via relay satellites, when the receiver cannot view the Moon. The intensity of each power beam is restricted to 20%, or less, of the intensity of noontime sunlight. Each power beam can be safely received, for example, in an industrially zoned area.

Even if a bird HOVERED over the area for hours it wouldn't be harmed.

Hell, they can probably put out chase lounge chairs and sell seats to rich bitches that want a quick tan.

Build a Club Med under one of the transmission reception areas. Rain or shine, you'd get the UV exposure for 20% noon-time all the time.

We're doing it!

[wildmage]

My research lab is working on a project to do just this. We're developing a system to assemble structures in space using an array of distributed self-reconfigurable robots. You can view the project at this website: SOLAR

150k/yr & inflation

[xxTYBALTxx]

look, the actual -numbers- don't matter in this debate. what the dipshit scientist probably meant was that people would make 'the equivilant' of 150k/year. what does that mean? it means that a person working in a typical wage paying job would be able to buy nicer washing machines, a nicer computer, a new car more often (or a nicer car just as often as before, or a really nice car less often than before). you could get nicer silverware. maybe nicer warm clothes. maybe McDonald's would become a more luxurious restaurant - the equivilant of your local 'nice' burger place, while your local burger place becomes just that much better. the country clubs could use kobe beef in their burgers. just look at the past and your questions will be answered. throughout the past century, we had some of the largest innovations in the history of man. at the beginning of the century, people lived in slummy apartments or on rotting farms (we're talking in the US here, btw). by mid-century, people all had their own car and lived in their own little houses or bigger/nicer apartments (i am talking about changes in the middle class, of course). it was as if every class got "bumped up" a notch. poor people (at or below $20k) now buy cars. you must realize that 100 years ago, even 70 years ago, that was inconcievable - for the poorest class of full-time workers to afford their own car. what the doctor in this article is referring to are changes in people's consumption abilities; being able to buy nicer things. he does not mean that everyone will suddenly be freed of their wage-slave lives, only that they will be able to buy more cool stuff with that money. for the cost of a 1950's record player, telephone, and big TV set (or what passed for a big TV set in those days), we get a cheap computer, color tv, CD player, and cell phone. people used to put fans and wood-burning stoves in their houses, now we have air conditioning and electric heating (and, of course, the wood-burning stoves are still pretty nice).

Relay satellites == microwave mirror

[XNormal]

Relay satellites will not work. Yes, I read the bit about the relay satellites, but that's ridiculous.

The relay satellites are microwave mirrors. They just need to be steered to the correct angle to reflect the beam to the receiver. The surface of such a mirror can be 99% vacuum - a mesh with holes smaller than the wavelength.

Wouldn't it be easier just to build a massive solar array HERE ON EARTH??

To meet global power requirements you'll need to cover a significant portion of the Earth's surface and keep it all in good maintenance in the presence of rain, dust, hail, winds, corrosion, condensation, birds, lightning, ground erosion, vegetation, earthquakes and, of course, people.

On the moon even the lightest self-supporting structure will just stand there for hundreds or thousands of years. Other than micrometeorites causing some erosion at a predictable rate nothing happens there.

Re:Can you say "Global Warming" anyone?

[confused one]

Re-read the article then do the math. He's proposing that the intensity be less than 20% day-light max. That would mean a max of 0.20*1.5kW/m^2 or 300 watts/m^2. That's not going to flash-cook anything.

Then consider the following: They claim an efficiency approaching 50%; so, 50% is becoming waste heat. In a typical power plant, there's a bunch of efficiencies that have to be added up: 85% for boiler, 95% for turbine and 95% for generation. That yields 75% system efficiency. Not quite as good for beamed solar; but, not terrible.

The real nightmare occurs when you realize the transmission system is only 70% efficient. So, if we fix that, we can account for quite a bit

Now, here's where you should be concerned about warming: The Earth's heat budget assumes a certain amount of sunlight striking it's surface -- based simply on the amount of surface area facing the Sun. We'd be increasing the heat energy the Earth would be receiving because we'd be increasing the exposed surface area by the area of the collectors. If they remain small (few sq miles) it will be insignificant. If we start building really big ones (100's sq miles) then it might become a real problem.

Having More Stuff: 1200 vs 2000

[Tackhead]

> Aren't you dependant on your employer for your basic needs? If so, how is your standard of living any different than that of a medieval serf? Oh, wait: you have more "stuff" so that makes it better...

If I lived in the middle ages, I would be one of the oldest living people in my village. I'd likely be regarded with suspicion of witchcraft because I still have all my teeth, and despite my advanced age, both my mother and my grandmother, are still alive. The Devil Himself must be protecting them, for how else would they live past the unearthly ages fifty - sixty - seventy - eighty - years?

My humble apartment affords me better protection from the elements than that of any Lord, and I pay for it with about a week's work. The food I cook every night with the help of my $12.99 spice rack would be something the King himself could only fantasize about. That's less than a day's wages, after tax, even at minimum wage.

In the palm of my hand, in the form of a $49.99 flash ROM, I can hold a library rivaling that of Alexandria, for it contains not only every book that had been printed until 1200, but every book that would ever be printed for the next five centuries.

So in answer to your question, having more "stuff" really does make it better.

Cheap Orbital Power Stations

[Ugmo]

In reading the original article, the Space.com article and some of the other posts I have seen some people say that we should use Orbital Power satellites instead of Moon based ones.

I would agree, but as we see in the ISS, it is very expensive to build such massive projects. The Space.com article mentions that the Moon based project could be built in stages and in pieces.

This gave me an idea. What if small orbital power satellites were built. I mean small, less than a square foot in area. The solar array on them would be hexagonal and they would be designed to plug into other copies on either side.

Then, everytime anyone launches anything you stick a couple of these in any free space in the launch module. NASA launches would require you to add one to each launch as a cost of doing business or in return for a tax break or other incentive.

Each unit would have a small booster on them and they would fly slowly up to a predefined location and hook up with their brothers into a larger array, maybe built around a prelaunched rectenna unit. Maybe the booster would be an ion rocket powered by the solar array. If you are patient you would only need to get them to LEO.

If the Xbox prize guys come through they could go into a side business of launching these units also, maybe get a % of any money generated by selling the resulting electricity.

The big advantage is that if any unit fails or gets blown up during launch you're not out a lot of money. If they are mass produced and optimized they should be cheaper than one large station and maybe more than one company could make them.

Slowly, eventually a huge array would be built.

Eclipses

[ThetaPi]

If the solar power stations were on the moon, a lunar eclipse would be problematic I think. A similar problem would occur with satellites in geosynchronous orbit. How would the world react to a global blackout?

It would be possible to build large power storage stations on Earth to act as a buffer, but I think this would be rather expensive.

I doubt this power system would be the only source of electricity on Earth, but a cheap supply of electricity would likely reduce the profitability of fossil fuel systems. Hydroelectric and wind based systems could still be used, but these are not available in some areas. I am not sure how these systems compare in expense.

RIght...

[Kjella]

On the other hand, if he's got a trunkload of sarin gas and is on his way to give everyone in Manhattan a very bad day, then we should simply kill him before he has a chance to activate his weapons.

And that giant space laser will just take out the driver's seat right, not the trunk full of sarin gas? Gas under pressure + heat = baaaad idea.

Kjella

Fusion.

[Grendel Drago]

Well... I wouldn't be quite so quick to write off fusion power. See, there's a point at which a fusion reaction generates power and becomes self-sustaining. Since the first tokamaks were built in the 1970s, there has been pretty much logarithmic progress toward that point.

See?

(I saw a more detailed picture with points drawn for major reactor projects like JET in my quantum book, but have been unable to find another since. Foo. Anyone out there seen it?)

--grendel drago

macroeconomics and the $25-dollar burger

[nxs212]

In my stupid macroeconomics class we learned that prices will "adjust" themselves to people's income levels. (if they don't, you get depression)
So if everyone, including the person who's serving your food, starting making $150k, then big mac's price would go up to $25 and possibly more.
Also, just because McDonalds and Burger King got their actual cost to make one glass of soda down to 1 cent, it doesn't mean they should or would pass down the savings to you.
Soaring profits would cause their stock price to go up and in turn, that would boost people's "worth", assuming they invested in the stock market. Inflation would hit soon thereafter and everyone would be bitching (again) how expensive [fill-in-the-blank] is and how expensive their mega-mansion was.
(BIG cars and big homes is the American way, so if the energy prices dropped, we would build BIGGER to make up the difference...)

Re:1.21 Gigawatts....

[The Master Control P]

"Relax, doc... All we need is a little plutonium."
"Oh, well I'm sure that in 1985 you can buy plutonium in every corner drug store, but in 1955 it's very hard to come by!"

Increase of energy usage -- more heat generated!!

[renoX]

I think that all these proposal to increase the amount of energy avoid a potential problem: the corresponding increase of heat generated..

Eventually all this energy will turn into heat, so it is quite possible that this will eventually raise earth's temperature..
I think that it may be wiser to increase the efficiency usage of energy than to increase the amount of energy used, well unless of course we need to warm up the earth..

bah

[eamonman]

I've zoned most of my microwave power plants near my schools. 1) I noticed they don't mind the warm glow. 2) They seem to prefer using my newly rezoned "Resort Island" compared to the old 'coal power / trash heap island' for living on rather than for just power generation.
100 percent approval can't be wrong ;)

Impossible!

[thparker]

This is silly. Everyone knows that the microwave beams can't penetrate the electro-magnetic field created by the earth's spinning core!