Palau May Get Satellite Power In the Next Decade

davidwr writes "The island nation of Palau is looking into creating a satellite-to-ground power transmission system. The system would use low-orbit satellites to transmit power to a receiver in bursts, unlike some other plans which rely on geostationary satellites. The initial 1-megawatt project is supposed to go online 'as early as' 2012 for a cost of $0.8 billion. Time will tell if this can be made cost-effective compared to traditional solar or other sources of power."

why Palau?

[xubu_caapn]

so why Palau? is the fact that its an island nation preferable for this technology?

Just a demo

[dunadan67]

The description here is a bit misleading. From the sound of the article, Palau is really just a testbed for this technology. I'm assuming that they aren't footing any of the bill that is about 6X their GDP.

Asimov

[radius1214]

Isaac Asimov wrote about a power source like this in "I, Robot." There were stations in space that absorbed solar energy and transmitted it back to Earth. If the ray became out of align, or if a magnetic storm intercepted the ray on its way toward the receptacle on the ground, it would distort the energy causing severe damage to huge portions of the planet. In the case of Palau, if they can get this technology working properly, it would be interesting to see how the United States or the EU would use this to aid their combat against global warming and non-renewable energy. Maybe the Space Station will get equipped with a huge solar array to send renewable energy down to Earth, eh?

Re:Asimov

[ShakaUVM]

My AP Bio teacher back in the day talked about this technology being about the worst thing possible for global warming, as it actually increases the amount of energy coming in to the Earth. Even oil just burns energy that was stored as organic matter ages ago.

Nuclear is still the best way to deal with global warming.

Re:SimCity

[rickwood]

One solution is to power the satellite with a return beam from the Earth station. If the main beam wanders, it loses power and cuts off. There are other solutions [wikipedia.org].

184 vs. 4

[jnsaff]

The only time I have heard about this country before is from this little bit of news: UN votes 184 for U.S. to drop embargo on Cuba [liveleak.com]

The annual UN vote on the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba saw support for the Caribbean island remain overwhelming, despite a call by President George W. Bush for countries to join Washington in pushing Havana toward democracy.

Canada was among 184 countries that supported the measure denouncing the embargo, which the world body passed for the 16th year.

Joining the U.S. in opposing it were close American allies Israel, Palau and Marshall Islands, while Micronesia abstained.

Interim Assessment of Space Solar Power...

[mikelieman]

http://spacesolarpower.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf [wordpress.com]

Long story short, if we get off our asses, in 50 years we can have energy independence, AND cheap access to space.

Re:let's do the math

[IhuntCIA]

Hmm... how narrow can microwave energy beam be?
Let's say that power output is one gigawatt and say 10 times more denser than solar radiation at the surface, then it is about 10KW per m^2 at surface. Not deadly, but very abundant and slightly hot. Could damage unprotected electronic devices like computers, radios etc. "Hot Spot" radius could be ~560m and microwave radiation might scatter while traveling trough atmosphere, allowing enemy troops to pinpoint beam direction easily.

It's like saying: "Hello, We're over here! Send Your SCUD missiles on us."
Not very smart way to supply power to the ground troops.
Also I can't imagine accurate and reliable beam targeting system for an low Earth orbit satellite.

Re:Something about water and melanin

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, usually in response to some other attack... Pearl Harbor comes to mind.