Space-based solar power may be one step closer to reality, thanks to this key test (video)

[Admin]

A first-of-its-kind lab demonstration shows how solar power transmission from space could work.

Space-based solar power may be one step closer to reality, thanks to this key test (video) : Read more

 

[Classical Motion]

Reality? How many car loads of coal will it take to put it up there?

I love solar power. I used it for years and even suffered thru many panel disasters from eagle nests, buffaloes, and bullet holes. But it is limited to relatively small power and non-life conditions.

Much better panels and batteries are needed before solar can compete. Be convenient and dependable. One can solar power his house now, off the shelf, but the battery cost and maintenance eats up any advantage. Just like the cost and bother with an EV battery.

However we have great older tech that can be used to solar heat water and relieve some grid load. And it really is free. So, no one uses it.

 

[Ken Fabian]

We'll have clean energy or else fail on climate and face climate induced economic disasters that may make space solar even harder to achieve, long before anyone can attempt it. The ability to aim beamed power better has not changed how difficult and expensive such an option would be.

Solar panels right now are excellent and low price - much lower and the price is approaching zero; the panels are no longer the costly part. Probably why 3/4 of all new electricity generation added globally is now solar - because most energy businesses don't really care about global warming. Production of solar is expected to reach 1 TW per year (double current production) before the end of next year - and investments in new solar factories globally is exceeded by investments in battery factories.

Continent wide (and possibly intercontinental) transmission lines, growth of battery storage in the grid and in homes and businesses plus the use of demand management - avoiding the high cost energy and taking advantage of the low cost by changing industrial processes and smart scheduling. And vehicle to home and grid from growing numbers of plugged in EV's - that with smart systems will be a lot more than simple sources of demand. A lot is happening that will make a big difference, with alarmist economic fear of shifting to renewable energy dissipating in the face of it.

Batteries keep getting better - eg CATL releasing new large scale containerised batteries with 30% improvement on energy density and significantly longer life. Apparently investing in science and R&D makes for better batteries - who'd have thought?

Pumped hydro is already gaining significant investment - something that wasn't going to happen until there was a lot of investor confidence that wind and solar would continue to grow enough to need long, deep storage. And there are options for cold climates, such as Finland is deploying - interseasonal heat storage for district heating. A lot of wind coming on line there plus hydro, plus nuclear as well as clever use of waste heat for district heating.

We are better placed than ever to build up low/zero emissions energy supply to displace fossil fuels - Biden's IRA in the US is only possible because alternatives have become low cost enough; even a decade ago it would have struggled.

 

[Classical Motion]

It's not the cost of panels. It's the efficiently. Not only of the final product, the natural states for these rare earths are not rare. But they are very diluted. Requiring very inefficient mining and processing. More emissions. Same with batteries.

1 TW of solar power? Just in 2023, China added 37 TW of coal fire. 2024 will be higher. Not to mention India who has a higher demand.

The 3rd richest man in Asia is an Indian coal broker. India has a cabinet post for coal.

In the next 10 years, multiples of all man's combined previous emissions will be added. You ain't seen nothing yet.

 

[Jan Steinman]

"Houston, we have a problem. We just microwaved Des Moines."

… tested a special beaming device that can wirelessly transmit power 360 degrees around. That would be important for a potential future space-based power station, as its position toward the sun and Earth would change over the course of each day due to our planet's rotation.

Wouldn't that be terribly inefficient? Seems to me you need as tight a beam as possible. Energy spread over 359° is energy that is not going to the 1° target, no?

Also, energy follows an inverse-square law with distance. Geosync orbit is terribly convenient, but so far away. If Elon can get Starlink into homes via low-Earth-orbit satellites, why can't we aim those power microwaves with such precision?

 

[Ken Fabian]

@Classical Motion - your China coal plant construction is way overstated - by about 350X. Maybe you read GW as TW.

China approved 106 GW of new coal plants last year - which is, of course, too many.

But China hasn't broken it's climate pledges yet - global agreements granting China a 2060 target for zero emissions, an extra decade for economic development and lifting people out of poverty - agreements brokered by people who continue to disparage renewable energy. The amount of solar added last year was about double that in GW power terms - ie about 40% of that in GWh 20% capacity factor terms. And the solar equipment they export underpins emissions reductions in other nations.

That is a huge amount of solar additions - more than the rest of the world and about double the year before - with investment in solar factories set to underpin greatly increased installed capacity in the near future. One more doubling (expected within 2 years) and it exceeds coal additions. And adding lots of solar starts undermining the cost effectiveness of coal plants by gutting the hours of high daytime demand coal needs to be economic - a defacto carbon price that will go on to suppress the viability of coal.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

80 Percent of Global CO2 Emissions Come From Just 57 Companies, Report Shows

Many of these companies increased their fossil fuel production after the Paris Agreement was signed in 2016

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[Ken Fabian]

"Houston, we have a problem. We just microwaved Des Moines."


Wouldn't that be terribly inefficient? Seems to me you need as tight a beam as possible. Energy spread over 359° is energy that is not going to the 1° target, no?

Also, energy follows an inverse-square law with distance. Geosync orbit is terribly convenient, but so far away. If Elon can get Starlink into homes via low-Earth-orbit satellites, why can't we aim those power microwaves with such precision?

I think they are saying they can sustain accurate aim on one spot from a rotating space installation.

Yes, the geosync orbit is a long way compared to low orbit. And there will be operational satellites crossing between.

I don't expect anything to come of it but the question that always comes to my mind when space based solar gets talked about is - what makes putting the solar in space better than keeping it on the ground and beaming power to space and then back down somewhere else? I suppose the answer is beamed energy transmission is very lossy - doing it once is poor enough. Doing it twice (or three times for a low orbit system that beams up, over to another space receiver and down again) is too much loss.

 

[Jan Steinman]

the question that always comes to my mind when space based solar gets talked about is - what makes putting the solar in space better than keeping it on the ground

The solar panels in space get a lot more power from the Sun than terrestrial solar panels, because the atmosphere absorbs and dissipates the solar energy.

Then, it is used to power a tight microwave beam, which at certain frequencies, passes through the atmosphere with much less resistance than sunlight does.

No one is talking about collecting sunlight on the ground, beaming it to a satellite, then beaming it back down. It's all about the greater efficiency of collecting sunlight at the satellite, above the atmosphere.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Jan, I'm talking about it because I haven't heard anyone else. We are getting enormous amounts of solar on the ground way, way cheaper than any we install in space. A way to send it to distant locations - say, up from a sunny afternoon in one place and back down to somewhere hitting evening peak demand - is a potentially valuable application for the technology surely. But probably about as realistic as solar farms in space as a low emissions energy solution despite needing to put less stuff into space - ie not.