Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Chinese Scientists Plan Solar Power Station In Space

Posted by samzenpus on from the or-you-know-stop-polluting-so-much dept.

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."

13 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. No they don't by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 5, Informative

    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/

    1. Re:No they don't by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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!
    2. Re:No they don't by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Will never happen.

      It certainly won't happen until we get better tech, but never say "never". But TFA is about some 93 year old retired Chinese geezer "mulling" the idea. He is speaking only for himself, and has no budget whatsoever. There is no "news" here.

      Putting solar panels on high altitude kites or balloons may make a more sense. They would be above most clouds, and could be tilted to always directly face the sun.

    3. Re:No they don't by rioki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, yes... But is it usable as a weapon?

    4. Re:No they don't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You know what makes even more sense than that? Putting solar panels on fucking rooftops or on the ground.

    5. Re:No they don't by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > 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.

    6. Re:No they don't by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      JAXA (the Japanese space agency) has done the maths and decided it will definitely work. They describe the system in detail here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/green...

      JAXA intends to test the technology in 2018.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:No they don't by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > JAXA intends to test the technology in 2018

      No, they don't. The project died, if it ever existed in any meaningful form, because it never had a budget.

      It was a trial balloon sent up by the space industry to create demand for new rockets. That's the only reason this idea keeps getting floated, as an excuse to make more rockets or heavy launchers.

    8. Re:No they don't by Translation+Error · · Score: 4, Funny

      Forget that! We need to go directly to the source and put the panels on the sun!

      --
      When someone says, "Any fool can see ..." they're usually exactly right.
  2. Sim City by Bradmont · · Score: 3, Informative

    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....

  3. It not being "planned" by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  4. The Chinese advantage by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. Space debris by Misagon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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