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Tapping Solar Wind's Renewable Energy
A few folks noted a story making the rounds about the huge energy potential just blowing past the planet in the form of solar wind. This research involves putting a satellite into orbit with a thousand-meter cable and a 5,000-mile sail to generate more power than the earth currently uses.
Click me. This article is paywalled after you read a few stories, but the paywall is a javascript popup. Noscript lets you read the article.
In the exact same way that solar power is considered renewable, and hyrdo power is considered renewable, and wood burning power is considered renewable.
Yes when the sun comes to the end of its life all of those stop. But there are bigger issues at that point...
The authors original paper ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/abscicon2010/pdf/5469.pdf ) is about building the largest practically possible chunk of a dyson sphere. This is essentially the largest piece they think we are capable of building with current technology.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Also, the paper was presented at an astrobiology conference. They are suggesting that an alien civilization is more likely to have built one of these than an actual Dyson sphere (because it seems possible with our own technology within the next 100 years, unlike a Dyson sphere), and they are wondering if we would be able to detect it using our current instruments and techniques. That's the focus of the paper, not the idea that we should actually begin building one.