Palau May Get Satellite Power In the Next Decade

davidwr writes "The island nation of Palau is looking into creating a satellite-to-ground power transmission system. The system would use low-orbit satellites to transmit power to a receiver in bursts, unlike some other plans which rely on geostationary satellites. The initial 1-megawatt project is supposed to go online 'as early as' 2012 for a cost of $0.8 billion. Time will tell if this can be made cost-effective compared to traditional solar or other sources of power."

Comments

We really do not need this stuff

[Kupfernigk]

It's already been pointed out that once solar cells are properly commercialised - and this is rapidly getting closer - the entire United States generation baseload could be provided from panels on public land in Arizona alone. Anybody who has been following recent trends in power generation will see that there are basically four threads which are coming together quite fast; solar, wind, nuclear and thermonuclear (i.e. the Toshiba proposal for small inherently safe reactors that could be mainly used for area heating). They are all based on existing technology most of which is over 50 years old. Compared to coal and oil, the safety record of nuclear power generation is pretty good; the Chernobyl incident actually highlighted that the nest way forward with developing countries is to give them the best nuclear technology, because it is the safest.

So why waste time and money on these insane schemes? Presumably because the hidden agenda is military. The military don't care if their beamed power source ionises the hell out of the atmosphere (so long as their radio still works) or accidentally vaporises a few villages. They just want gee whiz toys to play with.

In a world with ample generation capacity, oil would be used to deliver power to areas which were unsuitable for alternatives. Small islands can be supplied nicely with a combination of solar and wind power, and stationary Diesel generators for fill in. Of course it's unglamorous technology, but for real engineers that's a plus. Orbiting power stations, with the incredible difficulty of maintenance, the vast quantities of oil needed to produce the fuel for the rockets that place them, the dangers of misaligned beams, the unknown effects on the atmosphere of beaming large amounts of ionising radiation through it, versus investing far less money in getting advanced solar cells to market faster? If you've got an emotional age over 16, no contest.

A more apropos headline would be:

[Offtopic]

Pentagon squanders $800 million of your hard earned cash.