Ore similar to regloth can be purchased for a few dollars per ton in many places on Earth, but we don’t extract silicon or aluminum from this ore, likely because expensive ore is less costly to extract the elements from. Perhaps we can learn how to extract elements from regloth and cheap earthly ore that is competitive with the expensive ore, but costly research and development is needed.
From GEO altitude the plan was a kilometer antenna that sent a billion watts to a rectenna with an area of about 20 square kilometers. Since the moon is about 10 times farther away, the area of the rectenna increases to about 100 times that area = 2000 square kilometers. In theory we can send 100 billion watts with the same energy density just above the rectenna. Not even New York City needs that much power, so we have to add the cost of thousands of kilometers of HVDC = high voltage direct current power lines, or less efficient 3 phase 60 hertz power lines to take the power to customers. We can cut corners and make the rectenna smaller, but most of the energy misses the rectenna, which makes the people living near the rectenna fearful even though they are not harmed by the exposure to the micro wave energy, according to most experts. We can transmit with lasers on the moon and ordinary solar panels and solar thermal systems can receive the energy, but the laser technology isn’t there yet = maybe in ten years. So one problem is even a demonstration system from the moon is incredibly costly. Investors are wise to be skeptical if the scale up is one million times from 1000 watts (demonstration) to one billion watts delivered to the grid.
To me it seems a semi polar sun synchronous orbit (closer than GEO) is the way to go, as it could provide electricity to all the nations of Earth during their peak demand period. There are lots of related details in the forum at http://www.spacesolarpower.wordpress.com Hurry, the forum could be deleted soon, as they are not approving new posts this year, to date. Neil
From GEO altitude the plan was a kilometer antenna that sent a billion watts to a rectenna with an area of about 20 square kilometers. Since the moon is about 10 times farther away, the area of the rectenna increases to about 100 times that area = 2000 square kilometers. In theory we can send 100 billion watts with the same energy density just above the rectenna. Not even New York City needs that much power, so we have to add the cost of thousands of kilometers of HVDC = high voltage direct current power lines, or less efficient 3 phase 60 hertz power lines to take the power to customers. We can cut corners and make the rectenna smaller, but most of the energy misses the rectenna, which makes the people living near the rectenna fearful even though they are not harmed by the exposure to the micro wave energy, according to most experts. We can transmit with lasers on the moon and ordinary solar panels and solar thermal systems can receive the energy, but the laser technology isn’t there yet = maybe in ten years. So one problem is even a demonstration system from the moon is incredibly costly. Investors are wise to be skeptical if the scale up is one million times from 1000 watts (demonstration) to one billion watts delivered to the grid.
To me it seems a semi polar sun synchronous orbit (closer than GEO) is the way to go, as it could provide electricity to all the nations of Earth during their peak demand period. There are lots of related details in the forum at http://www.spacesolarpower.wordpress.com Hurry, the forum could be deleted soon, as they are not approving new posts this year, to date. Neil
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