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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."
... of a recession in June? They must be high on life now ... spend spend away!
I suggest using intelligent robots to manage the Space Power Plant.
Of course, you need to be careful that they don't develop their own religion...
No sig for the moment.
not impressed
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
... of putting a solar array in space? Would it not be easier to maintain here on earth? Obviously no clouds up in space, 24 hours of sun, but the costs seem to outweigh the benefits. Plus, I would imagine an extensive amount of loss transferring energy down to earth.
Existence is futile
I could understand it if the energy was to be used to man space stations, but the cost of getting that energy back down to earth must surely outweigh any benefit from having the panels in space... assuming, of course that there is any such benefit.
Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
To avoid repeating myself...
http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/space-power/
Fixed that for you.
Kurt Vonnegut: "If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind."
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.
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.
Not a typewriter
I could be mistaken, but isn't the cost of this power plant versus a nuclear power plant (which many people argue is the cheapest form of electricity to produce) over 3 times more? Additionally, due to problems with this technology being in its infancy there will undoubtedly be additional costs that were not taken into consideration.
I'm sure everyone will talk about this new "green" for of energy and expect it to be cheap, but they would shit a brick if they found out the actual costs they will be paying for electricity generated in this fashion.
The DOD, as well as FEMA, should be pushing to have several built for the America. This would actually enable more private launches, but also give the DOD a means to bring energy into areas that they need. Transportation of fuel is EXPENSIVE. The ability to bring power into a hurricane hit area will enable quick power. More importantly, the ability to beam energy will have to be developed. That would enable many of our construction and open pit mining vehicles to move off diesel. Basically, that would help to drive new innovations.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
TFA, which is very short, says everything you just said. So I'm guessing the Japanese see this as a longer-term investment.
A better way of understanding about how much power this will supply is to compare it to other plants. Using that sort of measurement this will be about moderately sized. For example the Mohave Power Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohave_Power_Station is slightly larger (I think) than normal for for a coal plant and produced 1.5 gigawatts. Another useful comparison is to look at how much it will cost (assuming it stays at budget). Under that metric this looks like it is orders of magnitude more expensive than conventional plants. Presumably that cost will go down as this technology becomes more common.
An Ion Cannon you say?
Over $71k per household? I sure hope they have a plan that ends up with better economics. This thing smells suspiciously like one of those projects that doesn't make sense to anyone except the companies that are using taxpayer cash to do the work.
That's what I was thinking, but if maintenance is cheap enough it's not too bad. $70,000 per home supplied amortized over say a 50 year design life is $117/month which is on the low end of my monthly bill. Of course that ignores servicing debt and distribution so it's definitely more expensive then most current options but if you are a small island nation with lots of wealth spending 2x as much for electricity probably isn't a big deal compared to global warming wiping out half your landmass.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Im not sure about this approach to get energy from out of the earth and then injecting it in. This bubble we have here has its own equilibrium and energy invariably turns into heat.... what can happen enviromentally when you inject heat that wouldnt otherwise have gotten in?
NO SIG
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!
That's a meager $70,000 per home for the initial installation! Why, at $150 a month, the thing will practically pay for itself in only 40 years -- if you don't count maintenance, delivery, or any other possible costs that could end up being associated with it post-construction.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
It depends; how well would something like this work as a weapon in an emergency? Dual use baby!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Japan is a small place with a high population density, and a good number of nuclear plants already. Perhaps they're simply running out of reasonable nuclear sites.
Either way, this opens the way for whole new sci-fi-like plots to do with hijacking power satellites for nefarious purposes, so I'm all for it ;)
21000000000 / 294000 = 71428.5714
or about $5952.40
Man and I thought my power bill was bad for the month of August at $397.89 for the month.
Gotta love that green energy.
Japan is an island nation. You could someone minimize the risk of injury or loss of (human) life by directing the beat to a receiver on some micro-island, or maybe a floating platform like an oil rig, then have cables run from the island/platform to mainland Japan. That way, if the satellite goes a *little* off target, it's not as likely to people (although it still might harm aquatic life, I suppose, though I bet the potential damage and the risks are less than the damage from an oil platform/pipe/ship accident).
I didn't think it could work but after looking at the picture in the article I can see it will be powerful enough. That satellite is almost twice as big as the Earth!
I may be wrong but I think the important thing to remember is that they are paying $21 billion for the development of this space power power plant. If history tells us anything about innovation it's that innovation is costly, but the rewards can be great. Once they get this off the ground, how much will the next one cost? And the one after that? That's the important issue.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Comments sent from the future in Japan:
It was like Godzilla came to life. I mean flames shooting from the sky, buildings colapsing in fire, people screaming, ...
It was a subtle miscalculation, it could have happened to anybody... ...looking for the owners of the power platform, who have mysteriously disappeared...
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
They must be short of bolts of lightning in Japan.
Where I live (Vancouver, Canada) my monthly bill is about $22. I use electric baseboard heaters, too!
They use it to power their giant mechs instead.
AccountKiller
Would it be feasible to put solar collectors outside of earths orbit which in turn transmit to earth orbiting satalties that then relay down.
Could we put something closer to the Sun and leap from back to earth more effeciently than solar winds do?
There is also the risk that they will get struck by space debris.
Not when you have a 1 gigawatt microwave laser cannon!
I see that someone tagged this story "fried". Well, no.
The microwave beam from a solar power satellite is not strong enough to fry things. It's stronger than sunlight but not scary strong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power#Safety
The land used for a power-receiving rectenna can still be used for raising cattle, without the cattle becoming super-powered mutants or getting cooked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power#Earth-based_infrastructure
It remains to be seen when this will prove to be economical. It's not economical today, but if they start working on it today, maybe we will have many profitable powersats orbiting Earth within, say, 30 years. (Just in time for nuclear fusion, right?)
The good thing about this is that it doesn't require any new technology. We can do this with just some engineering. The biggest problem with this is that launch costs are currently astronomical to send anything to orbit; but I think that we are going to see a renaissance in space launch systems. Surely one of the private space companies (Armadillo Aerospace, SpaceX, Scaled Composites, etc.) will get a practical reusable launch system to work; and that will completely change the game for launch costs.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Those poor Japanese get screwed every which way but loose. They have been conditioned to pay $60 for a melon, and now $21 billion for something that will never work. And they don't complain!
Think of this more as a big wet kiss for the Japanese space industry. Just like "Star Wars" was for our military-industrial complex.
There's no way in heck this will ever get within a factor of 100 of being practical or economical.
Japan, 2015, orbital power stations and no mention of Gundam?
I must be really old.
They already made that James Bond movie and it was dreadful. It involved an invisible car and Bond surfing on a wave that looked like it came out of a 16bit video game. That's not to say I wouldn't watch a movie based on an awesome space-based solar collector destroying the word but it better be good this time.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Focused energy beam coming down from space is called a Lightning Strike ! Nature already figured out all fuel transportation issues and devised lightning for us :)
Though I don't know for sure, I would think an orbital power station would have some interesting advantages such as improved efficiency in terms of collecting solar energy from a wide range of frequencies or even as simple heat driving a conversion process of some sort that doesn't necessarily rely on moving parts. (Think "pop-pop boats") With fewer if any moving parts in such a power plant and being without atmopshere and gravity to assist in creating friction and corrosion, I would think a power plant in orbit would run considerably longer.
"The Agricultural Ministry is Not in Charge of Gundam"
If only Japan could somehow magically create more open, unfarmable, and uninhabited land where the turbines could be placed without taking away already scarce farm land or slowly deafen anyone within a kilometer!
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
Yeah, with Japan's abundance of wide open spaces, Wind would be a much better option. Actually, they should use all that open space to grow corn for ethanol. What the hell are they thinking trying to get solar from space? They have all this open land to use...
(/sarcasm for those new to the internet)
-SaNo
Unfortunately, nobody can win an election on the basis of "50 years from now my opponent's policies would cause half of our island to sink!". However, it's easy for someone to say "That guy wants to make you pay twice as much for electricity!". Cue outrage.
True or not, the consequences of global warming are inconceivable to most people. I think we'll need to see some more directly disastrous results before people really base day-to-day decisions on such considerations.
Alphanos
Wow! Go Japan! This project would not only further develop space based technology but also would support politically correct green energy production needs. Space based power might actually benefit mankind, as opposed to exploring Mars! Why can't the U.S. come up with space projects which are actually practical? I can just see the next James Bond movie - where the bad guy gets fried by a space-beam of microwaves.....
You need to keep in mind that Japan doesn't have all the land needed to deploy hundred of wind turbines.
Sounds like you have a metering problem. I would say that it'd be a problem in your favor, but I don't know how your utility provider will choose to rectify the difference once it comes to light (it would be a real bummer to get a large bill). What does your monthly bill say is the number of Kilowatt/Hours used? Do you know what rate plan you're on?
Current power stations being built with two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors are in the $10 billion range, have an estimated life span around 25 years (versus 15), and produce more than twice as much power. This is a very expensive boondoggle in comparison.
Over time maybe the costs can come down. I guess you have to build one to figure out the process in any case.
yes, yes you have.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_00_technology
What are they doing in their homes to use 3.4 KW average? An individual house could easily peak at that, but averaged together? In the midwest that would be at least a $200 electric bill, or more like $600+ in coastie-land. I usually pay like $50 to $75, and I have plenty of electronic hardware. Do they each have a home aluminum refinery in every basement, like the Chinese tried to have a steel mill in every backyard during the great leap forward? Charge batteries for giant robots?
I understand they don't have mcmansions over there, so even a grow operation would be too small to use that much electricity...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
What are the chances this has military applications? The energy output seems relatively insignificant for the cost. But the capability of "beaming" this much energy to earth strikes me as useful from a strategic standpoint.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I don't see how this could possibly go wrong. Environmentalist question: What effect will sending all of this energy through the atmosphere have on the o-zone layer?
Slowly deafen anyone within a kilometer? What the hell have you been exposed to?
Jesus... a wind farm is anything but loud... (experience tells me this)
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
About the debris: Put some LASERS in it then...
Jeeze, this people lack imagination.
NO SIG
This was the best powerplant in Sim City 2000. You launched a satellite to that would beam energy back down to your big dish plant. The best part is when it missed and fried the terrain around it.
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
Ignoring the obvious of putting the wind turbines offshore, can't they coexist with agriculture? The surface area occupied by the tower is very small.
The Japanese have been known to take out 100 year mortgages, so electing a politician with a 50 year plan is not out of the question.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
That's what I call cloud computing! Beaming a gigawatt of power in microwaves from space... what could go wrong? :)
Seriously though, how is it that Japan is going to spend 21 billion to beam a gigawatt of power from space, but I still can't get wireless power for my laptop?
They already made that James Bond movie
Before "Die Another Day" there was "Moonraker".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
its 1.21, if you're going to ref Back to the Future the least you can do is get it right.
My Sig Sucks
Agreed! It comes out to 71K per household!
I don't know what the average monthly bill is for electricity in Japan, but assuming a measly $200 per month, this thing would have to last 29 years just to break even! And that ignored maintenance costs and likely overruns!
If it works, it's a great proof of concept - and something you can sell to other nations once the costs come down.
1 gigawatt = 82.6446281% of a Delorean
How far off are we being able to speak of income in terms of Joules? Further off beat than my comment? Perhaps, but quips about the 'Electric Universe' aside, Joules may be a feasible accounting convention. Everything can be viewed as value added and, therefore, unfortunately, taxed. We use money to measure value in trade, but, money is subject to any number of quick and dirty fixes. Joules OTOH may be the best way to measure wealth. The Japanese are very typical of other historical island peoples with limited amounts of arable land and the drive and ability to innovate. My guess is they make such a venture pay off in the long run. Yes, Keynes quipped, in the long run we're all dead.
ideopath @ play
Hmm, someone forgot to tell them that the launch costs will be 42 trillion dollars... Maybe they should work on a space elevator first.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
HVDC is expensive, but it's technology we have now. All this could be done without one iota of new science. (not that new science is bad, it's just unpredictable)
because i had my own death ray curiosities about this, i admit sheepishly. From the wikipedia article, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power":
"A commonly proposed approach to ensuring fail-safe beam targeting is to use a retrodirective phased array antenna/rectenna. A "pilot" microwave beam emitted from the center of the rectenna on the ground establishes a phase front at the transmitting antenna. There, circuits in each of the antenna's subarrays compare the pilot beam's phase front with an internal clock phase to control the phase of the outgoing signal. This forces the transmitted beam to be centered precisely on the rectenna and to have a high degree of phase uniformity; if the pilot beam is lost for any reason (if the transmitting antenna is turned away from the rectenna, for example) the phase control value fails and the microwave power beam is automatically defocused.[56] Such a system would be physically incapable of focusing its power beam anywhere that did not have a pilot beam transmitter."
of course, maybe someone can make their own "overriding" pilot beam, and use it to give slightly better tans to guests on a luxury beach or something (eeeeviilll). This system is tight and I like it, being someone who never thought about it.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Japan doesn't have a lot of natural Resources. They can't exactly go building Dams like crazy to make more power.. They have to import anything used to make power there, whether its Oil, Gas, or Nuclear...
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
"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?
Best regards.
Just put a total of 200 square mile of arrays of mirrors into the deadest deserts and place on earth, let them heat water, drive turbines, and lead the power to us with DC cables. Tadaa: Enough energy for the whole world!
It's easy to build, needs no rare or non-renewable materials, does not destroy any living nature (except if you consider things like salt flats living nature), is relatively cheap in building and maintenance... what more do you need?
If you have to do it in space: The same thing works there too. You just have even more problems getting the power here. But what's the point?
If i ever make big time money, I'll invest half of it in such a power plant, and the other half in an army of soldiers and lobbyists, to protect it from a specific group of greedy bastards.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Uhm... You know that you grossly overstated the effects of global warming. If we continue at the current rate, sea levels will rise by about 11 centimeter in *2100*. It will certainly not be as dramatic rise (i.e. island under water) by 2050 as you would predict. I personally feel that we will be better equipped to tackle global warming in 2050.
So why not continue developing at the current pace and start working on the problem in say 2050?
It varies. Usually between $0.06 and $0.08 per kw/h.
The city is also the local utility, acting as a broker of sorts for the provincial utility BC Hydro. Here's the related bylaw:
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:lXaNBxkSEuMJ:www.newwestcity.ca/cityhall/Leg_Info/Electronic_Packages/2009/0420_Apr20/CW/Reports/cw13.pdf+new+westminster+electrical+rates+kw/h&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-a
I've played with this technology before and thing's didn't go so well. I was the mayor a city and we had a few hundred thousand people in it. Let's call them "Sims" to protect their identity. They were all bitching about how coal polluted the atmosphere and such. So one day after I was lounging around in my mayor's office this guy called me up and said "hey you should try this microwave energy stuff, it doesn't pollute." So I dropped some coin on this new technology, and everyone loved me.
That is, until the beam got out of alignment and fried half of the town. Then a huge robot showed up and finished off the rest of the town. And just to add insult to injury, an 8.0 earth quake hit and swallowed up what was left of the city.
Let that be a lesson to anyone who might want to try this technology.
My bill in Vancouver is like 13$/month for my appartment but heating is included.
I use 2 computers and my projector all the time + kitchen stuff, microwave
Where I live (Vancouver, Canada) my monthly bill is about $22. I use electric baseboard heaters, too!
Yeah, but using hydro is cheating! :)
Wind has about a 30% avaliability factor to it (at least here in the US), so in order to actually have a gigawatt of power availabe at any time you need about 3 times the name plate capacity. So in this case you need about 3 gigawatts of installed capacity to equal a gigawatt of a normal baseload unit (i.e. coal or nuclear, in this case space based solar). The wind doesn't always blow, and the way around that in the US and I'm assuming in Europe and other larger landmasses, is that even though the wind might not be blowing here it is blowing somewhere. Japan has very limited amounts of space avaliable right now and I'm guessing would have a major problem if the wind isn't blowing because there just isn't enough avaliable area to spread out your generation. If you don't think this is a problem try looking up ERCOT (the acroynym for the Texas power grid, yes they are on their own grid) wind event or just click here http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/pdfs/2008/ela_ercot_event.pdf One of the factors of this event was the loss of 1500 Megawatts of wind in 3 hours.
Wind is about $1B per gigawatt, and an installation is good for 150 years with generator replacements on average 35-50 years... It also creates thousands of jobs, is easy to repair, and is not a single point terorist threat target...
Direct comparisons aren't as easy as you think. Wind also doesn't scale as easily - you're not taking transmission costs into account, or the massive siting problems. Many of the large wind farms in the Western Interconnect have had - or are having - lots of opposition from the locals who don't want large turbines 'spoiling' (personal opinion) their view, or making noise 24/7. When you put them in out of the way places (which is where the best wind is anyway), then you're generally putting them where there aren't already heavy duty transmission lines. Then when you also add in heavy transmission line costs, you also get to deal with rights of way and environmental impact studies for that entire transmission line route, etc, etc. Wind is not a baseload power source - it varies, which adds costs to how you hook it up to the grid. Orbiting solar will be 24/7/365/forever, plus you can put as many up there as you can afford to, and the cost of these things will come down as our cost-to-orbit drops in the future.
You seem to think this *first* orbiting power station means *only* (hence your 'single point'). There's always gotta be a first. I'd plan on LOTS more of these if I were you.
re: terrorist target
Lots of terrorists targeting Japan? The Taliban has space capability now, too, eh?
I'm not saying this project doesn't have its problems, but you need to put it into perspective.
Vacuum of space == no way to dissipate heat? 1GW is a lot of energy, and I'm assuming the energy conversion isn't 100% efficient.... Is there somebody here with a better understanding of thermal physics explain how they might get rid of the waste heat?
Well then, if we think like that we are never going to be able to spread homeless people out into space. There is nothing more awesome than pulling into a mid earth parking orbit and have about dozen bums in space suits approach your craft offering to wipe your windows and inspect your heat tiles for a couple of buck and a can of dehydrated pork and beans.
Plus imagine what fun the homeless can have on the moon. They can shuffle around on the lunar surface and instead of dying under a highway overpass in the middle of winter they can freeze to death during the lunar night.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
What Could Go Wrong!!!
They don't need more land for food if they get this running, they can power huge skyscraper sized green houses in down town Tokyo that can feed every in their country and turn Tokyo into the "Farming, Technology and Perversion" capital of the world. The greenhouses will of course be ran by robots, that is until they rebel....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Same unit floating off the coast 2 billion dollars
Becasue Tesla's ideas won't generate enough power to make them worth while.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Because in 2050, you version 2.0 will say
"Hey, guys, if we continue at the current rate, sea levels will rise by about 11 centimeters in *2150*. Let's just work on the problem later".
There is an access road to each tower (dirt trail) that has to be considered, but otherwise you can farm right around them. They must be spaced apart, and there's no reason not to use the land in between as farm ground.
What will Japan's power consumption be in 10 to 20 years? They're having so few kids the population should be plummeting soon.
We don't need more power, Mr. Scotty. We need FEWER PEOPLE. Pollution would be less of a problem if there were fewer people creating it. Cutting emissions, conserving and finding cleaner sources of energy while all very good... won't mean shit if our growth is still horrifically out of control. With a smaller population we'd have more resources per person and less waste generated.
Similarly, there are no food or water shortages... there ARE places of the world that that too many people for the available resources. If we have 1 gallon per person per day at a population of 100,000... we'd have 2 gallons per person per day if the population of 50,000.
i'm not talking about killing off people or even letting them die. i'm talking about getting the population to something that is sustainable. The quantity of life is going to start seriously farking with our quality of life... and THEN with the quantity. If we don't get it under control we're going to have more wars, more droughts, more everything that sucks.
"easier said than done"
Really? No kidding! Can i have your autograph before you win the Nobel Prize for Pointing out the Obvious?
"But that's mean"
Mean is kids dying of starvation because their parents had too many kids. Mean will be wars over water.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Far too many ppl here assume that new advancements are cheaper than what they replace. What many fail to realize is that most of the big ideas were actually funded by federal levels. For example, the early railroads as well as roads in the USA were done by the feds. Likewise, the same is true of our coal and even nuke power plants. Just several days ago, I had a guy who was carping that I was pushing for space mining. For his POV it was all about TODAY's ECONOMIC issues. From my POV, it has always been about access to minerals and elements. Far too many of what we use in small quantities is from several countries that are not friendly to the west. In fact, that day, I found an article where Japan is very concerned that CHina is about to stop selling critical rare earth minerals, which at this time, they have a near monopoly on. It is possible that China will prevent other nations from having similar access to the cheap minerals.
What is needed is clear far thinking by our politicians. We had a great run of those back in the 30-70's, but have had several horrible presidents (reagan and W) combined with far too many decades of corrupt congresses.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
GoldenEye
how much was spent researching, designing, testing and building the first nuclear power station? they are paying the R&D. americans forgot how to do that?
Bare in mind nuclear is heavily subsidised, expensive to run, and with additional hidden costs that are not accounted for. Factor in environmental impact and you have a strong case for space based solar power.
Oh and the cost of launching a given mass to space is falling, and will get much lower.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
We need 1.21 gigawatts to power the flux capacitor.
Why is this thus? What is the reason for this thusness?
TOKYO - Residents have reported that giant reptile, Godzilla, was just struck down and apparently killed by a misdirected microwave beam from Japan's orbiting power generation satellite. The giant lizard fell in a residential area and caused substantial damage. Hundreds of people are missing and presumed dead.
The Greenpeace and the International Humane Society have issued a joint statement criticizing the Japanese government for allowing their satellite to destroy the last specimen of this endangered species.
Godzilla had a long history of appearing in Japanese cities, and often caused much damage with each visit. Typically, the creature appeared when some other monstrous threat appeared. Apart from the Windows 7 launch in Tokyo, no one is aware of any significant events that would have drawn the creature to the city.
Because of his history as a destructive source, many people are glad to see the death of the giant lizard. A representative of the Japanese tourism ministry, however, is reported to have said that, "Godzilla's passing will have a profound affect on the people of Japan, and upon the Japanese tourist economy."
Japanese street vendor, Aido Hawishinna, witnessed the event and reported, "It hit the buildings as it fell, and crashed just beyond my stand. It smells like baked fish. I wanted to be the first merchant in the city to sell Godzilla-burgers, but the police and army will not let me harvest the meat before it spoils."
The Japanese government, in an official statement issued hours after the incident, announced that it plans to conduct an autopsy on the remains, to determine if Godzilla's death was related to problems on the orbital microwave power platform.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Send down energy from the orbit without cable... I wonder if there is a way to be sure...
Damn, I wish this wasn't Japan. My apology.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. They've got ELECTROLYTES.
What an entire discussion and no one has brought up the SOL gun from Akira?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I think we'll need to see some more directly disastrous results before people really base day-to-day decisions on such considerations.
Arguably, not even then. The argument global warming deniers seem to have settled on is "It's happening, but it's not our fault." Even if disasters happen, they can claim that nothing could have been done.
This is a much more stable position than "it's not happening", which is subject to disproof by data. But the cause and effect are far enough separated that no amount of computer modeling will convince those who have a vested interest in not believing it. Especially since it's always possible to find some expert willing to confirm their beliefs. Even the hardest sciences are subject to healthy dispute that can be unhealthily portrayed as though there are two equal and opposite positions.
(Note: they're still happy to leap on "it's not happening" when they can cherry-pick data to support it. I'll be happy when 2009 is over and they can stop pointing to an outlier that occurred in 1999 and say "the last ten years" as if that were an arbitrarily-chosen period.)
>>>Japan is a small place with a high population density
Then maybe Japan's government should stop paying young people to produce more people. (Yes they really do that - the government thinks a shrinking population is a bad thing?!?!?)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"Have you actually read that page? It reads like a sci-fi novel written by a highschool kid on acid"
Oh cool. Finally a good reason to RTFA
NO SIG
Nuclear power has those problems only because we throw out 99% of nuclear fuel before we use it combined with the fact that all our nuclear facilities are aging (because we stopped building nuclear power plants) and using 30 to 50 year old technology.
A modern feeder/breeder reactor would be much cheaper and is more "green" than this (remember all that rocket fuel you have burn to launch the orbital platform and a feeder/breeder can use up the "nuclear waste" of obsolete reactors as fuel with minimal waste).
There are only two advantages of the orbital solar/microwave plant.
1: The NIMBY sheep won't be upset.
2: You can use it as an orbital death ray.
This one is way past due, IMHO.
.
The USA, it seems, can only think the NASA party line. To whit, "Let's go to [Insert useless gravity well]! It's cool! We can do scientific research! Hooray!"
.
Frankly the lot of them at NASA seem to have their heads so far up their collective behinds, I'm shocked they can see the light of day.
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Space technology is here. Not great. Not cheap, but it's here. Instead of little academia circle jerks and the folks who want to go to Mars because [insert costly impractical reason here], we *could* be building power stations, living environments, zero g manufacturing facilities, etc. in orbit now, with private backing.
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In short, there's *money* to be made out there in near Earth orbit. Energy money. Technology money. Non-bubble money. Right now, of course, it's much more expensive to put up a space based solar energy generator than a nuclear plant, however nuclear fuel is limited. Sunlight isn't. Who makes the bucks when the bean counters finally work that one out? It's a long term investment - the kind of thing Japan does well.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
we have a new American President who is not beholden to special interests, especially energy interests,
Maybe not energy interests, but if he wasn't on the take from media interests he would have cut the US out of ACTA negotiations by now, especially since he was talking all about transparency and making himself out to be a technophile during his campaign (so much for that). He's also made a habit of appointing RIAA lawyers to his administration.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The Japanese government thinks that an aging population is a bad thing. Lots of old people and not very many young people poses all sorts of challenges. Apparently they've decided that a growing but demographically-stable population is better than a size-stable but age-unbalanced one.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
That I did not know :) It makes a lot of sense actually; although I've no data to back it up, I suspect most wars are won by the nations that are expanding and need resources, rather than the ones that are subsisting and can afford to be confined more.
That seems like it would adequately prevent accidents. However, how do we ensure that no intentional redirects can be used to turn the thing into a weapon?
Let's go Hollywood for a moment and consider worst case scenario. "The terrorists" manage to a) hack into the command and control for the satellite and change the orientation of the antenna, and b) place a secondary pilot beam transmitter at the new 'target' (so that the 'fail safe' finds what it expects to find - a focusing beam in the correct phase)? I know, it sounds like the plot to a movie, but, what makes it impossible?
This may be a stupid question (if so, you may flame away), but if a given country or business interest were to launch such a satellite, what would stop another country or business from "stealing" the energy from the satellite (I mean, building their own receiving station on the ground and intercepting the microwave beam for themselves)?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Maybe they finished watching Gundam 00 a few seasons back.
They're building the space solar array without the giant space elevator. No terrorism problems, no defense treaty violations from hiding too many mecha to guard it.
DATABASE WOW WOW
You americans, you think the Japanese will let you get away with the bombing of it's cities and the public humiliation suffered by Emperor ShÅwa and the great japanese Peoples.
Here, the Japanese Empire is getting yet another step closer to world domination while all eyes are focused on the petty Iranian nuclear program.
Once the orbital laser cannon goes online, all will bow to the new, Japanese overlords.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
So we tried the ballot, we are at the jury part now, right? OnT: They are forced to build vertically to accommodate the population they currently have, so just putting the solar cells on top of everything would not be enough, and would destroy what they currently have of a view. The roofs of the traditionally built buildings are a defining feature, solar panels would destroy that. It would seem that this is most likely worth a lot to them. Is a very interesting project at any rate.
If they prove the technology out perhaps they can also market it to other countries / corporations and recover some / all / make a profit.
Just wait till the Pyscios Greens get hold of this. Here we are pumping in Gig Watts of energy into the bio-shere from space, energy that ultimately becomes heat in the atmosphere, adding to global [cooling] warming. Hey a new thing to tax! The Radiant Energy Tax, new and improved over the Carbon Tax.
Yep, now that I think about it a bit, this is probably about the export potential of having a new green power technology tried and tested just when the world really starts looking for options.
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?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Gundam_00
I eat Karma for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's why I don't have any.
if maintenance is cheap enough it's not too bad. $70,000 per home supplied amortized over say a 50 year design life is $117/month which is on the low end of my monthly bill.
You pay $117 a month for power, electricity? Heck I'd freak out if my bill were as high as $50, it's only about $20. Of course I'm single and live alone, but even if if my household had 3 others I wouldn't expect the power bill to be as high as $50.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It generates 1 Gigawatt. Lets just assume this is 24 hours per day, for the life of the system.
Divide the cost by the benefit and you get $21 per watt delivered. Since the customers are paying (for the sake of convenience) $0.21 per kilowatt-hour, it will take about 100,000 hours to pay for the thing. Inflation, like maintenance, is cost free. Thus the system is fully paid in about 11.4 years.
How long did Hubble go before it needed major servicing and a basic rebuild? And it wasn't nearly as complicated as a power plant and microwave death ray transmission path.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
The whole space-based power thing is just a science geek's wet dream. It will never happen. You might as well forget about a world powered by wind, sunlight, tides, ocean waves, algae, corn, sugar cane, etc. All that stuff is excruciatingly primitive and will not succeed in the long run.
The amazing truth is that, like fish in the ocean, we are swimming in wall-to-wall energy but we can't see it. Why? Because we are blinded by our current assumptions about how bodies really move. Soon though, all that will change because not everybody is making the same assumptions about motion. A few mavericks are thinking deep thoughts. Get ready for the age of infinite free energy and true zero emissions.
Nasty Little Truth About Motion
Or we could just say "Who gives a shit about 11 centimeters?". Sea-levels rise higher than that every time Rosie O'Donnell goes for a swim.
Plus warmer temperatures mean that we could actually start using all that land in Canada, instead of clustering the entire population along the US border. I LIKE the idea of warming, and I try to do my part: tomorrow I'm racing the heater against the air-conditioner to see which one wins.
Even the hardest sciences are subject to healthy dispute that can be unhealthily portrayed as though there are two equal and opposite positions.
Ah, the wedge issue ID supporters try to have included in education as regards evolution.
Oh, let me get this too:
The argument global warming deniers
Scientifically it's not Global Warming that a concern, it's Climate Change. While record highs are being recorded in the Pacific Northwest, such as in Seattle, this seems like the coolest summer I can recall in the Minneapolis, St Paul, twin cities area in the 10 years I've been here.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
But in addition to the 1.21 jiggawatts, they'd need to hit 88mph and feed it straight into a flux capacitor.
See, but Marty screwed up. The real money is to be had peeking 20 years into the future, patenting everything cool that you find there, and suing the hell out of everyone that invents any of it. Sports betting is for amateur time travelers!
Plus warmer temperatures mean that we could actually start using all that land in Canada, instead of clustering the entire population along the US border.
The entire population of Canada isn't clustered along the Canadian US border, Nunavut is in the north, and the Inuits there depend on Arctic Sea ice.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There aren't very many (or any that I know of) terrorist organizations that could hit a LEO object, and if they're talking geo-sync then you're really safe. I mean, governments have a hard time with that. Your only potential threat maybe would be North Korea (for LEO, geo-sync would be out of their range too). Terrorist groups thrive on cheap, easily deployed destructive devices. There's no concealing something capable of going 300+ miles straight up.
I don't have mod points today, but I did follow the poster's link. I think the proper moderation would be -1 Crackpot as opposed to -1 Troll, but as the poster says, "Soon, though, all that will change!"
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
WHAT THE HELL IS A GIGAWATT?
If the announcement is based on actual technical calculations (as opposed to getting-a-government-grant calculations or news-reporter-misinterpreted calculations), they're expecting the system will produce power for $21/watt (including research & development costs) - so $21K/kwh. At $0.10/kwh, that means they'd need to run for 210k hours to break even, which is unlikely; even at $0.30/kWh that'd be 70K hours, or a bit under 9 years.
On the other hand, if that's $16B for R&D and $5B for production of a reproducible solution (unlikely?) that's closer to viable.
I think the big question is the power transmission part; solar panel technology is improving, and presumably part of the research is how to develop cheaper launch capabilities.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If only Japan could somehow magically create more open, unfarmable, and uninhabited land where the turbines could be placed without taking away already scarce farm land or slowly deafen anyone within a kilometer!
Unlike nuclear power land for wind turbines can be used for food farming as well. Here in Minnesota many corn farmers site wind turbines on their farms. Platforms for towers don't take much space. And wind turbines aren't as loud as some make them out to be. All those who say they take too much land or are too loud are doing is spreading FUD and lies. And saying they kill a of birds is also FUD. Buildings, cars, and cats kill many birds. If you're worries about birds being killed by wind turbines then complain about birds being killed at airports. Here is a list of "9 Human Activities That Threaten Birds".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Never mind, it took me a while to find the part about power density.
Ok, so worst case scenario, 5 guys in the extreme north may have to take off their parkas. Oh no! It's a disaster of global proportions!
$21000000000/294000 homes=71428.57 per household.
That's just launch costs, right? Then you have yearly costs to keep the thing operational. Anyway, $71k over 50 years is $1428 a year not accounting for inflation or yearly costs.
Wow. I'm all for the idea, but the costs just make it seem wasteful. Put $21 billion solar panel and wind farms into production instead.
Wind also doesn't scale as easily - you're not taking transmission costs into account
Even nuclear has to be transmitted and so has a cost too. Of course adding solar, wind, and other sources of power to the grid will mean the grid has to be rebuilt and made smart. However according to "Rebuilding the Power Grid" problems related to the grid and power quality costs the US $80 Billion to $180 billion a year. If so then it only makes sense to rebuild the grid, and businesses are working on that. Xcel Energy is working on the Smart City Grid for instance. What stands in the way of a smart grid is government. It's not simple, well physically it is but not politically, to erect transmission lines from where the power is produced to where it's used. There are all the property owners as well as governments, from cities, counties, and states to deal with.
Then when you also add in heavy transmission line costs, you also get to deal with rights of way and environmental impact studies for that entire transmission line route, etc, etc.
As stated above that applies to nuclear power as well. It applies to all sources of electricity including coal and gas fired powerplants. The fact you're only applying it to wind shows you're biased against wind.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
They could also use that money to invest in CSP, wind, and tidal power.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Ok, so worst case scenario, 5 guys in the extreme north may have to take off their parkas. Oh no! It's a disaster of global proportions!
No, much worse has already happened. Some Inuits has drowned when they broke through thin ice. Of course that's nothing compared other things that have happened to them.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Next time when you guys will try to piss off Japan, you may get the heat back!
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
The ability to bring power into a hurricane hit area will enable quick power.
And how would the power be delivered? Any ground station would be damaged..
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
you fail at logic
The Mohave Power Station luckily was shut down. The Black Mesa aquifer was being pumped dry to pump coal mined at Black Mesa in a slurry to the power station.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
An amorphous blob consisting of people who know basic physics, physics experts, knowledge gleaned from experiments, and people who observe things beyond the confines of this planet say you're absolutely wrong about everything you discuss on that "nasty little truths" page.
No ad-hominem here. Happy now?
Also, why do you need to know who he is or what he has done in order to defend your claim? It doesn't matter whether a world-renowned physicist or a schoolchild proves you wrong, as long as the rebuttal is based on facts.
What effect will SBSP on passing-by satellites and high-altitude airplanes?
politicians. We had a great run of those back in the 30-70's
What? Like the politicians who prolonged the Great Depression?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
And you live in an area of North America with the cheapest electricity (ie, you are an outlier).
Seattle charges $0.04 - $0.08 per kWh (cheaper rate for first 10-16 kWh per day, depending on season).
In New York City, electricity costs around $0.20 per kWh (they say it's $0.10 for the actual juice plus $0.10 for delivery of said juice).
That's a 5x difference.
Near as I can tell, the rate in Tokyo is around $0.15-$0.20 per kWh (from a quick glance at http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/service/custom/guide/guide04-e.html ).
You don't need space capability to hack satellites. You just need a dish and a computer.
I hope the Japanese invest in some super-heavy duty multi-layered security.
"who wouldn't want it?"
Personally, me. I'd rather have a hybrid system of solar panels, wind turbines, and maybe microhydro to power my home. And vehicles. Now space based solar power could make sense for a moon base, but then again the atmosphere isn't as thick there so CSP, Concentrated Solar Power, may be better.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Small correction: the AP1000 reactor's lifetime is at least 60 years, not 25.
I could be mistaken, but isn't the cost of this power plant versus a nuclear power plant (which many people argue is the cheapest form of electricity to produce) over 3 times more? Additionally, due to problems with this technology being in its infancy there will undoubtedly be additional costs that were not taken into consideration.
I'm sure everyone will talk about this new "green" for of energy and expect it to be cheap, but they would shit a brick if they found out the actual costs they will be paying for electricity generated in this fashion.
Newsflash: new technologies often cost more initially, before dropping in price as they become more refined and efficiencies of scale kick in.
You can't expect an orbital solar power station with a novel transmission technology to be competitive with nuclear power (which has been refined for 50 odd years now) or coal/gas/oil (100+ years).
How cost effective was the first nuclear power plant compared to what was available at the time?
Read Pynchon.
And they could power Doc Brown's DeLorean.
My stuff speaks for itself. My point was and is that anybody who accuses me of being a crackpot in public should publically identify himself or herself. And yes, it is all about gonads and the lacks thereof. It takes guts to be accountable to one's words.
Ad hominems are personal opinions. They smack of cowardice, especially when they are anonymous. It's a chicken shit way of trying to destroy a message without taking the time and the effort to address it. Opinions are a dime a dozen. A well-formed argument, on the other hand, is priceless.
Wow, they're building the FIRST ONE for less than twice the cost of a mature, off the shelf nuke plant? You must have made a mistake, it can't possibly be that cheap.
Residential rates in NE Ohio are similar, it's 10.5c per kWh, but delivery, tax, cost recovery (stupid planned deregulation allowed the utility to recover the cost of their plants twice by now and we aren't going to get a deregulated market after the disaster in Illinois) makes it closer to 21c. Thankfully most of us have natural gas for heating or I'm not sure many people could afford to live around here (yeah gas spiked last year, but it was still half the cost per BTU of electric, this year it will be less than one fourth)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
So, this means that we let Japan put a 300 MW microwave transmitter in orbit, a transmitter that can be aimed anywhere the Japanese choose. I don't think that's wise.
It's particularly worrisome because, from the point of energy generation, space based power is extremely expensive--meaning that any country that moves to space based power generation may have hidden motives.
You need to keep in mind that Japan doesn't have all the land needed to deploy hundred of wind turbines.
Thus, it is oddly appropriate that Japan is at the right latitude to send
machinery into the jet stream. There, the wind is strong enough, it might not
take hundreds of turbines. One needs only enough land area for a
good anchor (come to that, sea area would do as well), and a good-sized
kite to maneuver into the strongest flow.
Just what a nation with no natural fuel resources, beyond wood and bamboo, needs: A huge, undefendable, centralized piece of critical infrastructure sitting right where everyone on the planet can reach it.
Never mind the technological arguments for and against it. The logistical ones should stop it in its tracks.
Go ahead Japan, build it. Then piss off just one nut case, like Korea, Libya, or whoever else has, or is close to being able to, lob a ballistic rock into orbit.
These huge, centralized, monolithic technological marvels that claim to be the answers to various problems all have the same vulnerability. They can be taken out by one pissed off caveman with a good throwing arm.
Haven't the lessons given by the failure of every centralized planning scheme in history taught us anything?
Why continue to ignore the lessons of evolution, free markets and decentralization?
Wait, sorry, I forgot. These are Homo Sap's we are talking about.
20 years?
On orbit?
You are very optimistic. Very very optimistic. Crack smoking optimistic.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It will produce a Gigawatt of power.
People get a bit mixed up with terminology here. The earlier attempts at fast breeders were a very expensive dead end due to the extreme difficulty of handling highly radioactive waste. A completely different approach with a lot of promise without that limitation, accelerated thorium, also gets called a breeder reactor.
Also remember that viable nuclear is always "just around the corner" until someone actually puts in the effort to work out how to do it. That means research instead of lobbying and PR. That means South Africa is twenty years ahead of the large US nuclear companies and the only local place that could sell you something other than TMI painted green is a startup using military research from Los Alamos a few years away from a product.
That's right - buy Westinghouse now while they can still sell these dinosaurs! Places that actually did some R&D over the last thirty years will render them totally irrelevant in nuclear soon and there will be things available that actually make economic sense instead of a drain on the taxpayer.
21 Billion... 294,000 homes... is $71,428.58 per home
google Calc: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLC_enUS312US312&q=21+billion+%2F+294000
Now, $71,428.58 Per home / 20 years = $3,741.43 PER YEAR COST OF SPACE ENERGY!
YIKES! REALLY!! PASS...
20 Years life expectancy of solar cells guessed at because of various googles and the chance of an astroid taking the whole thing out... and then you'd have to reinvest the next $21Billion for the next batch..
If it went longer than 20 years, it would lower costs, but not it is really too much of an outlay for 294,000 homes. quick lookup gives me around $600-700/yr... So that is like 5 times what I pay for normal ohio electric (mostly coal...)
Don't know how much to build Nuclear and how many homes... Anyone? We could burn the waste in the next generation reactors if we get a bunch up and running now...
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
This is 264,000 houses worth of energy that would have passed by the planet in space.
The more we do this, the more heat we put into the earth's biosphere.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Hi all,
aren't there costs of launching that are just to do with the sheer amount of fuel used to get things into orbit? How will this come down in price, and isn't that just wishful thinking?
Others have written about how space solar could be made far more economical if a moon-base were built for lower launch costs. And of course, once we have a base there all sorts of other space ventures become possible. (Lagrange stations, nice retirement destination, "Ark" on the moon, etc). So while I'm all for this just as an expensive proof of concept, surely the main goal for space solar would be a moon base to radically lower launch costs?
I think I'm a moon => L5 station => Mars kind of guy, however some say once we settle the Lagrange points we won't bother with settling Mars because who wants to get stuck on a gravity well?
The article says "Transportation of the solar panels into space is too expensive at the moment to be commercially viable, so Japan has to figure out a way to lower costs," so the transportation costs cannot be included in the stated $21B figure, making it seem of little value. At first I was really impressed since $21 a watt is within striking distance of being economically competitive. (Fossil fuel powered plants cost in the vicinity of $5 per watt to build PLUS fuel costs. And any new technology tends to come down in price with experience.) Another possible problem: The article says the satellite "produces" one gigawatt, which may not be the same as receiving one gigawatt on the ground. Anyone know the answer to that question?
Well your not going to like the new government here then. They have 'Promised' $6000 per newborn and $300 a month per child.
No, NASA can just do the math. It is very, very, very difficult to make a case for space-based solar power- at least in the USA. $21 billion worth of solar panels in the southwest desert would generate far more power than $21 billion worth of solar panels in orbit. Of course, Japan doesn't have a large unused desert to put a solar power plant, so the economics for them may be different. For America's civilian grid, space-based solar won't make sense unless there is a revolution in rocketry. As much as you hate gravity wells, it's hard and expensive getting out of our own. Very, very expensive. That being said, DARPA is looking into space-based solar, which makes sense. For the military, being able to generate power in space and 'beam' it to the ground makes sense. It's probably cheaper in the long run than trucking fuel to the middle of nowhere to run diesel generators.
There are two directions an economy can head to get out of a recession. One is up...
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
In this case, it's a terrible sign that the Japanese are so fed up with investing in the US that they now see hurling money into space as a better alternative.
Yeah but if it works, it'll generate income, there is a risk/reward here, unlike the Keynes "bury money in a mine" scenario.
I could make a smartass remark here about how the US government decided to bury millions of dollars in cable underground in the 1960s, connecting universities and research institutions with an inefficient government boondoggle...
Speaking of shooting money into space, you'll also notice that we didn't get integrated circuits to build computers with until after that wasteful Apollo program. The obvious conclusion is that government interference cause the Apollo program to prevent the genious MBAs from being able to sell their integrated circuits for at least a decade.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
No, actually, it doesn't mean either. It means an overall decline in economic activity across many dimensions taken together, the nearest thing to a single-dimensional rough definition is a decline in production rather than spending. A decline in spending usually occurs during a recession, but its not the same thing as a recession.
How much of that decline was spend cleaning up M$ malware? It looks like several tens of billions of dollars per year down the drain. I bet for 5 we could convert any M$ holdouts in the public and private sector over to desktops with customize { Openbox | Fluxbox | Xcfe | KDE } on { Linux | BSD | Solaris }. Removing any remnant M$ servers would be even faster and cheaper.
Then there is the problem of the soporific "M$ Look and Feel" Work that used to take an afternoon before M$ now takes most of several whole days to a week. However, the "M$ Look and Feel" is "so nice once you get used to it."
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Right now I'm paying 28 yen (very close to 28 cents) per KWh in Japan. I pretty much guarantee that's a lot more than you are paying. People here are already used to paying a lot more for electricity costs.
Once and for all!
but
ONCE AND FOR ALL!
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Not a lot more, my bill works out to about 21c per kWh so you're paying about 1/3rd more if that's the full bill rate and not the per-unit rate.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
But those power plants can't be relocated easily. A space based solution could be designed with a mobile receiver for military/disaster relief use...
Lots of terrorists targeting Japan?
Famously, yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway
Turns out the concept of terrorism didn't start with Al Qaeda. Although I agree they are not (and should never be) a good reason to say "let's just not bother"
1) the sattelite plan sends all poewr to a single point of collection, a serious problem for scalabiltiy and distribution far beyond wind.
2) Wind belongs offshore. Even still, explain to the hundreds of people you'll have to relocate for the mile across microwave collectors for the solar station, and the no-fly zones they'll create.
3) Superconducting lines are a reality, and deployed in multiple countries, and they're not rediculously expensive. Further, we'll need them anyway with any other alternative technolog, so its a non-issue.
4) Wind varies, yes, but provide a baseload wind source, from interconnected farms over large areas, and the variance fades. Overproduce to further enhance the base load (and use the overproduction to fuel RFTS fuel plats like ones proposed by dotyenergycom)
5) a power station on earth is difficult to destroy, a sattelite, regardless of how many you put up there, make 1GW each, and can be taked out by a simple truck mounted missle... China and russia have both proven they have this capability, others do too.
6) superconducting lines have limited environmental impact as the do not produce feild strentgh similar in any way to traditional high power lines, and they're buried, not on towers, so right of way is a limited issue, but again, space power also depends on these lines, so it;s a non-issue.
Orbital power over JAPAN is NOT a baseload source, it has to be over one of the POLES to be a 24x7 source, and tell me the cost of THOSE travel lines...
7) Japan would be first, others will follow. Japan is the 2nd largest ecoomy (and growing) and a weakmness like orbital power is an easily exploited system to BRING terorism to japan. Also, Taliban isn't heavy there, but they do have terorists from multiple organizations operating in their country.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
OK, at 3-5 billion just to LAUNCH, excluding R&D and equipment you're launching, it;s still 3 times more expensive per GW.
Also, it;s not base load power unless you put it orbiting VERY far out (and circling the globe with mutiple sattelites) or deploying over poles, either of which is a rediculous line transmission cost compared to regionally interconnected wind farms over buried superconducting lines (which are not THAT expensive, and have been deployed and are continuing to be deployed worldwide).
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
There are not today, but in 15-30 years this will practically be off-the-shelf tech for a well funded terorist organization (or worse, a rogue government like Korea!).
Think in 50+ year security terms (or 150, which is the life of a wind tower), not in near term realities.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
1) 2.0-3.5 @35% yes, thats fairly accurate for existing systems. Scalar efficiency and lessons learded are droping that figure for new instalations, and we're also looking at closer to 45% capacity in offshore areas primed for the next 3-6 years of deployments (since we're now eliminating "spin-up" higher wind speed requirements and we all now agree that it;s OK to use electricity for a few minutes to manually spin up a blade that can make energy at a lower available wind speed for hours on end...
2) it;s 3 billion per launch, not including the payload... if the kit and research were free it would still soct more.
A) you're not counting transmission lines from a near-polar source (unless you're counting the sattelite at 30% capacity and tripple it's 21B cost as well, which they're quoting 24/7, so i did as well)
B) its just to damned risky, too easy to shoot down (not just by terorist, but don't you think Korea would have serious interest in openly threatening Japan's power source with a single missle?)
There are VIABLE earth based technologies, not just wind, which will easily provide out power systems across multi-redundant and easily sustainable grids for far less money. This technology is unnecessary to research until we solve the other critical financial roadblocks... Shit, if we just threw $21 billion at solar research, in the 10 years it tookl to launch 1 damned bird with a 20% better efficincy than ground solar, we'd way more than tripple our own efficiency here. You can't spend on both, spend on the one that's going to solve a larger problem with less money and be more easily accessible to the world...
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
I can't believe you get upset that someone calls you, a perpetual-motion crackpot, a crackpot.
"...capable of producing one gigawatt of energy ... enough to power 294,000 homes"
...or one heavily modified DeLorean.
Conficker racked up $9 billion in damages during its first quarter. That's far from the only worm out there. Old windows malware doesn't go away it's just added to the zoo.
Compare that to the estimated development costs for your average linux distro run about $1 billion.
So the savings of eradicating MSFT products for just three months would, using those numbers, give enough money to start linux from scratch 9 times over and still break out even. The more polished linux distros are now quite a few years ahead of Windows in most areas. In the areas they aren't $9 billion could buy a lot of improvement. Of that hypothetical $9 billion, it wouldn't cost but a fraction to make Filezilla as nice as Fugu or cyberduck.
Oh, but wait. There's the long tail of the worm. The windows worms run for years.
Microsoft products just aren't engineered for security. Xp, Vista and Vista 7 show us that nothing changes on that front. That's not a technical problem any more, that's an HR problem. Get rid of the MSFT boosters and you raise productivty.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I'm not seeing how your arguments against wind power generation make space-based power generation look any more attractive.
It's not an either/or equation. Building space-based solar power stations doesn't mean you can't have wind generation, or vice versa. A multi-method approach is generally accepted as the only viable answer to the question of "How do we replace fossil fuel for power generation?" Also, I've not been arguing against wind power, just pointing out that the costs and technical & regulatory/legal hurdles are much more involved than most people realize. By no means am I against wind power. I must admit I think CSP (concentrated solar power) gets short shrift in the industry, though. I don't think space-based solar power is going to save us, but I think it's a great thing to invest in, if for no other reason than the more stuff we send into orbit, the more likely cost-to-orbit will come down.
Transmission costs: Space-based power cannot beam its energy into the middle of a residential (or industrial) area. Because of safety tolerances the receiving stations need to be in unpopulated areas with a buffer zone and you'll still need to transport that power over cables to the consumers just as you would with any other form of power generation. Japan doesn't have much free land area available, so that probably means that the receiving stations will be in the seas/oceans surrounding it and power will travel via undersea cables to the communities that it services.
Keep in mind that the issue of rights of way for undersea cable are likely far easier than for over land, plus the cost of laying it is probably less, too, given my admittedly vague understanding of the technology.
Environmental costs: Even if there's no risk to the local wildlife, which there will be since it's microwave radiation afterall, you're still get a whole bunch of greenies telling you that there are. In addition, you'll probably get a bunch of people with the usual "I don't want that next door to my place" arguments.
You have that no matter what technology you use. Land-based solar power requires lots of land area to generate significant amounts of power, which brings out protests on land use. Wind power has issues with bird & bat kills, sound pollution, and 'sight' pollution issues which brings out protests, etc. You're never going to find a method of power generation that some group somewhere doesn't object to. I'm leery of space stations beaming power into the Earth's atmosphere via microwaves myself, but I do realize that there are much worse power sources already widely in use.
Terrorism threats: You don't need physical access to the solar-based generator to turn it into a weapon. It'll be controlled from computers on the ground.
True, but that's generally more of a security issue that other nations go for, rather than terrorists. Plus, Japan still doesn't have much of a terrorism problem. Maybe because they don't have a foreign military presence in Muslim countries. This is by far the smallest-looking problem with this plan to me. You want to get scared about terrorism and power generation, you don't even want to know how pathetic the security is around most U.S. nuclear power plants.
Here's hoping that the costs will scale much, much better as more units come online. $21B over 294,000 homes works out to $71,428/home - it'll take a while to pay that off so you could turn a profit!
True, but this is the first one, so applying that cost and saying that's how much this technology will cost is pretty ridiculous. If they then license this technology, they could make more money that way. Either way, this is the first one, and the first one of anything always costs way more than subsequent ones.
And that's not even all of it. There was a plan a few years ago (when I stopped reporting on these things - no idea what the status of it is now) to bring some HVDC lines down from Alberta into the US down through MT, WY, etc, into California, connecting wind and other power plants on the way. Then California enacted a ban on importation of fossil-fuel generated power, and that plan went by the wayside. The people wanting to make the HVDC line didn't think the project would suceed with _just_ connecting new (unbuilt) wind farms to the grid.
I did address that, politics, in one of my posts you replied to.
There is cheap and there is relatively cheap. Neither of those implies easy, btw.
I agree, but as I also said before technically it is easy, the hard part is politics.
Not higher than building new reactors, but higher than are usually understood, since it's not the total picture, and higher than people attempting to do a direct comparison to what is actually building new reactors
You're right. You yourself said "ots of opposition from the locals who don't want large turbines 'spoiling' (personal opinion) their view, or making noise 24/7... Then when you also add in heavy transmission line costs, you also get to deal with rights of way and environmental impact studies for that entire transmission line route, etc, etc." You talk about cost related to wind but not nuclear. For instance you say how people don't want turbines in view but you don't say people don't want nuclear power plants near them either. You also talk about how people don't like the noise from them, without acknowledging modern turbines are quiet. Then again you talk about how impact studies for transmission line routes have to be done without saying they also need to be done with nuclear, and every other large scale power source.
You keep attributing cost to wind without acknowledging those same costs exist for other power sources. When I pointed that out previously you shrugged it off.
Also, scaling up a wind farm to the same power output as even one nuclear reactor in the 1000MW range is going to be interesting
How many years does it take to build a nuclear reactor? Years and years. Even in Finland it takes years. Finland's Olkiluoto 3 the third reactor at Olkiluoto, being built by the French government owned Areva, has experienced cost overruns and construction delays. Olkiluoto 3 is already 3 year behind and "about $2.4bn dollars (1.7bn euros) over budget". They still don't know when it will start operations, the easiest expected is 2012.
Oh, and neither Finland nor France has the US's regulations. So compound their problems with those from building in the US.
Like the wind power industry isn't? Dude, you need to do some reading!
Sorry I already have. Not one energy source does not get subsidies. However all alternative energy sources only get a fraction of the subsidies coal, natural gas, nuclear, and petroleum get individually. Alternative energies all together only get a couple of hundred million dollars. Individually the others get more than a billion each. Here's a video of Rep Edward Markey enumerating what subsidies different industries get. He starts with saying over the years the nuclear industry has gotten $125 Billion. Altogether all the potential alternative energy sources, be it biofuel and biomass, geotherm
Should there be a Law?
If delivered in one hit, yes. But who would be so stupid as to do that.
How many years would this be amortised over? $7,142.80 a year over 10 years, this is not counting tax paid by businesses, sales tax, import/export taxes. You're thinking like an American corporation, everything comes out of this quarters budget. Try thinking like the Japanese corporation, long term investment that may take a decade or two to reach fulfilment. The average household in Japan (that may be two wage earners or more in Japan) will not bear $71,428 and most certainly certainly in a single year.
The questions you should be asking are, "is this tech going to work" and "is this tech going to be safe" long before you ask "who is paying for it" and "who is going to make a buck off this".
Politically, Japan has declared themselves "nuclear free" and wont even allow US Nuclear Sub's and Carriers into Japanese territorial waters (Boon for Australia though, nuclear warships welcome) and Japan does not receive nearly enough sunlight to make putting solar panels everywhere viable. Plus the upkeep costs on maintaining solar panels in a city the size of Tokyo would be enormous. Amortised over 20 or 30 years and including a budget blow-out, the satellite will be an order or magnitude cheaper per watt then solar panels which are extremely vulnerable to damage on the ground (Japan is in an earthquake and cyclone zone). As I said, the problem is whether or not the tech will even work and be safe.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This is an indication of just how much of a clue you lack. One of these words isn't even a word.
Now here's where you fail. Putting an inefficient solar panel onto every roof is not the expensive part, Interconnecting them is more expensive, you have to ensure that all lines are capable of handling the maximum potential throughput, this is easy when the throughput is from one source going downwards in voltage and amperage (through the transformers). It is difficult when dealing with multiple sources going in both directions. At the very least every transformer in the city will need to be replaced.
In addition to this, the cost of replacement of broken panels. They are made out of glass and thus quite fragile. My city of Perth is in a calm and temperate zone and it is not uncommon for a storm to take a tile or two off the roof, imagine what that kind of debris can do to a roof covered in fragile photovoltaic panels. Then imagine the cities of Japan which as I said are in an earthquake and a cyclone zone.
And on top of this is the costs of cleaning, dust and grime will build up on the panels so they will all need to be cleaned regularly. I'll put good money on the fact that many residents will not do it themselves.
Whilst nuclear power is the cheapest form of power available, that is due entirely to high production, not low costs. The real costs in Nuclear power come with building the plant to safety standards, Maintaining the plant to safety standards and above all else employing people to run the plant. You can run a coal plant with any old moron at the wheel, a nuclear plant has to employ highly trained professionals with qualifications for most of their positions. Maintenance and employment will make running a Nuclear plant more expensive then coal or hydro but you will have a higher output. Solar panels on the top of every house becomes very expensive very quickly, this cost is magnified by significant ongoing maintenance costs. Once a solar satellite is in orbit, maintenance costs are very little.
It makes no sense to you because you don't understand the concept of amortisation or the concepts of Total Cost of Operation, risk management or ongoing costs. Just like most American financial institutions.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I'd have modded you Insightful if you weren't swung over so far in the Funny direction already!
Hrm, now you've got me wanting to go back and watch some more of the older ones (Moore / Connery). It's been at least 10 years since I've watched any of them. I've forgotten most of them.
Yea, whenever I go into a store and see a set of Bond movies I have to fight off the urge to buy it. I have 9 of them now, 8 of which are on tape. Thinking about it I think it's ironic that I have hundreds of DVDs but only one Bond movie on DVD.
Oh, thinking about it I wonder what a movie would be like with Antonio Banderas as Bond. He's Spanish so I'm not sure it would work with him playing an English spy, maybe a Spanish version?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You appear to be confused about what an "ad hominem" attack is. If you remember your junior high school Latin or logic classes, it's arguing "to the man" instead of "to the topic". If I had said "Oh, that's just Louis Savain, so anything he says is bogus", or "He's a New Ager, so anything he says is bogus", that would be "ad hominem".
That's not what's happening here - I went and read your web page, looked at a bunch of your arguments, even got as far as quoting your own words in my posting. I'm not saying people should discount your fine technical work simply because you're a crackpot - I'm saying that your arguments display a hopelessly cracked misunderstanding of physics, and that they shouldn't waste their time reading it except for entertainment purposes, but that you appear to actually believe them so you don't deserve a "-1 Troll" down-rating. (And as far as your posting's first two sentences go, I'm also highly skeptical about whether space-based power makes sense or will work, but the rest of your article and your website makes it clear that you think so for hopelessly wrong reasons.) If you want to claim that I'm insulting you because of your work, and that that's rude, well perhaps it's a fair cop (:-), but it's just the opposite of insulting your work because of you, which is what an ad hominem argument is, and given that you start many of your paragraphs describing how you think normal physicists think the work works as "The Crackpottery", well, you're not in much position to argue - you not only get Newtonian physics wrong, you also get quantum wrong and don't even get Yin and Yang right.
And yes, there are many Bill Stewarts out there - feel free to Google me; I'm the one who's not the drummer and wasn't killed in Nicaragua. And I've been out of town for a couple of days so I didn't see your reply until today.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
You've accused all the physicists in the world of crackpottery, and while perhaps you spent some time writing your essay, it's not "a well-formed argument"; it's closer to "not even clear enough to be wrong". It does in fact speak for itself, which is why I recommended the "-1 Crackpot" rating for your earlier posting, and I'm at least as identified around here as you are, having been online since ~1981...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks