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Chinese Scientists Plan Solar Power Station In Space
knwny points out this lofty proposed power plan in China. "The battle to dispel smog, cut greenhouse gases and solve the energy crisis is moving to space. If news reports are to be believed, Chinese scientists are mulling the construction of a solar power station in a geosynchronous orbit 36,000 kilometres above ground. The electricity generated would be converted to microwaves or lasers and transmitted to a collector on Earth. If realized, it will surpass the scale of the Apollo project and the International Space Station and be the largest-ever space project."
This stupid idea gets floated every few years. It doesn't work, even in theory. Do the math yourself.
https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-maury-equation-redux/
That is quite surprising, because China is one of the world's biggest manufacturers of solar panels, and has a lot of open area with a lot of sunshine. An much easier and much cheaper solution seems to be at hand. This makes me think that the orbital city-zappe... uh... I mean... solar power plant is not entirely what it appears to be.
This interesting idea and technological endeavor was proposed in the 1960s maybe it was also proposed before, but that is were I read first about it - in a book from the 1960s. Later they did not build it because it was so incredible expensive to get all the materials up, repair it in space, and keep its focus on the same spot on the ground. Next, they will figure out that placing panels on roofs is much more efficient even though it will not work in their metropolises as the air is too polluted. Anyway, they have enough free country side to go for it.
China's new weapon, a giant earth searing laser - powered by the sun...
Send in Bond and his invisible car!
Either this system is implemented and a new era of clean, renewable energy from our single star is to be realized from the heart of the orient, or, takeaway from xishuangbanna goes from 15 minutes to 2 for the crispy pork belly.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I remember doing this in SimCity 2000. The downside was that every once in a while the sattelite would stray from its intended target and vapoirse some random building near the receiver....
The novelty is starting to wear off this annoying novelty word.
What happens to birds, airplanes, etc. flying through the microwave beam?
That's equivalent to 12 of Beijing's Tian'anmen Square, the largest public square in the world, or nearly two New York Central Parks.
How many football fields is that? (American football). I hope when the specs are released for this space station, the length is reported in Library of Congresses so i can understand it.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Talking about something and planning it are two different things. It appears whoever submitted this article fabricated the idea that this is being 'planned', or maybe its a problem with reading comprehension. It is clearly not being planned.
teh NUKLEAR POEWR!
Solar space station should support nuclear . . . Until then, nothing will change!
What's with all the "mulling"?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The idea is not new. Assuming it will work, it can also be used as a WMD. Instead of beaming the energy to the receiving station, the space array can target the energey to whereever in sight. Imaging mega watts of microwave power concerntrated on a city block ... Of course, the weather has to be clear.
Is it getting a little warm in here?
Oops! We accidentally aimed it at Tibet.
1. China lacks a lot of knowledge when it comes to building and maintaining large things in space...
2. Imagine China could get this to work, there's so much lost in the down link due to the atmosphere you'd need a REALLY powerful microwave emitter or laser, at which point you've now got a death ray in orbit. There are pretty strict rules about NOT militarizing space and nobody would be cool with a country having their own personal death star in orbit.
3. If instead they decided to use low power, the collector on the ground would have to be so massive, it would have been cheaper to just invest that money into getting fusion to actually work.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Even if a solar panel in Geosynchronous orbit generated 100x more energy than an equivalent panel on earth (which seems unlikely), it makes no economic sense to put it there since you could put several hundred panels on the Earth's surface for a small fraction of the cost. In fact you could fill an entire football field full of panels for a fraction of the cost of the space based solution. Just through sheer numbers they would generate more than the space-based panel even on a cloudy day.
Simple repairs are also orders of magnitude cheaper for the ground-based solution.
When your government is full of engineers, not lawyers, and when you can just ignore the flat-earth lobby instead of wasting half your funding fighting their just-because-we-can delays, you can test ideas like this. If it can be made to work, it would mean baseload solar.
The biggest unknown is the microwave link to send power to Earth. Would locating the receiving antenna ("rectenna") array in the desert avoid weather interference? Would the beam wander? I don't see it as being usable as a weapon because a huge structure in space is easily disabled from the ground.
The next-biggest unknown is availability of construction materials. After the initial proof of concept, lugging large amounts is metals up the terrestrial gravity well is not goiong to be an option. This is an application for "local" metals, from the Moon or from the Belt. Implementation would have to wait until this supply becomes available.
I don't get it. How are they possibly going to keep the sharks alive long enough to keep the lasers pointed toward Earth? Doomed from the start if you ask me.
Design it as an enormous spherical object covered with solar panels and a large antenna to beam power. And a thermal port ...
[Insert pithy quote here]
I think a large problem is going to be space debris - debris from previous launches and defunct satellites.
When the idea of an orbital power station was first formed in the early days of space exploration, space debris was not a problem. These days there is a huge number of tiny objects circling the Earth at high speeds - like bullets being shot at random.
The larger the orbital mirrors are, the more surface area there would be for collecting space debris.
Sure, you could place them in higher orbit, but then the mirrors would not get as much protection from solar wind from the Earth's magnetic field.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
What happened to the old Slashdot where "it costs too much" was never the answer. This is about science and technology, not money. Sure the article and its sources have flaws but at least people are thinking of new, grand ideas. The first step toward building something magnificent is to have a vision. Even if that vision is currently unattainable, there is huge benefit to society from the effort.
Many of the commentators here here have let their cynicism win their hearts where once enthusiasm and innovation ruled the day. How foolish can you be to let "it might not work" stop you from even dreaming? Many of the greatest achievements in mankind's history came from significant personal and/or societal risk.
Wasn't this one of the Energy source options you could use in SimCity 2000?
I mean like exactly the same idea?
IIRC the option to use this form of power for your city actually said, "the results of a misdirected beam are yet unknown"
RTFA. He was an integral part of their rocket program - he's a smart guy - and he specifically calls out what technologies need to be developed to make this economically viable. Your comment comes across like you are a racist, young, and stupid ass hole. Hope that was your goal.
Evolve a technology base that doesn't need such massive amounts of uncoordiante distributions of power.
Like using DNA to sustain life instead of replicating vicarious Life experiences to feed an addicted mental feedback loop that ultimately leads to an early death.
In a Thermodynamics 3rd Law sort of way.. whichever path leads to the quickest death and end of Civilization "makes the most sense".
But morally if its Evil or not.. our job as lifeforms is to resist death until the bitter end.
Why would you put a solar panel in orbit to convert solar radiation to electricity, then convert it back to radiation to send to earth?
Seems like the sun already puts out nice radiation suitable for beaming to earth.
Just put a collector in orbit and direct the collected, concentrated sunlight to something useful on the surface.
Of course, just doing the collection on earth might be cheaper, even if it only works during the day.
NASA, JAXA and similar outfit drool at the perspective to have a long term project where they need to send a lot of cargo up, means a lot of contract and assured budget.
Those folk tells the space solar collector are possible and desirable.
The folk at energy production on the other hand use a calculator for cost of setting up, maintaining compared to generated energy and they usually view that as possible but not profitable compared to a similarly sized (in megawatt) installation on earth with physical batteries.
Sorry I i trust far more than who are involved i energy generation, than those involved into profiting by cargoeing the stuff.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It makes no sense at all to send solar panels so close to earth. The photon density there is almost the same as here.
It would make sense to send solar panels close to the sun, where even a small surface would receive much more radiation.
It's all fun and games until Elon Musk burns " CHA " on the face of the moon.
Surely that should be "ELO" ?!
We've got a 4x10^26 Watt fusion reactor only eight minutes away. Eventually somebody's going to figure out how to use it.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It doesn't matter. They'll plagarize the design, then falsify the data, and finally subvert the peer review process to publish it anyway.
Wasn't this one of the power options in Sim City?
I suggest stopping the moon in it's orbit and making it geosynchronous, then spray painting it with a highly reflective silver paint. That way we can get enough sunlight at night to compensate with ground-based solar panels.
:-D
That's really simple to do, right? Easy Peasy!
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Don't miss the dish
"...ground-based solar plants fluctuates with night and day and the weather, while a space-based generator can collect energy 99 percent of the time"
Right. And in the previous paragraph, it said the station would be geo-synchronous. Anyone see the problem here?
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
What happens to birds that fly through that microwave field?
Back in the early 80s this was done as a pilot program by Roxxon Oil. After a few small towns near the receiving station were fried, Iron Man stepped in and put an end to it.
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix4/roxxon.htm
they're contemplating building a moat around the White House.
Is it really so much harder to simply put giant mirrors up in space and focus the sunlight onto a single point on the earth?
Seems like a lot of needless cost and complexity when all you really want is a 24 hr spot of intense, ant frying, sunlight.
Do you know how string the microwave signal would have to be to beam any useable energy back to earth ? What if it dropped out of orbit while transmitting and all safeguards fail ? It would destroy anything in it's path. It can easily be weaponized.
This was Gerard O'Neill's big proposal back in the 1970's. He thought that unlimited energy had the potential to change politics, economics, military tensions, social development, and so forth. It was distinctly utopian in tone but still interesting.
Because what better excuse to build a humongous satellite with a large laser/dish/array aimed at the earth?