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Japan Plans $21B Space Power Plant
Mike writes "Japan has announced plans to send a $21 billion solar power generator into space that will be capable of producing one gigawatt of energy, or enough to power 294,000 homes. The project recently received support from Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and IHI Corp, who are now teaming up in the race to develop new technology within four years that can beam electricity back to Earth without the use of cables. Japan hopes to test a small solar satellite decked out with solar panels by the year 2015."
You're thinking too short-term. All they need is another .21 Gigawatts and they can travel to the future and steal the plans for the perpetual motion machines that almost certainly will have been invented by then, and all our energy problems will be solved!
Those are all good links and all, but what will they do about the energy lost in transit, or otherwise absorbed into the atmosphere, and would by its very nature contribute to global warming?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
"The Agricultural Ministry is Not in Charge of Gundam"
You failed high school physics didn't you?
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
I've played with this technology before and thing's didn't go so well. I was the mayor a city and we had a few hundred thousand people in it. Let's call them "Sims" to protect their identity. They were all bitching about how coal polluted the atmosphere and such. So one day after I was lounging around in my mayor's office this guy called me up and said "hey you should try this microwave energy stuff, it doesn't pollute." So I dropped some coin on this new technology, and everyone loved me.
That is, until the beam got out of alignment and fried half of the town. Then a huge robot showed up and finished off the rest of the town. And just to add insult to injury, an 8.0 earth quake hit and swallowed up what was left of the city.
Let that be a lesson to anyone who might want to try this technology.
If you are about to post anything about any of the issues below, please at least read the Wiki page on SBSP [wikipedia.org] first. Doing so will save a lot of electrons.
I read your stupid link and it says nothing about the following:
If all of the above comes to pass, I don't give a fuck what you say, the solar power sat will be upgraded into a death ray and it will be fucking AWESOME.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
If you are trapped on an desert island with a suitcase full of gold, it won't seem that valuable compared to your neighbors crate of canned foods, or the guy with the can opener.
Actually, gold bricks can do more damage at impact than canned foods ...
No, but having a gigawatt orbital death ray gives puts you in a better position to negotiate emissions reduction treaties
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?