1) I'm no moron. and I said long term. This effectively increases the amount of energy the earth absorbs, without increasing the amount it radiates. put these satellites in independent orbit around the sun, and beam the energy in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_swarm
2) yes, heat that must be radiated away, or it contributes to the temperature of the planet. not worried about heat generation, but net increase of energy to the planet.
No, I'm not missing the point.
The temperature of the earth is a result of the amount of heat energy being added to the earth, minus the amount of heat energy radiatiating away from the earth. Currently global warming is caused by decreasing the rate at which heat dissipates by greenhouse gases trapping the radiating energy and reflecting it back to earth. A big warm blanket making things warmer.
5-10 Megawatts is nothing. but imagine 20,000 10 TeraWatt power stations all beaming useful energy down to the earth (I said long term). More energy coming into the equation. Like a sunbather in a bikini, no blanket, but plenty warm. Temperature has to increase unless you increase the rate at which it radiates away to match. Eventually, the earth's going to need heat-sinks.
While I see this type of technology being, in the end, the long term answer to energy problems in general. There is a small problem. Even though it is a nice clean energy source, if you scale this out, as energy demands from in increases, is you are beaming heat directly onto the planet.
Since it is collected from orbit, it is energy that would have missed the earth, and not contributed to raising the temperature.. You could build a pretty healthy array of light gathering satellites, all beaming energy to the earth. As this energy is consumed, it is transfered into the earth's atmosphere to dissipate. The energy may be clean, but the effect of raising the earth's temperature is the same. The atmosphere could be as clean as before man walked the earth, but we'd still have global warming from this.
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1) I'm no moron. and I said long term. This effectively increases the amount of energy the earth absorbs, without increasing the amount it radiates. put these satellites in independent orbit around the sun, and beam the energy in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_swarm 2) yes, heat that must be radiated away, or it contributes to the temperature of the planet. not worried about heat generation, but net increase of energy to the planet.
No, I'm not missing the point. The temperature of the earth is a result of the amount of heat energy being added to the earth, minus the amount of heat energy radiatiating away from the earth. Currently global warming is caused by decreasing the rate at which heat dissipates by greenhouse gases trapping the radiating energy and reflecting it back to earth. A big warm blanket making things warmer. 5-10 Megawatts is nothing. but imagine 20,000 10 TeraWatt power stations all beaming useful energy down to the earth (I said long term). More energy coming into the equation. Like a sunbather in a bikini, no blanket, but plenty warm. Temperature has to increase unless you increase the rate at which it radiates away to match. Eventually, the earth's going to need heat-sinks.
While I see this type of technology being, in the end, the long term answer to energy problems in general. There is a small problem. Even though it is a nice clean energy source, if you scale this out, as energy demands from in increases, is you are beaming heat directly onto the planet. Since it is collected from orbit, it is energy that would have missed the earth, and not contributed to raising the temperature.. You could build a pretty healthy array of light gathering satellites, all beaming energy to the earth. As this energy is consumed, it is transfered into the earth's atmosphere to dissipate. The energy may be clean, but the effect of raising the earth's temperature is the same. The atmosphere could be as clean as before man walked the earth, but we'd still have global warming from this.