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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."
transmitted to a collector on Earth
. . . or fry Washington, DC or Moscow . . .
Take a look at "Diamonds Are Forever" for all the details.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Yes, yes... But is it usable as a weapon?
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.
You know what makes even more sense than that? Putting solar panels on fucking rooftops or on the ground.
> It certainly won't happen until we get better tech, but never say "never".
You may have missed the point of the linked article. If you improve the tech of the panels, then the relative advantage of mounting them on the ground *improves*.
> But TFA is about some 93 year old retired Chinese geezer "mulling" the idea
Geez, I totally missed that.
It always is, BTW. The entire space power group is made up almost entirely of retired astronauts and rocket engineers. That and the hangers-on like the National Space Society and such. I have yet to meet a single person from the power industry that is even marginally involved.
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.