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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."
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
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.
The amount of solar energy per m2 outside the Van Allen Belt is far more than what we get here on earth.
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.
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).
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.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
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.
Why is it that people on /. who live and breath new technology always have such a hard time with new technology economics? Why is it so hard to understand that new technology R & D is obscenely expensive relative to the commoditized versions that eventually follow. If everything was left to visionless people who focused solely on short term economics we'd still be living in the technological dark ages with a miserable quality of life.
Before one nay-says, consider the benefits to society should the technology under discussion becomes an inexpensive commoditization.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
How is it that Keynesians continue to absolutely fail to understand basic cause and effect and the free market? "Lack of spending behavior" is neither the definition or cause of the recession. It is the result of the lack of productive return over the last several years due to terrible investments. Recession is defined as negative GDP growth, or lack of improvement in production, not lack of spending.
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.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
...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.
Here's a random thought: If we were to detect (with sufficient warning) an incoming comet on collision course for Earth, could this thing be reoriented so the microwave beam begins to ablate material off the comet and change the trajectory?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
They don't live and breathe new technology -- they live and breathe commodity technology, and think of it as new because they have no familiarity with actual R&D.
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.
"The Agricultural Ministry is Not in Charge of Gundam"
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
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...
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
"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.
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.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
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.
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.
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!
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.
Money and wealth are arbitrary values of measurement set by society, businesses, government, or between individuals as it is.
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.
That said, the gap between utility and wealth often becomes over extended and bubbles will happen.
Just because society thinks something is valuable often does not increase its utility and the lack of value sometimes does not actually decrease utility of the commodity.
Although, if you have organizations like the IRS, world's largest prison system, and nuclear weapons you can make your money valuable by simple force of will.
Think about that next time you pay taxes or buy gas.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Rather than spend $71,000 per home to buy some spacetoy, they could just spend $10,000 per home and put the solar panels directly on the roof.
Japan isn't exactly the sunniest place in the world, so solar panels on the rooftops aren't going to provide enough power.
However, if they succeed in developing space-based power, not only can they provide power to themselves, they can build more stations and sell power to other countries too. That could be very profitable. All they have to do is make it cheaper than nuclear power, and lots of places would sign up. If they make it cheaper than coal, then Japan would control a large portion of worldwide energy.
Meanwhile, what exactly is the USA investing in to secure its citizens a place in the future global economy? Real estate loans?
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 ...
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