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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."

7 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 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.

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

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

    3. 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
    4. 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.

    5. 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. 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.