Slashdot Mirror
Beamed Space Solar Power Plant To Open In 2016?
Eric_S writes "Anybody who managed to get a decent city going in Sim City 2000 remembers the microwave power plant; now it seems like a real-world equivalent might be coming up on the horizon.
The Pacific Gas and Electricity Company, per this 'interview' with the CEO of Solaren on their affiliated site, announced PG&E's plans to buy 200MW of base-load power from a Solaren beamed space solar power plant by 2016." I wish the skeptic in me would be quiet.
In space nobody can hear your company go bankrupt.
There will be a lot of pissed off investors on Earth though.
Because the people over there are pretty progressive on the green energy front, and if there are any problems it will be over San Francisco.
"whatcouldpossiblygowrong". Yea, let's never do anything unless the safety is known to be 100%.
You have to take risks to move forward.
I wonder if there are plans to avoid misses. This makes nuclear look good....
Scott
Why do I picture human-sized ants under a magnifying glass when the beam shifts a little.
... even if they haven't got a clue as to how financially reckless they're being. You kind of have to admire that.
While this kind of power beaming technology is possible, I can't imagine that it's all that efficient. Are we really low enough on other forms of power that there will be enough demand to support this kind of remote endeavor?
There is only one advantage to space based solar power: Essentially no night in space. That is not a good enough reason to shoot that much material into a geostationary orbit. Solar cells age faster in space due to hard radiation. The losses from wireless power transmission further reduce the feasibility. If anyone builds a solar powered microwave beam in space, that is clearly weapons technology, not even dual-use technology.
I'd be concerned with maybe its effects on the weather, maybe global warming. Also, this could affect radio communications on Earth. Or perhaps not, since it probably would operate off of a different frequency. Personally I think that geothermal energy is still a method of energy production that has yet to be tapped on a more massive scale. Why put up satellites and beam power back to Earth when we have excellent sources of power here?
Proudly posting without RTFA.
My mirror up there in the sky got dinked by a marble sized piece of green cheese and burned up your crop. But don't worry about green, in paper form, cheese form or your crops because you won't be needing those eyes as you looked up at the unusual shiny bright thingy.
Ah, that's one way to get a quick tan I'm sure.
We could sell time in it to celebrities.
Or just run animals* through for quick roast dinners.
* or celebrities
Memo from the United States
... I heard Mexico is very jealous.
... but look on the bright side--there sure the hell ain't no zebra mussels left in there now!
February 12th, 2020
Dear Canada,
Yesterday a piece of space trash knocked our Microwave Power Plant operating over Oregon off target from its station. Unfortunately, it continued to beam a strong powerful ray of energy down as its sights fell over your Western provinces. We are sorry.
We urge you not to think of it as "a swath of destruction" so much as "a wicked cool tattoo"
Williston Lake was a very beautiful lake right up until it evaporated
We're also sorry that instead of shutting it down, we just swung it back over Canada to its power station in Oregon and next time we will totally just stop it before this happens. To make up for it, we'll send you some extra power so your people stop rioting and Mad Maxing.
We hope there's no hard feelings,
Sincerely,
The United States
My work here is dung.
This is Sim Copter 1 reporting heavy casualties...
From the Wikipedia article linked:
"In 1964, William C. Brown demonstrated a miniature helicopter equipped with a combination antenna and rectifier device called a rectenna."
Heh, rectenna sounds like some alien probing device.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
if everything works perfectly this will be awesome, but nothing ever works perfectly and just the thought of the things that can go wrong scares the hell out of me.
I think I remember seeing the same story, here on /., _months_ ago.
Flight 104: Pasadena control there seems to be a green light comming from space
Pasadena Control: Flight 104 what flare?
(static)
Pasadena Control: Come in flight 104, flight 104 come in... what's going on?
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
For specific kinds of applications, yes, there is demand. DARPA is interested in this, because electronics use, and there fore electricity use, by the military has expanded tremendously, even in remote locations. A diesel generator has to receive a constant supply of fuel. This is very expensive and inconvenient on the top of a mountain in Afghanistan. A solar power receiving station doesn't. The power supply is invulnerable to attack. The receiving station doesn't make constant noise. In such contexts, power delivered at rates an order of magnitude higher than commercial generation is very competitive.
We should build something like the Iraqi Super-cannon. The thing was built out of 70's tech and was slated to deliver stuff to orbit for $600/Kg. We could improve on that with new tech and mass production of the rocket-boosted projectiles. Construction materials for SPS could be packaged to survive the G's of being shot out of a cannon. Even electronic components could be built to survive. The US government has specs for electronic components that can survive 100,000 G. (Yes, one hundred thousand!) That would make SPS much cheaper.
It's a power source and a weapon in one! Don't F with us or we'll turn our eco-friendly power beam on you!
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
This puts Green in conflict with AGW. It should be interesting to watch the sparks fly.
Don't worry, once the satellite is in orbit, it can just beam the death ray at its opponents.
PG&E doesn't commit itself to anything significant. It's cheap advertising for both the startup and for PG&E.
Didn't anyone PAY ATTENTION when building this type of power plant in Sim City 2000?
Because you haven't run the numbers on the beam power density. The Microwave beam is wide, because it's trivial and cheap to make a huge ground antenna, and because agriculture can be carried out under the antenna. THe beam power density can be held down to just a few times noon sunlight power, and still deliver plenty of energy.
That way, both airplane and albatross are safe to transit the beam area.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
I hope no one accuses me of blogrolling or something, but:
http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/space-power/
Wormstrom!
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
You don't have power on top of a mountain in Dumbfuckinstan? Why the hell did you go there?
Get me out of here!
But this hare-brained idea will heat the atmosphere
Fail.
Most power generation schemes are *heat engines.* The typical efficiency is less than 40%. Microwave transmission starts at 50% efficiency, and is likely to get better. For the same amount of electric power, you're going to have less waste heat than with coal, nuclear, or natural gas power plants.
... please think about the poor birds!
Putting the "anal" back into "analyst"...
A microwave power transmission of this magnitude will use a broad cross section for the beam, such that a big power station is required to absorb the power. If it was suddenly turned and flipped across several miles in a couple seconds, the total amount of extra energy delivered to anyone or anything would be unnoticeable- and microwaves are not ionizing radiation in any event, so if anything bad were to happen, it would be via heat. Does the fact that a person would supposedly be able to be on top of the collector make me want to hang out on top of one? Of course not. But this is not a big deal. It's safer that nuclear power, and that's pretty safe. But unlike nuclear plants, it can't be meaningfully targeted by terrorists any more than any power plant could be.
[off topic] You can make the world's largest microwave oven... [/off topic]
I noticed this little tid bit:
200 megawatts of clean, renewable power over a 15 year period.
How much does that compare to the energy needed for getting it up in space, getting routine maintenance & repair up in space, the maintenance & repair itself, and possible decommissioning?
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
lets not forget the law of conservation of energy
Yes, by all means let us conserve energy. I mean, there may not be enough to go around. Letting all that energy escape into the vastness of space is wasteful.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What is the old saying? Quality, Time, and Cost? I guess in this instance we get Cheap, Clean and Safe. You can only have 2.
This is a dupe of http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/04/14/0317236/PGampE-Makes-Deal-For-Solar-Power-From-Space. They announced this in April.
Hell, the linked interview in summary is in the original story from MSNBC.com. This submission contains nothing new to add...
Based on Wolfram Alpha the Earth gets about 1.3 kW per square meter. with the earth being 6.4*10^6 m radius with find the area facing the sun is pi*r^2 = 1.28*10^14. Multiplied by the power gives 1.67*10^17 W hitting the earth. Now since the power company wants to sell 2*10^8 W of power we can conclude that the extra energy reaching the Earth would be in the region of 0.0000001%.
Assuming everything goes well and this becomes a viable source of energy What stops any oil producing nation from blowing it up?
as it is eaten so it shall pass
The list is endless. I wrote a short story once about a future similar to King's Gunslinger where technology has failed and nature has reclaimed most of our roads and infrastructure and people travel on a road burned into the earth by a slowly orbiting solar reflector that scorches a trail across the world. Of course you gotta know when to get off that road!
The only reason this might work is that it could get military funding. Of course nobody has "death ray" in mind when they come up with designs like this.....
The power densities involved are way too low for anything like this to happen. (Only about 3X the worst noontime sunlight.)
2016, yea... right... I won't hold my breath.
Thanks *MarketingTeamUsingBuzzWordsToSpurVentureCapital WithNoRealPlanOrTechnologyInPlace*
Yes, well some day maybe we'll have the ability to quantitatively compare two scenarios. I hear mathematicians are working on some new fangled thing called a comparison operator.
Folks like the US military are interested. It's expensive to ship fuel for generators to remote outposts. At those prices for power, SPS are competitive. You also get to remove one logistics vulnerability.
While this might be cool tech, and may even work, it's using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
There absolutely has to be dozens upon dozens of more efficient, less complex, and easier to maintain ways of generating power.
that Henry Waxman is somehow going to reap a windfall from this?
in the article they mention that an advantage of their system is that sunlight can be captured outside the atmosphere, so that it is 10x stronger (no attenuation losses). However, they *do* have to beam the energy back through the atmosphere right? Doesn't that annihilate the advantage?
Low pollution is a religion? Sounds like common sense to me. That's always desirable. Zero emission/effects is an impossible ideal, but low*er* is definitely better.
And the attraction for non-fossil fuel power sources should be fricking obvious: fossil fuels are non-renewable and are therefore fundamentally unsustainable, and where the main resources remain are often politically unstable countries. I.e. we'll have to move off them eventually, or there are good strategic reasons to do so earlier. The thought that they'll serve us forever and we can carry on with "business as usual" is the real "religion". It's bogus. We have big energy challenges ahead.
You'll note that I haven't dealt with the issue of reduced carbon emissions or global warming -- because they're irrelevant. There are ample independent reasons to move away from fossil fuels at the earliest practical convenience, even if you think global warming is "religion".
Even checking the feed allday everyday, this slipped under my radar. Seems I 'm not dedicated enough.
Yes, since the world ends in 2012 anyway this claim is ridiculous.
I love my sig.
wish the skeptic in me would be quiet.
I wish people wouldn't use video games as their scientific cites.
Hey, why don't we make hybrid airplanes. Just after the takeoff the plane flies over a series of ground antennas just outside the airport to recharge.
So with trying to put solar cells in space they forgo the protection the the atmosphere gives from the sun's non-visible rays. Solar flares and solar storms are going to be huge issues of them. If these events don't destroy the solar cells, they will surely muck up the microwave transmittance to the ground station, and they could cause catastrophic power surges.
If we build it, Scotty will come!
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
Actually, no, it won't heat the atmosphere significantly.
"Atmospheric heating from microwave loss" is another word for "atmospheric attenuation". The trick is you choose microwave frequencies that are not significantly absorbed by nitrogen, oxygen, and water (dihydrogen monoxide), and that knocks out your atmospheric attenuation problem right there.
This is Physics 102, people.
Your real losses are going to be in beamforming and beam wander. You fix beam wander by using a BIG receiving antenna (which also lets you use low power density in the beam: win-win).
Actually, isn't the satellite simply intercepting the energy that would have made it to the Earth anyhow?
If this system has about a 50% efficiency, then isn't this satellite actually blocking the other 50% of said energy from actually ever reaching the earth?
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Maybe it's just me, but, I would think the moon would be THE best place to put a solar array. We know the distance, we know it's movements, and it doesn't involve putting up more floating space junk, it's surface is always facing the sun (which unlike a synchronous satalite, would be our of the sun for at least a few hours (depending on distance) - and it's far enough that's visible from the poles, which is where I'd put the recieving stations - the sending stations would be on the moon's poles, so power coudl be recieved even with a "new moon" - the only exception would be in the case of a lunar eclipse... I'd also make sure there was a way to turn it off...quickly...from someone near the equator, just in case!
So, the gigantic effort to put this solar plant into orbit will create... 200MW of power?
Contrast to this: 0.3% of the Sahara could power the whole of Europe
It's expensive like hell, sure, but it would start delivering energy long before it's completed and its goals are way more ambitious than this flying solar panel's! Think no more unrenewable energy, no more CO2, no more pollutants (sulphur, heavy metals etc.) from coal plants, no more soil erosion due to dams, no more gas or oil (yeah, in italy they have plenty of those) power plants. Only a few windfarms and perhaps the French nuclear plants to iron out the energy needs during night time.
Don't tell me the USA has a lack of sun and deserts.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I wish folks would look into things before talking about "swath of destruction," and military apps. http://www.spaceenergy.com/i/pdf/safety_paper.pdf
That's 1.3 kW/m^2 at ground level, in the form of sunlight.
You have a LOT of atmospheric attenuation (and consequent atmospheric heating) at optical wavelengths. In this case, the heating is a Good Thing: it makes the planet livable. Compare with the temperature variations on the moon, between shadow and sunlight.
I don't have a number for available solar power density in Earth orbit, but I would be very surprised if it was not a few (at least) orders of magnitude higher. (Considering that direct sunlight vs. clouds is about THREE ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE difference in attenuation, right there, as measured by any photographer's light meter...)
The receiving station doesn't make constant noise.
I bet you could see it with infared, it probably looks like a pillar of light coming out of space to the exact location of the reciever.
They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
I smell the stupid trend of changing the meaning of a word either just to win an argument or (less likely) ignorance that such words as "obsession" exist. Yes I know that the Heartland Institute is full of people that read a lot of books unlike those wacky scientists that freeze their balls off looking at ice cores in Antarctica - and those bright folk at the Heartland Institute will tell you that smoking is good for you and global warming is a myth. This "high priest of science" stuff may be funny among your peers but out in the wide world it makes as little sense as "high priest of milkshakes". Even the oil exploration community was convinced of global warming in the 1990s before it became a Republican vs Democrat issue. It's unfortunately become another thing for sects of lay preachers to yell about as another example of the evils of education.
Space power infrastructure can only lead to more space colonization which leads humanity to the stars!!!!!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
For specific kinds of applications, yes, there is demand. DARPA is interested in this, because electronics use, and there fore electricity use, by the military has expanded tremendously, even in remote locations. A diesel generator has to receive a constant supply of fuel. This is very expensive and inconvenient on the top of a mountain in Afghanistan. A solar power receiving station doesn't. The power supply is invulnerable to attack. The receiving station doesn't make constant noise. In such contexts, power delivered at rates an order of magnitude higher than commercial generation is very competitive.
Invulnerable, huh?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Either a "few times noon sunlight" is a lot, or it isn't.
You can't bash the idea as both "dangerously hot/bright" and "too cold/dark for practical use".
Sun at noon can easily generate temperatures over 40C - if a "few times" that is 2.5 or higher, then you're over boiling point of water.
You can harvest that energy using 19th century means - like steam engine.
That WOULD be quite dangerous, though. No need to argue there.
If "few times" is lower than 1.5 - those are temperature extremes observed in nature. Granted, in places like Death Valley or Libya but still - up to 58C is natural.
A tad uncomfortable, but unless you plan to step into the ray naked and just stand there for prolonged periods of time - quite harmless.
If it is somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5, that is in the area of boiling eggs (and other things made out of protein, like skin).
Probably very uncomfortable conditions for living creatures but quite usable levels of energy.
Hey! If you can boil an egg, you are surely getting enough energy to do some other things. Again, you don't need to go further than 19th century - just substitute water for something that boils at lower temperature.
And besides, nobody forces you to stick to the 19th century. So, those energy levels are quite usable.
Even just 100% of noon sunlight is a lot - considering that modern solar is way bellow that. And we ARE using solar.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Is it possible that this is the missing step?
1. Devise complicated technology that's most likely vaporware.
2. Instead of ???? - change it to: Set expected date after 2012.
3. Collect venture capital (which equals... PROFIT!)
Yes, invulnerable. There's a huge difference between hitting a satellite in low earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit, which is a few times higher up and which requires a lot more delta-v to reach.
You are right, the Solaren CEO does say it would be in geosynchronous orbit.
My bad. I was wrong, you were right.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
How come you trolls always knock any alternative fuel solution that isn't a 100% replacement? Stop thinking in terms of the glass half empty and think about what you're NOT doing to get that 200 MW if this solution pans out.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
(n/t)
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The Environmentalist's Fallacy
It goes something like this:
In reality, X produces far less overall pollution than Y.
I've seen this argument used to oppose:
All of these are great technologies. If we're ever to make any progress, we have to learn to think past the environmentalist's fallacy.
As this introduces _extra_ energy beyond the regular amount that daily reaches the planet's surface, I expect that it will cause an extra global warming. Now we burn fossil energy stored over eon's of time and release this stored energy in a short time. Adding extra energy to the scale will cause problems earlier or later.
I've noticed over my life, that incredible claims of new ways to deal with energy issues are '7 years out'.
BlackLight Power back in 2000 were claiming a 'battery the size of a briefcase that can power an electric car 1000 miles' as an example.
Now, here we have this new claim.
Yet these people point out that the energy here on earth from one of the downlinks is only 2X that of regular old PV.
URSI White Paper on Solar Power Satellite (SPS) Systems
So whom to believe? A guy seeking venture capital OR a bunch of wet blanket boffins?
of a lot less upfront costs and cheaper maintenance whey cuold easily build a 200Mw Industrial solar thermal plant.
For the same cost, they could probably get a GW.
And once it's built, it doesn't fall out of orbit, and to maintain it you just need a guy to walk over and fix whatever is broken instead of sending up something to repair it.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Seriously, what a waste.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How is that? As I understand satellite orbits, this one would have to be geosynchronous (above the antenna all the time). In this position the satellite would have pass night phases equally as the ground station.
Avoiding the night phases would only be possible by multiple satellites beaming between each other before the final beam to earth or putting the satellites in a very hight orbit, which would dramatically impact the energy transmitting efficiency.
Please correct me if I'm wrong on this one.
I think invulnerable may be a bit of a stretch. While it would certainly be more than trivial to actually blow up the space-based solar panel, anyone with sufficient explosives or rockets could attack the receiving antenna as easily as any other ground based target. And since using these would result in a greater concentration of energy generation (one receiver versus many generators spread out), this could cause significant disruption to military activities, not to mention domestic power supply if an attack occurred at home.
200MW is a miniature , "proof of concept" system. Based on the capacity of the Wright Flyer, you will never fly the Atlantic. Real power stations would be multi-GW.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
I wish the rest of you would be quiet.
The attenuation is not huge. Here are numbers for solar intensity at orbital radii:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radiation#Sunlight_intensity_in_the_Solar_System
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
haha, right, i forgot about that.
Do I need to take off my tinfoil hat before I walk through the collection area?
Luckily, I do, after a quick Wikipedia check on the Sun...
Actually, that's 1.368 kW/m^2 in orbit. In the form of sunlight.
I presume you're surprised by now, since it's not, in fact, "a few (at least) orders of magnitude higher"?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Science is the opiate of the masses.
Even the oil exploration community was convinced of global warming in the 1990s before it became a Republican vs Democrat issue. It's unfortunately become another thing for sects of lay preachers to yell about as another example of the evils of education.
Easily located citation provided for the doubtful: Even USA Today can figure it out.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Stop confusing provable science with religion.
And yes, this is a hare brained idea.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Size of earth = O
Size of satalite = .
don't think the added solar energy is going to warm our globe all that bad.
we can conclude that the extra energy reaching the Earth would be in the region of 0.0000001%.
Please don't confuse the trolls with numbers! If you start bringing quantitative facts into the discussion they won't be able to lie with abstraction, using the false identity "heats the atmosphere" to imply "heats the atmosphere to a significant degree" instead of the true "heats the atmosphere vastly less than an equivalent fossil fuel plant would."
I gotta love the "it seems to me" replies on this story: they demonstrate the complete scientific and technical illiteracy of /. posters. All kinds of information--actual, quantitative facts!--is available in the linked stories, and clever people can even go out and search around to generate independent confirmation the way you have. But that won't stop the morons who want to tell us all that "it just makes sense" to them that this will result in boiling lakes of fire, deep-fried tweety birds and gigantic lizards stepping on Tokyo.
"I may be ignorant and innumerate, but I that doesn't stop me from having a strongly held opinion!"
That pales beside the "thinking skillz" demonstrated by people who think this is different from fossil-fuelled power because it "adds energy to the atmosphere that would otherwise have passed us by." Gosh, then, it's exactly the same as coal, oil, gas and nuclear power, all of which "add energy to the atmosphere which would otherwise have not been added to the atmosphere." Carbon-based power does nothing more than "add solar energy from another time" to the atmosphere. How that is better than "adding solar energy from another place" to the atmosphere is really unclear. I guess I'm just not smrt enough to figure it out.
Nuclear power "adds energy from a bygone supernova" to the atmosphere! No wonder people are worried about it! They know exploding stars kill people, unlike all those silly nuclear physicists who don't!
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
The reason is that currently, the western militia there must import lots of fuel to provide electricity. That is EXPENSIVE. VERY EXPENSIVE. Instead, the groups could put up one of these that have say 5-50 MW and then put small collectors on the ground. It would be MUCH cheaper than bringing in the equipment and fuel. In addition, if a base is overrun, it would be easy to prevent enemy (read Al Qaeda) from using the equipment and new equipment would be much lighter, easier to take care of, etc. Also, once several of these were up there, they could be shifted around to help on Emergency locations. For example, helping Hurricanes, tsunami, Chinese EarthQuake, 9/11, etc. The ability to get power into a large disaster area means, LITERALLY life or death. If we put at least one over every major continent, they could be used normally to help a city that already has coal/gas, but then moved ahead of time for when a disaster is heading there way (hurricanes), or a day or two for unseen disasters that happen. Heck, if done right, private space industry should push this private tugs. These can then be used for doing other work (perhaps getting rid of space junk).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And now you see why dismantling our education system was the greatest injury we've ever inflicted on ourselves. These days, most people, even on Slashdot, lack the ability to reasonably weigh evidence without resorting to intuition and emotion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyjWmwTaans
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And no gundum reference yet?
I actually wonder what would happen if this can be made real? All that solar energy. Countries move away from oil. What happens to countries which depend on oil for revenue? Will the oil countries start a war to stop the other countries from making/using this solar energy from space?
I hope no war breaks out if this can be made into reality. But human greed says some kind of war will happen if space solar energy becomes reality.
Where will you spend your money after the world ends?
Currently hooked on AMP
They must have some big economies somewhere they aren't talking about to make this profitable.
Seastead this.
...the beam goes off course and ignites thousands of acres of southern California brush land? How would we know the difference between that and their normal state of affairs?
Have gnu, will travel.
The article says that the electricity will cost $0.129/kWh and that the system will provide 200 MW for 15 years. Some quick google math shows that:
(12.9 (U.S. cents / kWh)) * (15 years) * (200 megawatts) = 3.392 billion U.S. dollars
100,000G?! Why, thats OVER NINE THOUSAND!
Are you making the argument that we don't have more solar power, wind power, hydroelectric, and hybrids because of environmentalists?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Good thing it's not the Chinese we're fighting in Afghanistan, then.
The enemies of Democracy are
In large part, yes! Consider all the people who opposed wind power for decades because of the potential damage to bird populations, or people who want to tear down all our (zero-emission, mind you) hydroelectric dams, or people who oppose the ultimate in emission-free power, nuclear. If it hadn't been for the Luddites, we'd have a lot more widespread clean energy sources today.
Not all environmentalists are Luddites, of course, but there seems to be a very strong correlation.
*sigh*
Clueless.
Back in the very early eighties, I heard a speaker from, I think it was the Space Sciences Inst, who told me that the Environmental Impact Statement had been done in the late seventies for this. And that they were talking about something like 10W/m^2. And a lot of large collectors. It would take a truly stupid buzzard to get toasted in that.
Or an enTHUsiastic slashdotter, with more goshawowie than science....
mark
What is the big problem for solid state laser weapons? Weight. What's a big part of that weight? The power source. Now drop the power source.
So you need a mobile platform with a huge surface area for the rectenna. Air-based gives you the best line of sight for your lasers. What's the biggest war machine ever taken to the sky?
I give you the return of the Zeppelin, now with frickin' laser beams!
Oops, we need a peaceful reason for these airships prototypes to be developed. People have been making those Blade Runner-type cool/annoying advert blimps for a while. Well, a larger model totally covered with space-powered LEDs...is a trademark violation with a 40 year-old English rock band.
Still the economics of this are a bit puzzling. In 2008, California used 285 million megawatt-hours of electricity, so even if this project could generate 200 MW 24x7 that still comes to just 511,000 megawatt-hours per year, or a little under 0.2% of Californian consumption. At a wholesale price of $50 per megawatt-hour, that would earn Solaren about $25 million per year. Even over the fifteen year projected lifespan that comes to just $375 million (actually less if you take inflation into account). Is $375 million anywhere near what the actual cost of this project will be? Space engineers, please help here.
Hookers and blow BEFORE the world ends, dude. That's where.
because your digital tuner filters are no where near strong enough to reject the signal of a power satelite.
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I think we could pile trash up in the middle of the Atlantic to form a small continent. AND we could fund it by putting casinos on top of it as well as one gigantic solar farm. AND I know I know we could call it "The Atlantis Resort Continent". That would solve the waste problem, the energy problem, and make a mighty big profit at the same time. Easy just a lot of barges from the East Coast dumping trash into the Atlantic. It even helps your carbon footprint by sinking the carbon underwater.
Only if it were to significantly heat up the air in the path of the beam, which I doubt it would.
Let's not forget PCBs and DDT and Mercury based felt hats and lead paint as all things that were WIDELT beleived to be safe and a boon to mankind until they turned out not to be.
Id say the jury is still out on long term problems with cell phones and powerlines. People are only now rethinking the subtle effects of heat islands produced by cities. And there's some concern that the plasticizers in water bottles is now showing up in human organs.
It was not long ago people figured out some animals use magnetic fields and polarized light to navigate. Just to make something up, suppose that polarized microwave transimission were to interferre with that. Perhaps indirectly. for example an oscillating dipole can orient molecules even if they don't strictly speaking absorb. Light scattering off oriented molecules in turn can get polarized. I'm not saying this is a problem. I'm just saying it's pretty glib to say "bah, there's no harm is such a massive experiment"
We don't know why things like asthma and toxic allergies seem to be on the rise in children. Over diagnosis seems to not be the problem so presumably their are systemic origins like say plasticizers we have yet to discover.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Maybe we can build them safely, but maintenance is another issue. This is the same plant that almost went postal in 1985. See http://www.cleveland.com/powerplants/plaindealer/index.ssf?/powerplants/more/1095759100318143.html for just one reference.
Finally a reasonable and informative comment. Also a retrodirective transmitting array can be used to stay targeted automatically using a pilot signal. Additionally the beam can be defocused if the pilot signal is lost.
Quitters never win, Winners never quit, But those who never win and never quit are idiots.
This reminds me of a story told by a guy I once knew about the AN/SPY radar--i.e., the big hexagonal radars you see on US Navy ships. Apparently, he and a friend were walking around outside the facility where they are designed, built, and tested. At this facility, they have functional test versions of the radars mounted on the sides of buildings, in much the same way they're mounted on ships, next to huge red lights to signal when they're turned on.
So, this guy is walking along with his friend, and suddenly feels distinctly warm. He turns to his friend and asks, "Do you feel that?" He says, "Yes." They look up, and sure enough, the radar is on. Guess the radar missed!
The AN/SPY is a peak 4 MW system, and it operates in the microwave range, for reference.
Energy from a source of light is NOT measured by its heat? FUCK!
So that is why my solar battery charger won't work when I boil it!
I was talking energy equivalents and what you get from "regular sunlight".
Grandparent post started with that whole "couple of times stronger than sunlight" deal when actually talking about directed microwave radiation (and not sunlight) and it went from there.
Mostly, you seem to have forgotten in general that the Celsius temperature scale has an arbitrary zero point, so doing any kind of multiplication on it will almost always give you a rubbish answer.
Well fuck! Woe is me! I guess any multiplication of 0C should be done in Kelvin.
I mean, if you want to go into all those unmeasurable subjective values such as "hot" or "cold". No instrument will give you those values though.
It will give you a measured value compared to A SCALE of predetermined values! Temperatures bellow 0 are not unmeasurable anti-temperatures - they only have an arbitrary negative value.
You CAN multiply, divide, add and subtract those values, but it isn't exactly linear - since thermodynamics does not exactly work that way (poring a liter of 50C water over another liter of 50C water, won't make those 2 liter of water boil).
Frankly the idea is a bit of a waste of time in my eyes. There's plenty of empty sunny desert where solar collection systems can be set up. Cheaper to create a 10km^2 grid on the ground that produces much more, than to try and put a 0.1km^2 array in orbit and try to beam power down somehow...
May be. But...
The same solar cell is far more efficient in space than on Earth (no atmosphere), and you get more working hours out of it (In geostationary orbit it would be illuminated over 99% of the time).
But screw that. That is all fine and dandy, but that is not the reason anyone is interested in this.
The main reason to put these things in orbit is the same as for putting any other thing in orbit - military application.
Not as a weapon though, but as a power source for remote bases.
Just raise the antenna in the middle (or on top) of your desert fortress and call the HQ to direct a satellite at it. Instant (nearly indestructible since the main part is in space) power source.
And you don't have to worry about leaving it behind for the enemy - since it is just wire mesh.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Don't F with us or we'll turn our eco-friendly power beam on you!
Now hold still for ten years while we roast you alive! Muh ha ha ha! D'oh! He moved. Hold still!!!!
I am pretty sure this was already on slashdot more than a year ago.
Well, satellite designers know that they are willing to pay a million dollars a square foot for a solar panel which is about 1% more efficient than a typical commercial panel, because it's so damned expensive to launch a pound of anything, and those precious pounds better generate as much energy as possible.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
If I put my iphone in my front pants pocket while running MLB's app that lets you listen to the radio, I can feel the radio making my leg feel slightly warm/sore on the leg that I put my iphone in (this is difficult to describe), which I don't feel when the iphone is in stand-by. If you read the manual it says that the iphone can exceed FTC limits set for cell phone radiation when in active usage. I don't think its a placebo effect, although it would be interesting to run an experiment sometime to determine if it is or not. I also don't think it is due to the heat generated by the phone, since its not just warm but also sore.
Just a thought. I guess if I get cancer on my right leg in my thigh then I know who to sue.
Experts leveled the whole area, created the biggest mountain quarter possible in one edge, filled it with waterfalls, and then started the game in pause mode, to add dams to it. You could easily power the whole city with that mountain, while not having any of the risks or rebuilding costs of the others.
Now if only we hat a magical waterfall from space descent upon the Himalaya... :P
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Except that no one thought felt hats were a boon to mankind, and DDT was in fact NOT causing the problem. (Shit's getting even worse long after we've banned it. Will we unban it? No.)
> I've noticed over my life, that incredible claims of new ways to deal with energy issues are '7 years out'.
What a lie! Fusion has always been just *50* years out, for the past 50 years.
Power plant? Yeah right, everyone knows its the drill we'll use to drop red matter into the Vulcan home planet.
Geostationary orbit: 35,786km Beam dispersal: 111 microns/m, or 0.0001% Beam spread: 0.017 degrees (Compare to typical laser beam: 1000microns/m, or 0.001%) So the beam is an order of magnitude better-confined than a typical laser beam. We'll allow that for now, and given the divergence rate we can calculate the source power: Power at ground: 220,000,000W Beam area at ground: 12,566,370 m^2 Satellite size: 6m (typical) Beam area at source: 28 m^2 Power at source: 98 Terawatts (assuming no loss) Clearly unrealistic.
Tom Beardon has been talking about something since about 1989 or so; I saw him on a cable TV show back then, when there was nothing else to watch. I kept trying to decide whether the math was wrong, or if it was just another crank.
In spending time researching his work, "Scalar Waves", I turned up the fact that Tesla had the same idea in mind; send power by radio waves. That way a solar station on the moon would be both extremely efficient AND safe.
It's 2009, and I STILL don't know if the guy was a whacko. Nor have I managed to bump into a nuclear scientist who would research the topic. But if you're interested, especially if you're a nuclear scientist, please google "scalar waves".
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
All I can say is the satellite better line up with its ground station via a laser, and be DAMN sure it doesn't fire unless it gets an exact lock.
I wouldn't want the ground station in MY neighborhood... From that kind of altitude, it doesn't take very much variance to make that beam of power hit entirely the wrong spot...
SciFi channel is supposed to start running "Mobile Suit Gundam 00" season 2 next monday night.
8==8 Bones 8==8
"Id say the jury is still out on long term problems with cell phones and powerlines. "
And you would be wrong.
"Just to make something up, suppose that polarized microwave transimission were to interferre with that."
both those are well known, so please explain how there could be an effect?
Just making shit off the top of your head doesn't give your argument any validity.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And what happens to all that power when it's used on the ground? Oh yeah, it's teleported into outer space to keep it from heating up the atmosphere.
Let me try again: all the power transmitted, since it will be used to do work, will sooner or later be released as heat and warm the atmosphere.
It's not sufficient to have studied thermodynamics, you have to have understood it.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
The guy pushing this project is running this proposal from his home - his business address, listed in Dunn & Bradstreet is 32 Monterrey Court, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266. Glance at Google Maps and you'll find that this is a condo next to a golf course. Look up in the white pages and you discover this address is Gary Spirnak's house.
Now, look at patent 6936760, "A Space Based Power System" Right away, you see a mirror of diameter 1 to 2 kilometers, with a newtonian-telescope style optical pickoff. Later, he talks about putting it into geosynchronous orbit.
Getting the power to earth is handled with the wave of his magic wand: "convert the electrical energy into a form for transmission to a pre-determined location"
This whole thing is prima-facie bogus ... literally pie in the sky.
Give this guy a billion dollars, and in 6 years, his "company" will get a huge (2 km diameter mirror) spacecraft into geostationary orbit.
Some fools at PG&E may have been paid off by this "inventor", but I see no scientist reviewing the proposal.
See http://cryptogon.com/?p=8029
I see your 50 years and offer up a 2012 date.
http://www.achieveradio.com/cash-flow/ The shows with Bob Neveritt are the ones where he claims to be the magic man who'll bring on the cold fusion age.
+1
Ahem, you speak through your hat. Felt is the only easily created fabric you can make directly from animals without weaving technology. it's alos highly wwaterfproof and durable. As a result it have been in active use in garments and hats dating back at least 5000 years ago. It's even been found on mummies.
warm, conformal, tow tech, and waterproof clothing you can make from found sources (animals, not crops) is probably more important than fire to the development of human society, hunting and environment.
I suspect your revisionist history of DDT is equally uniformed.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Lots of people have pointed out that this kind of power would be more expensive that just getting plain old solar from a desert somewhere, but I think an important point has been overlooked. This kind of system might still function in the face of several different kind of "extinction level events": asteroid collision, supervolcano eruption, or even a "nuclear winter"; my understanding is that this would still provide power if the atmosphere suddenly became more opaque to sunlight.
Yes, I know I should have written "We've known".
I just missed the "n" key.
GPG 0x1B479C78
Actually, the receiving station would make some RF noise - from the transformers converting the power to whatever is available. The receiving station would also likely be larger than a battery... making it vulnerable to detection.
But it's a good damned idea, if you are fighting people who can't destroy your power satellites. Unfortunately launch capability to GEO, or anywhere else that we could place those power satellites, isn't really that hard to do anymore. (Don't have to launch an explosive warhead, either...)
Drake and Pournelle and other SF writers worked thru all the countermeasures to this decades ago :)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Nothing can reach them, except for my secret attack ducks that fly MOST of the way up and then shoot little lasers off their bills!
You have not thought the problem all the way through. You have neglected to consider the basic geometry involved.
The solar power satellites will be in low earth orbit, which means that they will be about 100 miles above the ground. As the Earth's radius is quite a bit more than 100 miles, the satellite's orbit will make a very close-fitting ring around the planet.
This means that the satellite will spend almost 50% of its time in shadow, on the far side of Earth from the Sun, and it will spend almost 50% of its time actually between the Earth and the Sun, casting a shadow on the Earth. Only for small periods during each orbit will it be clear of the planet.
During those small periods, it will be capturing sunlight that would not ordinarily reach the Earth, but go past it, converting SOME (but not all) of that sunlight into microwaves, and beaming it down. The remainder of the sunlight that it blocks from going any farther will be re-radiated, some of it into space, some of it at Earth.
While it is behind the Earth, of course, it is not intercepting sunlight at all.
While it is in front of the Earth, casting a shadow, it is capturing SOME of the sunlight that would have hit the Earth ANYWAY, and downconverting it to a wavelength that is not as readily absorbed by the atmosphere as the raw sunlight would have been. Of the energy that is not so downconverted, some of it will be re-radiated away from Earth, and some of it will be re-radiated toward Earth.
It must also be noted that the actual amount of energy intercepted by the satellite will be SMALL compared to the total amount of energy absorbed by Earth as a whole, for the simple reason that the satellite has a much smaller cross-sectional area than Earth does.
Executive Summary: Putting the satellite and receiving antenna array into the path DIMINISHES the total amount of energy reaching the Earth, by a small amount, from re-radiation into space. Of the part that does reach the Earth, SOME of it has been converted to a more convenient wavelength, so that it may be used for useful work BEFORE it becomes waste heat, as opposed to having been converted, by Earth itself, directly from raw sunlight to waste heat.
I imagine (RTFA? GTFO!) the solar collector won't often be casting a shadow on the Earth. That means it's collecting solar energy that the Earth wouldn't. The energy transmitted to Earth will eventually cause something to warm up, won't it? Isn't this a problem for any kind of 'extra terrestrial energy' idea that isn't direct sunlight or its ancient effect?
I think 'significant' might be hard to judge. If space solar makes a significant contribution to Earth's energy, I think it might make a significant contribution to the temperature of something terrestrial. Otherwise, I think it's a great idea. If the heating issue were really a problem, you could always run pipes up the side of the space elevator and dump the heat into the moon.
It'd be much cheaper to blanket 100 km2 of the desert with solar cells. Store excess power in flywheels or similar for night use.
Microwaves in space = weaponizing space
The risk of accidents is too great.
Yes, since the world ends in 2012 anyway this claim is ridiculous.
Exactly. This is the failsafe device. ;-)
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
As a solution to this problem, and the first step in moving away from coal as a power source, I suggest we use knee-jerk environmentalists as a fuel source. "Of course my computer is green - it runs on environmentalists!"
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
A solar power receiving station is a circle a couple miles across - not very cheap or convenient itself. And it won't fit on a mountain top.
Only if the 'stuff' delivered was very small and destined for a very short lived low orbit. It's roughly as useful for delivering a SPS system as a CD mailer would be for shipping all the components of a nuclear aircraft carrier.
How about we move the solar panels closer to the sun where they have an increased amount of energy per area (9100 W/m^2 at Mercury) and beam the energy back in a more coherent form? Then of course you'd likely have to place stations strategically around the sun so we can capture year round.
Fast-moving lumps of metal = weaponising space. We already do that perfectly happily.
The risk of accidents is minimal, unless you know something about beam-forming that 50 years of radar development haven't revealed.
Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.
Global warming is already an issue.
If you capture energy in space that was not already destined to arrive on Earth, then beam it there, that will increase the energy on the planet, creating further warming.
CN
bypass space weapons proliferation acts ...
Who needs nukes or lazers in space when you have a 200MW microwave beam to play with?
Even if the government isn't behind it, I'm sure that they, any other nation and any terror group has sparkless in their eyes just thinking about it.
Yeah, well, you miss the best part. Put that phone on "Vibrate" and slap it on your clit .. works for me ALL the time .... call me, ok?
nar
Felt isn't exactly a boon to society because we had clothing already. And we're specifically talking about HATS, dude.
And no, I'm not uninformed about DDT.
The whole egg-shell thinning thing is bullshit.
As was the whole cancer thing, which the WHO has finally admitted, and now allows DDT for use in houses. Too bad it doesn't work anymore.)
http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html#ref6
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_35_16/ai_65493894/
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/jun/22/after-decades-ddt-still-poisoning-animals-sand/
Notice the date. DDT was banned in 1972, and guess what, it doesn't persist for decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
Notice the ol' half-life in water of about 2 years, and 15 in soil. And we're talking about a beach here!
But go ahead and believe the green!
...a company sold roof tiles with embedded solar panels, market them as 'green', get government tax breaks for anyone participating in the scheme, feed the power collected into the national grid... and *tada* we can collect more energy than a space solar satellite. It's safer, more practical, cheaper and certainly less stupid than thinking space solar is going to become a reality by 2016...