Can space-based solar power really work? Here are the pros and cons.

[Admin]

The world is struggling to wean itself off fossil fuels. Should space-based solar power be part of the solution?

Can space-based solar power really work? Here are the pros and cons. : Read more

 

[Jan Steinman]

"We have a problem, Houston. We just microwaved Toledo."

 

[danielravennest]

I've done work on space solar power for Boeing and the Space Studies Institute. The main obstacle has been cost, mainly launch cost. The technology exists, because communications satellite have been beaming energy to Earth for decades. The power is measured in Watts rather than MegaWatts, and the signal is modulated rather than continuous, but we know it works.

There are two ways to lower costs. The first is being worked on by SpaceX and others - make reusable rockets. Fuel is cheap, aerospace rocket parts are not, and you can't afford to throw them away after one use. The second is off-planet resources from the Moon and nearby asteroids. The work that I and others have done show that up to 98-99% of the mass of power satellites (and other space projects) can be sourced from materials already in space. Therefore how much needs to be launched from Earth can be greatly reduced.

The combination of cheaper rockets and less need to launch makes the launch overhead small compared to ground-based solar today. But the cost of solar and wind on the ground are not standing still. Space solar power would be chasing a moving target. It is not clear it will ever catch up and become competitive, or arrive so late the world has already converted to clean energy. That said, there are other uses, like power for the Moon or Mars for the long nights or during dust storms. Then it only has to compete with other space energy supplies and has a better chance.

 

[Mr Anderson]

We have over looked the "induction" of the compass needle, this tech is unneeded, the Earth is our infinite supply. Our physics models are incomplete no matter how you slice it, the particles are misinterpretations everything is kinetic, light and gravity are crest and trough of the same wave , equal and opposite. "Electromagnetic fields" adjusted to understand it is the atoms themselves that transfer kinetic energy at the speed of light in cascading impacts(both light and gravity operate under inverse square this is geometry of atomic collision). The math is the problem, ideal states are imaginary starting positions, dark matter/energy represent the difference between prediction and observation... we can fix this. Love you have fun

 

[Ken Fabian]

I remain unconvinced. It makes a great thought experiment but it is not a clean energy solution.

Daniel - I don't see how obtaining materials from the moon or asteroids can do anything but make it a lot more difficult and more expensive.

That grand space dreamers like it is no surprise - the massive increase in space capabilities required appears to open up other space possibilities - but using the legitimate concerns about climate and fossil fuel burning to advance entirely different objectives is unlikely to gain the strong support of people seeking clean energy solutions; it has to be shown to work cost effectively for the purpose. Especially given the scales of pre-investments required to get such a project going the positive economics needs to be clear and unambiguous.

 

[John Frazer]

Objections about space mining and industry adding to costs is wrong-headed.
By the time we're building things of this scale from NEA mined metals, questions of "cost" or "expense" as we know it, won't apply.
What is "cost" when aeroentry barges of previously rare and precious metals are coming in?
The first entity to return even a few kg of loosely sorted metals from an NEA wins forever the "game" of making money, ends the relevance of the scarcity model regarding energy, room for growth, or metals.
Yes, we hear that anyone doing so affects the prices that previously rare or precious metals bring and undercuts their own business. But for that moment, then own more "wealth" in futures than all the mercantile interests or mega-corporations or old-money empires or Nation-States in history, combined.
Please show how this is hyperbole or exaggeration.

Yes, space mining and building of SPS is 25 years away, but it's not any of it reliant on unproven technology or requiring of new inventions.
Yes, it's 25 years away, but it's been 25 years away since the mid '70s.

The NASA Ames / Stanford space settlement/industrialization studies of the '70s did all but nail down final questions about the best ways to do things. For every such question that remains, there are several known ways which would work.
The cost until the first habitat for 10k workers was completed in Earth-Moon space in 2005 or so, would have been like many large infrastructure or industrial developments down here. Like the Interstate Highway System. Like maybe 3 of our CVNs and their air-wings and escorts and the logistics infrastructure to deploy them to fight over oil. Much less than the bailouts we've seen or a small oil war.

Any who disagree, are invited to show their professional qualifications in mining, construction and astronautical engineering and where they're published under peer-review showing that those studies were wrong.

Since 2003, the US has spent ≈$14 trillion+ on the military. Nearly a trillion a year in DoD spending (comfortably more annually than the entire historic running grand total NASA expense). Meanwhile, the 5-sided funny farm has disastrously failed its audits, can't account for half of its assets. Nearly half a trillion a year just disappears. We just give it to them and it goes away.
What can we not afford for energy and resources for the future?

 

[LKK]

Wouldn't this be better posted on the first of April ??

 

[Atlan0001]

Objections about space mining and industry adding to costs is wrong-headed.
By the time we're building things of this scale from NEA mined metals, questions of "cost" or "expense" as we know it, won't apply.
What is "cost" when aeroentry barges of previously rare and precious metals are coming in?
The first entity to return even a few kg of loosely sorted metals from an NEA wins forever the "game" of making money, ends the relevance of the scarcity model regarding energy, room for growth, or metals.
Yes, we hear that anyone doing so affects the prices that previously rare or precious metals bring and undercuts their own business. But for that moment, then own more "wealth" in futures than all the mercantile interests or mega-corporations or old-money empires or Nation-States in history, combined.
Please show how this is hyperbole or exaggeration.

Yes, space mining and building of SPS is 25 years away, but it's not any of it reliant on unproven technology or requiring of new inventions.
Yes, it's 25 years away, but it's been 25 years away since the mid '70s.

The NASA Ames / Stanford space settlement/industrialization studies of the '70s did all but nail down final questions about the best ways to do things. For every such question that remains, there are several known ways which would work.
The cost until the first habitat for 10k workers was completed in Earth-Moon space in 2005 or so, would have been like many large infrastructure or industrial developments down here. Like the Interstate Highway System. Like maybe 3 of our CVNs and their air-wings and escorts and the logistics infrastructure to deploy them to fight over oil. Much less than the bailouts we've seen or a small oil war.

Any who disagree, are invited to show their professional qualifications in mining, construction and astronautical engineering and where they're published under peer-review showing that those studies were wrong.

Since 2003, the US has spent ≈$14 trillion+ on the military. Nearly a trillion a year in DoD spending (comfortably more annually than the entire historic running grand total NASA expense). Meanwhile, the 5-sided funny farm has disastrously failed its audits, can't account for half of its assets. Nearly half a trillion a year just disappears. We just give it to them and it goes away.
What can we not afford for energy and resources for the future?

A closed system.

$31-trillion dollars debt and climbing.

Entropy.

Don't bring it into the room, that isn't expansion and growth. Go forth to it, go out to it, a Biblical-like Genesis and Exodus, beginning with space resources -- particularly space itself, and cloud-city-like city-state habitats to the orbits of the L-points, to expand and grow frontiers, including via two-way exchange, as happened throughout history, the 'Old World' homelands. A tangible growing capitalization of homelands, of the Old World as New World as integral part of that exterior frontier expansion and growth. National debts, negative energies, begin to lose self-destructive closed systematic power to destroy in the energy exchange of frontier's necessary nova-like exhaust of opening systemic exodus. Like a fusion reactor, increasingly more energy coming from it than will be feeding into it.

 

[Stan510]

What about avians Do they get fried? This whole project sounds like our first Dyson sphere. Type 1 intelligence here we come!

 

[TomSE]

For space-based solar power plants, do the beams directed toward Earth contribute to global warming by interacting with airborne particulates (and possibly birds, as mentioned by Stan510)? If so, that, along with propulsion challenges, could undermine the goal of clean energy. Neither the article nor the comments address this concern, though the possibility of a weapon of mass destruction was mentioned. Other potential issues include interference with existing communication systems, airplane flight paths, and air-based telecommunications and broadcasting networks.

 

[Classical Motion]

Adding power from outside earth's shadow would be insane, unless the earth was covered with ice.

The insanity is based on modern climate theory.

If the theory is wrong, then it won't be insane. But right now it is insane.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Adding power from outside earth's shadow would be insane, unless the earth was covered with ice.

The insanity is based on modern climate theory.

If the theory is wrong, then it won't be insane. But right now it is insane.

A good point. Except even the heat released by burning fossil fuels - or using nuclear or even geothermal energy - adds heat to the climate system that would not be there otherwise; only Earth based renewable energy options don't do that.

In proportion "Anthropogenic Heat" is still small compared to enhanced greenhouse effect (what the extra GHG's are contributing) - it adds up to around 1%* so adding 1% every year for a hundred years would be like 1 year of emissions at current rates. On top of what has already happened and will happen during a transition to zero emissions.

In an alternative timeline, a history without the enhanced greenhouse warming, our energy use and the waste heat it made in the last 1.5 centuries may have been a lot closer to what would have been needed to stop the slow cooling the world was experiencing without turning it into rapid heating. The anthropogenic effects may have been too diffuse to cause concern - I doubt climate scientists could have concluded it was a crisis in the making let alone convinced world leaders.

Less global warming is still a better option than more global warming; above 80% RE seems doable in most of the world but not everywhere and 100% RE still presents major challenges. Whilst heating from space based energy - solar energy that would not have otherwise reached Earth - could present long term problems failing to reduce emissions in the near term is a near term problem.

Simply out of expediency we should choose the lower emissions options for the near term even if they don't deliver perfection.

* from study by M. Flanner - https://flanner.engin.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/544/2021/09/ppr_ener.pdf

 

[Classical Motion]

If one believes the current predictions, we will soon know how fast and how much CO2 and coal emissions, affect the temperature of earth. It’s part of our future. From the photos of lots of Asian cities, it doesn’t look too good. I thought LA was bad in the late 60s.

I believe we have all the free clean energy in the world for many thousands of generations, just 10 miles below us. In our world. Renewable and un-exhaustable.

This will bring a new concept of energy in all endeavors. Indoor year round farming of the highest quality will be common. Underground living and production, transportation will be common. Inland fresh water seas will be common.

A different way of thinking and living. And using and transporting commodity.