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."

Comments

Cue Standard Replies

[hardburn]

If you are about to post anything about any of the issues below, please at least read the Wiki page on SBSP first. Doing so will save a lot of electrons.

• How do you beam the power
• Give people cancer (or other safety issues)
• Weaponization
• Beam energy will be lost in transit, absorbed into the atmosphere, and contribute to global warming

A basic understanding of the technology and physics will debunk all of these, and WikiPedia gives a good overview of these non-criticisms. Anyone continuing to parrot them below will be flogged.

Re:Cue Standard Replies

[onkelonkel]

What is there left to post? Any science or tech article outside of the IT world is guaranteed to produce an avalanche of specious, ill informed or just plain stupid comments. The best always point out some glaringly obvious non-flaw in the plan "Hurh, hurh, those scientists are so dumb. How are they going to beam solar power on a cloudy day? Bet they never thought of that. They're not so smart..."

Re:Cue Standard Replies

[hardburn]

No, it really isn't, not at the frequencies useful for SBSP. These frequencies must be specifically choosen to cut through all the water in the atmosphere (along with anything else). Since human bodies are mostly water, you're not going to absorb very much of the stuff, and what stuff you do absorb will be no different from being on the beach on a sunny day.

If the military wants to weaponize the basic technology, they're going to have to design with it specifically in mind (even if it's possible to use microwaves for this purpose, which it probably isn't). They won't get a useful weapon using the civilian power system. The civilian system might help increase launch capacity and thus make the weapon system cheaper to build, but again, that's no different from any other space activity of this magnitude.

Re:What is the advantage...

[Delwin]

The amount of solar energy per m2 outside the Van Allen Belt is far more than what we get here on earth.

Re:What is the advantage...

[Meumeu]

...24 hours of sun...

Maybe my geography or astronomy are off - Feel free to correct/bitch-slap me if I'm confused.

How does a satellite in geosynchronous orbit get 24-hours/day of sunlight?

/bitch-slap

The equator and the ecliptic are not on the same plane, which means the only times when a geosynchronous satellite is in eclipse is around the equinoxes. In the worst case it can last up to 80 minutes of shadow.

Re:What is the advantage...

[jeffb (2.718)]

Maybe my geography or astronomy are off - Feel free to correct/bitch-slap me if I'm confused.

How does a satellite in geosynchronous orbit get 24-hours/day of sunlight?

Geosync is way out there. If the satellite's orbit were in the same plane as the Earth's, it would only get blocked for about an hour a day. But since geostationary orbit is inclined to Earth's orbit (as Earth's equator is inclined), it only gets blocked at all during two times of the year; the rest of the time, when it's "behind" Earth relative to the Sun, the Sun shines "over" or "under" the Earth and hits it unimpeded.

Japan has the resources and the government...

[mollog]

"I honestly don't know what the heck is going on in the US!"

If you just woke up from a coma, America went through 8 years of voodoo economics, record deficit spending by a runaway congress, a jobless recovery, and an economy propped up with record low interest rates that lead to a housing bubble. Combine that with a failure to monitor the largest financial institutions because of an ideological aversion to regulation, and you have a perfect financial storm.

Meanwhile, Americas's financial frenemies are exploiting an arbitrage on labor and environmental costs, along with currency manipulation and protectionism, to supercharge their economies.

Now that you're up to date, we have a new American President who is not beholden to special interests, especially energy interests, who has some vision for a clean energy future. Japan has just announced a bold new project to generate photovoltaic energy and some Americans are very curious.

All of that was sardonic. What do you not understand?

Re:Didn't Japan just come out ...

[Bakkster]

Recession means "lack" of spending behavior, not "lack" of money. Often spending on promising technologies has important spin-off applications which bolster the economy / people spend money.

That seems to be the exact opposite problem of what we have in America. We thought we had way more money that we even thought we had. When the magicians disappeared, all the make-believe money that was coursing through the veins of the economy dried up and caused the businesses who were relying on people spending that make-believe money to burn out and fail. It was the lack of money that caused the lack of spending, not the lack of things to buy.

Nope, it's exactly the problem. The economy was cruising right along while people were (over) spending. The entire reason that the auto industry is in tough times is because people have been reducing their spending and putting off their car purchases. The economy was just fine when we were spending money, the problem was the money was from credit based on overvalued assets (such as houses).

This also explains why it takes time to get out of a recession. People need to spend money for companies to have the income to hire more employees, who can then buy other more stuff.