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.

Comments

Original article

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Drag

[MightyMartian]

Am I the only one slightly concerned about this idea turning the Earth into an interstellar spacecraft, solving the global warming problem permanently (as far as humans are concerned)?

-1 Moronic

Re:Hmm.

[maxume]

Just boil the Atlantic and harvest energy from the larger, more predictable hurricanes.

Sail Envy

[MonsterTrimble]

This is what got me:

According to the team's calculations, 300 meters (984 feet) of copper wire, attached to a two-meter-wide (6.6-foot-wide) receiver and a 10-meter (32.8-foot) sail, would generate enough power for 1,000 homes.

So why would we build one sail, which would be a target and fought over by countries and an untold number of businessess when you could run up a bunch of smaller sails? Easier to build and maintain, which lowers the barrier to entry and stops the wars and lawsuits which would inevitably break out over THE sail. I guess you have to dream big, but like anything, start small.

Re:Sail Envy

[Surt]

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.

Re:Sail Envy

[KumquatOfSolace]

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.

Re:mixed units

[Smallpond]

"thousand meter cable, and 5,000 mile sail" Meters and miles. Isn't this use of mixed units the error that doomed a mars satellite?

That's ok, the energy unit that they use is the kilohome:

According to the team's calculations, 300 meters (984 feet) of copper wire, attached to a two-meter-wide (6.6-foot-wide) receiver and a 10-meter (32.8-foot) sail, would generate enough power for 1,000 homes.

You can convert that to English units using Home's Law.

Re:ISS

[Rik Sweeney]

Don't be nasty. Just because a lot of Microsoft's products are resource hogs doesn't mean they all are.

Oh wait, you said ISS...

Re:Renewable

[nedlohs]

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...

Re:Renewable

[SatanicPuppy]

Obviously, you just remember to plant a new star so it'll be ready by the time the old one burns out.

That's just common sense.

Re:Sounds great...

[ComaVN]

Whenever I hear someone mention depopulation as a good idea I shudder. Just HOW do you suppose you are going to accomplish that?

A death ray powered by a solar wind collector, obviously.

It's right there in the summary, sheesh.

Re:ok, mr smartypants, answer this:

[AJWM]

how do you successfully attack someone who controls a 30 million billion jiggiewatt deathray?

Get some farm kid to fire a torpedo down a vent shaft from his X-wing?