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Palau May Get Satellite Power In the Next Decade

Posted by kdawson on from the working-on-the-tan dept.

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."

36 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. why Palau? by xubu_caapn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    so why Palau? is the fact that its an island nation preferable for this technology?

    --
    FYI: I don't know what you guys are talking about half the time.
    1. Re:why Palau? by jpu8086 · · Score: 2

      because you can only have so many diesel generators on an island.

      --
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  2. Just a demo by dunadan67 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The description here is a bit misleading. From the sound of the article, Palau is really just a testbed for this technology. I'm assuming that they aren't footing any of the bill that is about 6X their GDP.

    1. Re:Just a demo by gerrytucker · · Score: 5, Informative

      I normally don't take the time to reply to Slashdot posts, but for some reason this response really jumped out at me. After really reading the article, not just one paragraph out of context, the reader clearly understands that a U.S. business man proposed this demo at an international conference and has German and Swiss partners in the project. Furthermore, they are going to be using one of the uninhabited islands as a safety precaution. The only mention of the U.S. military is that they did a 75 page study on the idea of transmitting power for military operations. After that, it only talks about the businessmen. Hardly the picture of the "war machine" pushing around a tiny nation which for some reason was scored as Informative.

    2. Re:Just a demo by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, if by "rich weirdo" you mean a certain transplanted Texas cowboy, you could be right. Fortunately he'll be gone soon. I hope.

      Somewhat more seriously, the output of a power system like this would have to be fairly diffuse, to maintain a low enough energy density not to be dangerous to living tissue. Granted, what might not be dangerous to humans or larger animals might have deleterious effects on smaller organisms. From that perspective, a mid-ocean setting makes a good choice for a trial. Not that I read TFA or anything.

      Also, there would have to be some incidental heating of the atmosphere as the beam passes through it, although the transmission frequency would be chosen with that in mind. It would be interesting to know what the possible effects on the weather would be if this technology becomes more widespread.

      I've been fascinated by the idea of solar power satellites for decades, after reading about it in a sci-fi novel when I was a kid. It does make a lot of sense in many ways because in space, solar power is something. This may very well be the future of electric power generation, and might be what gives us ready access to near-space. Using beamed microwave or laser delivery of energy to vaporize reaction mass in a rocket has been theorized for some time (I think MIT did some small prototypes of a laser system.) In such a vehicle, your "fuel" can just be water, with the power provided by satellites or a ground-based array.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    3. Re:Just a demo by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you really had read the article then you would understand that the relation between this project and the US military is not a "paragraph out of context". The article states not only that the US defence department studied this option in the past but scrapped it for being too expensive, which nowadays, with all the developments on solar technology and materials, it is clearly not. Moreover, it also states, and you've seen to missed it, that this particular project has the US military as "an influential backer".

      Then you go on about "a war mashine pushing around a tiny nation". I have to compliment you on your imagination, as neither the article nor my post mentions anything remotely related to oppressing anyone. Palau was chosen to be the place where they test this technology. That is all. How exactly do you justify the jump from "testing technology" to "a war machine pushing around a tiny nation"? You don't and you can't.

      And then you mention the business aspect of it, as if it was some sort of proof that this project is not related to any military application, right after conveniently ignoring the fact that the US military is described as "influential backer". What you failed to understand is that the US of A, practically since it became an independent nation, depends on private business to supply it's military. whether through direct funding, starting companies or through procurement.

      So maybe you could pay some attention to the articles you claim you've read.

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  3. urban re-design and development by User+956 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The island nation of Palau is looking into creating a satellite-to-ground power transmission system.

    I'm sure the US Army already has such a thing, although they probably plan on using it to make glass parking lots.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  4. SimCity by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anyone else just flash on an image of a beam from space getting misaligned with the receiver and vaporizing sections of your city?

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    Technoli
    1. Re:SimCity by wizardforce · · Score: 2, Insightful

      explosions aren't the problem with this power level, inducing currents in conductive materials like say electronics is. more powerful versions with a tighter beam may be able to do physical damage rather than electronuc damage but they are likely a few years off.

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    2. Re:SimCity by rickwood · · Score: 4, Interesting

      One solution is to power the satellite with a return beam from the Earth station. If the main beam wanders, it loses power and cuts off. There are other solutions.

  5. Asimov by radius1214 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isaac Asimov wrote about a power source like this in "I, Robot." There were stations in space that absorbed solar energy and transmitted it back to Earth. If the ray became out of align, or if a magnetic storm intercepted the ray on its way toward the receptacle on the ground, it would distort the energy causing severe damage to huge portions of the planet. In the case of Palau, if they can get this technology working properly, it would be interesting to see how the United States or the EU would use this to aid their combat against global warming and non-renewable energy. Maybe the Space Station will get equipped with a huge solar array to send renewable energy down to Earth, eh?

    --
    --"Forget the nectar of the Gods, just give me some Mountain Dew."
    1. Re:Asimov by ShakaUVM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My AP Bio teacher back in the day talked about this technology being about the worst thing possible for global warming, as it actually increases the amount of energy coming in to the Earth. Even oil just burns energy that was stored as organic matter ages ago.

      Nuclear is still the best way to deal with global warming.

    2. Re:Asimov by Xaositecte · · Score: 2, Informative

      The idea behind global warming is the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which traps existing energy rather than allowing it to escape out into space. If the decrease in emissions allows more energy to escape than is being introduced into the system, you have a net benefit as far as global warming is concerned.

      Secondly, if you produce energy through Solar power like this that you otherwise would have produced using oil, you aren't producing a net increase in energy. The oil is still stored there, not introduced into the global system. Indeed, energy from ANY source, including nuclear, increases the amount of energy introduced into the global system.

      The only differences between using solar power as opposed to oil or nuclear are one of these is likely to be more efficient (damned if I know which one) - and Solar power is renewable until the sun runs out, at which point we've got bigger problems to worry about.

  6. What kind of boondoggle is this? by SKorvus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're paying $800 per watt, when a company is now shipping solar panels that cost under $1/watt, AND have a single, expensive point of failure? What is the point of beaming solar energy down from space, to a tropical island?

    Ground-based solar including panels and batteries could be built local to each home or village, at a fraction of the cost of this over-engineered idea.

    --
    Live simply, that others may simply live. -Gandhi
    1. Re:What kind of boondoggle is this? by sokoban · · Score: 2

      Ground-based solar including panels and batteries could be built local to each home or village, at a fraction of the cost of this over-engineered idea. Maybe they have higher power requirements than there is area available for solar panels. They are an island after all. Space is kind of limited.
      --
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    2. Re:What kind of boondoggle is this? by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

      They're paying $800 per watt, when a company is now shipping solar panels that cost under $1/watt

      Uh.....unions?

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    3. Re:What kind of boondoggle is this? by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's for my science project!

      I can find you a better way to kill an ant than a giant space laser.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    4. Re:What kind of boondoggle is this? by Colin+Smith · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, but you're missing the point. They'll be in debt for 2000 years so the banks will be happy, the people will be able to beam with pride at how technologically advanced they are and the government get to look like they're important.

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      Deleted
    5. Re:What kind of boondoggle is this? by BlueParrot · · Score: 2

      when a company is now shipping solar panels that cost under $1/watt


      No they don't, the $1/W price is what they hope getting the price down to with time. Or put in a slightly different way $1/W is a press release from their marketing department which doesn't accurately specify under what conditions it applies.
  7. Something about water and melanin by C10H14N2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Brown people surrounded by large bodies of water are better equipped to deal with being bombarded by intense solar radiation than white people surrounded by large buildings.

    1. Re:Something about water and melanin by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

      [Why do it first on an island?] Brown people surrounded by large bodies of water are better equipped to deal with being bombarded by intense solar radiation than white people surrounded by large buildings.

      If I was modding this, I would be dumbfounded to find an appropriate mod tag. It makes you think, but just smells sooooo wrong.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Something about water and melanin by Ignis+Flatus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      it may be right, but for the wrong reasons. skin color isn't going to make a difference when being hit by a misaligned microwave beam. use white and brown eggs in your own microwave to test this theory.

    3. Re:Something about water and melanin by mikiN · · Score: 2, Funny

      Microwaves are colour blind, you (sk)insensitive clod!

      --
      The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
    4. Re:Something about water and melanin by hoggoth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > it may be right, but for the wrong reasons. skin color isn't going to make a difference when being hit by a misaligned microwave beam. use white and brown eggs in your own microwave to test this theory.

      Oh, he's right for the right reasons.
      The U.S. has a history of testing their weapons on brown people first.

      --
      - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  8. Long, uphill climb by Stuntmonkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hmmm, 1MW for $0.8B, that's $800/Watt. About 800x the cost of coal, and 200x the cost of old-school photovoltaics. That's quite a lot of ground to make up, especially given that presumably the largest component of expense -- launch costs -- have a very low likelihood of improving by this factor until something like the space elevator comes along.

    This story seems like a hoax. The nation of Palau has only 20,000 people, and a annual GDP of $160M. Are they really going to invest in a single R&D project that costs five times their national GDP? I call BS.

  9. tatoo: "the math, the math" by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't get how satellites can be cheaper than simply setting up bunches of solar panels on the ground. Putting poundage into space and managing it is damned expensive, let alone the precision aiming technology. I don't get the accounting here. Please help me, I'm a doctor, not an accountant (well ok, I'm not actually a doc, but it makes a better cliche).

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  10. This is what happens when by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...the natives believe their spam.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  11. There are side benefits by edwardpickman · · Score: 4, Funny

    All the cooked birds you can eat.

  12. Same sized receiver? by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

    Article: One NASA study visualized solar-panel arrays 3 by 6 miles in size, transmitting power to similarly sized rectennas on Earth.

    1. That could glow pretty bright in the night sky. Environmentalists may complain.

    2. So much for real-estate savings.

    3. How the hell did the name "rectenna" get past the marketing department? Must be from the Uranus Ad Agency.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  13. Beat the waves by complex(179,-70) · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can already see a great TV reality show. "Beat the Waves", where contestants have 90 minutes to cross the island, preferably while trying to slow down the others in any way possible. Beer and chips ready, GO.

  14. what? by sentientbrendan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    so their plan is to put a solar panel in space... because solar radiation is 8 times more powerful... umm... I'm pretty sure that putting the same surface area of solar panels in space is going to cost *way* more than 8 times as much as putting it on the ground.

    Then of course there's the idea that we will somehow magically "beam" the energy to the ground. Here's an idea, we let the sunlight beam itself to the ground, instead of putting an enormous expensive satellite as an unnecessary intermediary in the process.

    This is one of the sci fi ideas that sounds cool in a story because it involves big machines and lasers, but is totally nonsensical when you actually take ten seconds to think about it. File this in the same category as giant fighting robots and transporter beams.

  15. let's do the math by Ancient_Hacker · · Score: 3, Informative
    Kinda silly, but let's do the math. We will assume you can build and loft the required equipment for the stated price. A satellite at 300 miles up is going to be overhead for maybe 10 minutes. Let's assume as in TFA it will send down a megawatt during that time. So on the average it's beaming down 166 kilowatts. A kilowatt-hour might cost as much as 20 cents on an island, so this satellite gives them about $34 per hour.

    Now if they went to the UN Bank to borrow the $800 million, they might get an interest rate of 8%. The first year, the interest cost alone is $64 million. The satellite has beamed back 24 * 366 * $34 or a tad under $300,000. This plan can't pay back even 1/200th of the cost of money.

    1. Re:let's do the math by IhuntCIA · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hmm... how narrow can microwave energy beam be?
      Let's say that power output is one gigawatt and say 10 times more denser than solar radiation at the surface, then it is about 10KW per m^2 at surface. Not deadly, but very abundant and slightly hot. Could damage unprotected electronic devices like computers, radios etc. "Hot Spot" radius could be ~560m and microwave radiation might scatter while traveling trough atmosphere, allowing enemy troops to pinpoint beam direction easily.

      It's like saying: "Hello, We're over here! Send Your SCUD missiles on us."
      Not very smart way to supply power to the ground troops.
      Also I can't imagine accurate and reliable beam targeting system for an low Earth orbit satellite.

  16. 184 vs. 4 by jnsaff · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The only time I have heard about this country before is from this little bit of news: UN votes 184 for U.S. to drop embargo on Cuba

    The annual UN vote on the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba saw support for the Caribbean island remain overwhelming, despite a call by President George W. Bush for countries to join Washington in pushing Havana toward democracy.

    Canada was among 184 countries that supported the measure denouncing the embargo, which the world body passed for the 16th year.

    Joining the U.S. in opposing it were close American allies Israel, Palau and Marshall Islands, while Micronesia abstained.

  17. Interim Assessment of Space Solar Power... by mikelieman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://spacesolarpower.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf

    Long story short, if we get off our asses, in 50 years we can have energy independence, AND cheap access to space.

    --
    Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
  18. Simplified description by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Funny

    There isn't space in a Slashdot comment box to describe the many things wrong with this proposal, so I'll sum up:
     
    If the new snake oil powered launchers come online on schedule, and the unobtanium mines in Siberia don't have a another bad winter - this proposal has abour .01% of a chance in hell of meeting the costs and schedules laid out in the article. (Though I suspect the high worldwide demand for handwavium integrated circuits, needed for aiming the satellite's antenna, may be the bottleneck in the end.)