Planned Constuction of Orbiting Microwave Power Station

Fith writes "A small news item tells of a research project to build robots that will assemble and repair a gigantic orbiting solar collector. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the section. Basically, power collected will be beamed back to earth using 'safe levels' of microwave energy. " This is a proposal that's been floating around for quite some time-vast LEO or HEO solar panel arrays, beaming the power down to earth. For those of you who played, Simcity2000, this was one of the power options as well. NASA hopes to part of this operational by 2015.

Comments

safe levels?

[jetson123]

Even if it's designed to use "safe levels" during normal operations, whoever may put it up will be subject to suspicions that the satellite can be reconfigured for military purposes. In fact, any large power source in space, whether nuclear or solar, will suffer from that perception.

Also, while a single power plant may not have a big impact, with global warming being a concern, collecting more solar energy and focussing it on earth is the wrong direction to go in.

The solution to energy problems on earth seems to me not to beam in more energy from space but to conserve more energy at home. The US in particular is so wasteful of energy that the kind of money spent on those projects would be better spent on some simple, down-to-earth conservation programs.

(I also wonder why this particular avenue is being pursued. Technically, it would seem that simple mylar reflectors in space for night time lighting of urban areas would be a much more logical first step. They could help conserve a lot of energy, would be technically much simpler, and couldn't be easily repurposed for military use. To me, that alternative makes the microwave-based approach suspiciously look like dual-use technology and a boondoggle for certain kinds of research.)

This is a great idea

[Rayban]

Microwave energy would be cheap and clean to harvest from space. I'm sure we all remember the Simcity 2000 disaster where the microwave beam went "off-target" and traced a path of destruction across the city, however. :)

In real life, I don't believe we have to worry about such things.

And in related news...

[jabber]

Just think of the benefits that could be realized with microwave irradiation.

We could maintain a comfortable minimum temperature in some of the world's coldest areas. Imagine, Fargo in the middle of winter, at a balmy 75 degF. Weather forecasters could actually guarantee tomorrow's highs. Swimming pools and car engines would always be warm, as would be the toilet seats across the nation.

If we can tighten the beam enough, and develop super-precise satellite navigation systems, we could use one of these puppies for snow removal on the nation's highways. We could even melt a few hundred thousand acres of the Sahara for use as the world's biggest mirror for the world's biggest telescope..

Now everyone, from L.A. to Bangor Maine can have a nice tan. Just go out during the designated irradiation period (day or night) and stare up into the sky. Oh, and all the stylish tinfoil hats we'd all have to wear. And clothes would stay 'fresh-from-the-dryer' warm, all day.

Remember how grandma would cool off freshly baked pies by setting them on the window sill? Well, now we'll be able to thaw the Thanksgiving turkey that way..

Just think, no more mosquitoes! At 6:30 each night, get off the patio. Then ZAP! 30 seconds later, not a 'skeeter in a 500 mile radius. Just be sure to bring in the pets.

We could aim the thing at the Antarctic, and make the world's biggest ice sculpture... Seriously though, maybe carve off a big iceberg and haul it to where there's a drought? Well, maybe not.

On the down side, leaving a dog in a closed car on a hot summer day would be kinder than leaving him out on the lawn. Hot dogs anyone?

Don't forget about Fusion!

[[Zappo]]

There's no need to spend money on this kind of science fiction for a while.

Fusion research has been languishing for years, obtaining only small slices of the funding pie. Despite this fact, researchers have already developed fusion reactors that generate a controlled energy profit. Granted, there are cheaper ways to boil water today, but the price tag is shrinking.

Fusion power plants would create no radioactive waste whatsoever. They take in deuterium (a Hydrogen isotope found in so-called "heavy water", which is easily mined right from the oceans), and put out energy, Helium, and other harmless by-products.

As an aside, note that Helium is a "perishable" resource; the Earth was only born with so much, and it's light enough to escape into space. People laughed a few years back at the "waste" of money in maintaining a national Helium repository, but they shouldn't have. It's a very valuable element for research, and it's disappearing.

Fusion power would utilize a plentiful resource, and provide energy at enormous efficiency (*much* greater than current fission-based nuclear power), without harming the environment. Yet, it continues to get scanty funding.

Write your Congressman and encourage spending on a power supply that has already been developed and has no bad side effects. This microwave stuff might be quite helpful for supplying the moon with electricity (of course, so might simple aluminum foil reflectors that simply concentrate sunlight on lunar power cells), but we're still a ways off from needing it there. Perhaps the money that would be saved by replacing our current power plants with fusion-based counterparts could help pay for the next leap ahead in the space program.

Top story tonight:

[jabber]

Washington D.C.: (AP)
Hackers [yeah, I know, but it's a news story] took over the Eastern Seabord Microwave Generation Satellite earlier today, and threatened to redirect the beam at downtown D.C. if Kevin Mitnick was not released immediately.

Al Gore, the inventor of microwave energy, who singlehandedly placed the aforementioned satellite in orbit, declined, to the dismay of the hackers.

Officials at the Pentagon were heard to scream in agony as the installation was turned into a smoldering heap of molten slag.

The hackers, subsequently, threaten to defrost Hillary Clinton; but assure that the Antarctic penguin habitat is not threatened in any way.

Re:Radiation & Brains

[jabber]

study on cellular radiation showed that people who used cell phones were more imaginative and intellectual than those who did not

The cause and effect are probably reversed there. I wonder how many intellectual people choose to use cell phones.. :)

fellow came into the plant (the Nuclear Power Plant) a few years back and set off the alarms on the way in

Amen! Due to the very vocal and hugely ignorant opposition to nuclear power, most people don't know the facts. FUD is rampant against nukes, and when people hear the word 'nuclear' they think Hiroshima and Chernobyl.

The facts are:

• You get more radiation exposure flying from N.Y. to L.A. (4 hours) than you do in 4 years of living next door to a Nuclear Power Plant.
  
• You get more radiation getting your annual dental X-ray than you do in a year of living next to a nuclear plant.
  
• You get more radiation living in Denver (altitude) than next door to Three Mile Island.
  
• You get more radiation from the radon seeping into your (average) basement than you would working in a nuclear facility actually HANDLING the fuel.
  
• The coal ash that comes out of conventional power plants as waste is more radioactive than the 'nuclear waste' that comes out of nuclear power plants. But, since the 'nuclear' waste is a product of fission, and not combustion, it is regulated, classified, and branded differently.
  
• More people died in the week following the Union Carbide accident in India (early 80's) than will die as a tracable result of Chernobyl. Hereditary problems like Leukemia after three generations not withstanding.
  

Nuclear can be very dangerous, when it goes bad. It's quite spectacular. But, it is so regulated, and the people involved are highly aware of the dangers, that the likelyhood of accidents is miniscule.

I would think that the ignorance level about this field of science would be pretty low here on /., but 'nuclear' carries a deep stigma. Too bad, since it holds tremendous promise for plentiful energy. The U.S. will have to face a fossil crisis in the forseeable future, and by then, we will have to buy power from Canada, or beam it from space. Uranium is cheaper.

I can see it clearly

[Caktus]

the NASA will be sued for patent infringment really soon by the makers of SimCity2000.

Better Source of Info

[Zppr]

There was an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette earlier this week. Here is an online version:

http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/199907 12solar1.asp

It's much longer and more informative than the one on the CMU site...

Radiation & Brains

[debrain]

Last time I checked, the latest study on cellular radiation showed that people who used cell phones were more imaginative and intellectual than those who did not.

That's somewhat interesting, but I've never seen the case study myself, and wonder what kind of control group they used -- maybe people who use cellular phones are simply more intelligent and imaginative and use phones because of that. My interpretation of what I was told (by an MD) was that the cellular radiation stimulates activity in regions of the brain where without the cell phones there would be none.

However, the nice conclusion exists, given this premise, that microwave radiation that misses the target and haphazardly strikes people will benefit the overall IQ level of the country. Maybe we should target some high schools and examine the effects.

Note: It has never been conclusively shown that cellular radiation increases the chances of brain tumours. I worked in a nuclear power plant -- the fear of radiation is greatly exaggerated, I assure you. Live in the average Ukranian basement for 8 months and you'll exceed legal Canadian doses of radiation (legal, not lethal :P).

Radiation becomes a problem when it is in the form is acute doses -- high exposures in a short period of time. Just for the sake of a story: a fellow came into the plant (the Nuclear Power Plant) a few years back and set off the alarms on the way in. It was surprising to discover that the source of the radiation that set off the alarms was in his belly -- a result of him eating Caribou meat over the weekend when he went hunting. The Caribou were eating lichen off rocks, and rocks are radioactive, and hence the Caribou meat was releasing enough radioactivity to set off the alarms at our wonderful Nuclear Power Plant.

Re:Compare to nuclear power?

[Dr. Manhattan]

It stated in the article that the levels of radiation will be "safe." I presume that means safe for humans, i.e. non-lethal dosages.

There are different kinds of radiation. Just
because people call microwave ovens "nukes"
does not mean that they actually use nuclear
radiation.

Quick science review: There are two main types
of "radiation" in this context: that caused by
acclerated particles (alpha and beta radiation,
produced by fission and to a lesser degree
fusion) and electromagnetic radiation.

Hopefully you know that all electromagnetic
radiation is essentially the same thing. It's
a vibrating electromagnetic wave, the only
important things are the frequency and the
intensity. High-frequency stuff (like gamma and
x rays) are "ionizing"; even a little of it can
knock an electron free of an atom. If this
happens to DNA, presto, you have a mutation.

Visible light and microwave radiation are "non-
ionizing". Unless you have a lot of it,
it won't do damage to individual molecules. You
don't want to stand in front of a powerful
antenna, but that's not because it's actually
ionizing atoms in your body. It's just dumping
energy into it, which shows up as heat. You can
get cooked that way.

Now, cells put under stress do spontaneously mutate from time to time. As I
understand it, this is why sunburn can cause
skin cancer; I don't think that ultraviolet light
is considered ionizing.

Bacteria might proliferate in a warm area (such
as a proposed microwave power receiever would
be) but that's no different from fish accumulating
near nuclear power plants because they like the
heat from the cooling water.