Simcity Microwave Power by 2050? 740
Politburo writes "The Drudge Report supplies this interesting Senate testimony. Dr. David Criswell, director of the University of Houston's Institute for Space Systems Operations, proposes that we develop robots to assist in the construction of a lunar solar array. The power from this array would be beamed to recievers on Earth, either directly or via relay satellites. Dr. Criswell predicts that with this project, "the average American income could increase from today's ~$35,000/y-person to more than $150,000/y-person." He also attempts to put to rest the idea that microwave power is unsafe, saying, "Each power beam can be safely received, for example, in an industrially zoned area." I wonder if he's ever played SimCity 2000" And coming soon, Godzilla from a drop-down menu.
I hope people know (Score:3, Informative)
That this is a dupe (Score:2, Informative)
No indeed - some experiments to date (Score:5, Informative)
This site [kyoto-u.ac.jp] also has some interesting information on beamed-power research.
There are even competitions! [grandbassin.net]
Re:No indeed - some experiments to date (Score:5, Funny)
I think Cartman had a rectenna once [southparkstudios.com].
It could also be a space elevator of sorts. (Score:3, Insightful)
Better put (Score:5, Funny)
Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:5, Interesting)
My concern is that any nation putting this sort of system into place risks misalignment of the beams and having a solar laser of incredible power strafing across the landscape. It would be extremely tempting for terrorists or rogue governments to either put these is orbit themselves, or more likely sabotage/take over those already in place. We would then be forced to either destroy the satellite or launch military strikes on the offending parties, mandating the development and refinement of rapid-deployment and anti-space missile technology. Granted, this is a dual use system whose benefits far outweigh the detractions, but the military application of such a solar energy system seems so obvious that it must be considered.
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:5, Insightful)
This is so preventable that it makes me laugh.
Make the communication two-way. If the reception dish loses its lock on the power beam or if the transmitter loses its lock on the communication beam, the whole apparatus shuts off until it can be inspected.
The paranoia around such a non-issue just goes to show how stinkin' awful humans are at gut-feel cost-benefit analysis. You've seen it happen (as a Disaster) in SimCity 2000; therefore, it must be a real risk.
Ditto for those who are afraid of flying, living near a modern fission plant, or sharing files on KaZaA.
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:5, Informative)
assumptions:
the beam is 3.6Gw (which is a fairly large amount...)
collector is 100 M on a side (10,000 sq m)
nearest un-shielded habitation is 2km away
out-of-alignment condition will be noticed immediately, but will take one speed-of-light rtt to shut down (note, if the collector is on the lunar surface, but relay satellites are in geosync, then the rtt from the geosync satellites is about
worst-case scenario is a prostrate person occluding 1 sq. M of space.
calculations:
The beam is delivering 360 Kw/sq m, 100 watt-hrs/sq meter
Now, the *really* worst case scenario would be if the beam traveled the 2Km in
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:5, Informative)
I think the FUD slashdot users have built into this system can now safely be ignored.
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You, AC absolutely suck at making intelligent risk management decisions. Seriously: pay someone else to make them for you.
EVERYTHING is a risk. You can't get around it. Breathing our atmosphere puts you at some risk for respiratory ailments. Letting the sunlight touch your skin increases your risk for skin cancer. Stepping into an automobile is a TREMENDOUS risk, absolutely DWARFING the combined risks faced by a man who travels twice every day by plane, lives IN a nuclear power plant, and shares his music on KaZaA.
Yes, it DOES happen that any and all of these will lead to at least one consequence worldwide. We aren't interested in a categorical "has it killed people?" but rather in a question of degree: "What proportion of people exposed to this risk suffers the consequences?" We're interested in expected values. And the probability of suffering the much-feared consequences of flying, living near a power plant, or sharing music is VIRTUALLY NIL.
Review insurance policies. Living near a plant does not increase your life insurance premiums. Neither does flying. Are you better equipped to assess these risks than paid actuaries?
No...
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:5, Funny)
That's why it should be tested in Florida first. Until the bugs are worked out, we can blame any mishaps on the Xindi.
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:5, Funny)
That's impossible! When you use microwaves, it's called a MASER.
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:3, Informative)
The whole concept is that you could make a system with a beam density low enough that the focusing antenna is reasonably small, yet, with the beam density high enough that its not cheaper to just slap down solar cells on the ground.
Essentially you are getting more power from the cells in space, so as to offset the transmission and "shipping" (rocket launch) costs.
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:3, Funny)
Aaah, The glory days of mid 1990's gaming.
Re:Gimme a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gimme a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who advocates giving EVEY terrorist a trial is a misguided idealist. Anyone who advocates killing every terrorist without a trial is a coldhearted fascist. Reality, as always, demands a solution somewhere in the middle.
Re:Gimme a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gimme a break (Score:5, Funny)
Er... Wait...
RIght... (Score:3, Insightful)
And that giant space laser will just take out the driver's seat right, not the trunk full of sarin gas? Gas under pressure + heat = baaaad idea.
Kjella
Re:Gimme a break (Score:4, Insightful)
Our constitution requires it. There is a difference between sniping someone before he can activate the switch on a bomb and in killing a known terrorist just because we can get away with it.
Everyone who can be brought to justice, should be brought to justice. In a court of law. Pure and simple.
I hate child molestors even more than terrorists, and those perverts should have their day in court with a fair trial.
LK
Re:Gimme a break (Score:3, Funny)
Pun intended?
Re:Issues of Weaponizing this System (Score:4, Informative)
I didn't say electronic, I said electric, though it will be both electronic (electrically controlled) and electric (electrically driven.)
I refer you to a Ford page on Hydrogen Internal Combustion [ford.com] which was the first link in a google search on "hydrogen supercharger gasoline" [google.com]; hydrogen and supercharger for obvious reasons, gasoline because we're talking about gasoline engines. Ford is also using high compression pistons, but with the use of an electric supercharger, this should not be necessary, only a good idea. A set of high compression pistons for a 4 cylinder car costs approximately $500 (for forged pistons) plus another $100 in rings, so it's not all that expensive, but investing in the labor is pretty significant. Ford is also using coil on plug, which is also not necessary, but certainly makes the ECU program a lot simpler.
I direct you to the following paragraph:
Ford is using the same engine in which they ordinarily burn gasoline, but with higher compression and different fuel injectors.
As far as an "electronic supercharger" (if I put an electronic boost gauge in my turbo system, that's effectively an electronic supercharger, a meaningless term if I've ever seen one - again, you want the word electric or perhaps the phrase electrically driven) goes, the ones sold on ebay won't even provide 1.5PSI over regular. They can't compress air. They're just fans. However there are real live electric superchargers such as one from Visteon [wardsauto.com] spoken of here.
Note that on some cars, the so-called electric superchargers such as e-Ram may improve power by improving the dispersion of fuel into the fuel-air mix by creating a vortex effect in the intake and thus in the combustion chamber, but they could also worsen it through the same effect, in the case of vehicles with a tuned intake. Most intakes are built for price and not performance, which is why intake porting alone can produce several horsepower, but on those which are designed for power, the e-Ram will likely decrease performance.
Also, the simple installation of an actual supercharger on a car without a MAP, or Mass Air Pressure sensor, will cause the car to run lean, thus likely leading to detonation. Most cars which do not use "speed density" methods for deciding how much air is entering (at such and such speed, so much air) use a MAF or Mass Air Flow sensor which determines airflow based on either the deflection of a reed or the difference in temperature of a hot wire not in the airflow, and one which is. Since denser air will carry away more heat, this system will work to a certain degree for supercharged systems, but in many cases they're not up to the task. I believe some modern Mustangs use pressure sensors.
Funding... (Score:5, Insightful)
no, really, it's safe. (Score:5, Funny)
Just kidding. We should do this and do it right. More megawatts is better megawatts. Grow, Grow, Grow!
Ultimate weapon (Score:5, Insightful)
brings to mind... (Score:5, Funny)
Fully automated solar array in Michigan (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Net positive energy? (Score:3, Informative)
That hasn't been true for a long time now. Photovoltaics repay the engery invested in them in the first few years of their life, and everything after that is gravy.
Re:Net positive energy? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Fully automated solar array in Michigan (Score:3, Interesting)
In case anyone thinks it's a "solar powered machine that produces 30MW or power", which I did the first few times I read it, it's actually a manufacturing plant that produces enough solar cells every year to generate 30MW of electricity combined.
Stupid grammar... of course, the first thing I though of was "One (American) football field = 48,000 sq.ft. * ~100 watts solar energy per sq.ft. * ~15% efficiency = 720kW... how the hell are they
Average income? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember, averages are highly skewed by outliers.
Re:Average income? (Score:2)
I think that claim is exagerated. The biggest chunks of anyones income are taxes and housing, not things affected very much by energy costs.
Re:Average income? (Score:5, Insightful)
The cost of energy is gradually built into pretty much everything in the current economy. It would take some time, but the cost of any consumer good or service you can imagine would come down considerably if the cost of energy drops to near zero. Consider housing manufactured and erected in a zero energy cost environment. Most of the costs of concrete, and anything made of concrete are energy costs. The cost of energy is built in at every level of the construction process. Brick? Basically cooked (with energy) silica. Steel? Melted (again with energy) ore. All the transportation costs? Oil can be made from coal, or shale the reason it isn't done now is that the expense of the energy to do it is higher then the cost of oil. And anyway electrolysis can make perfectly clean hydrogen and oxygen should we choose to go that route.
The point is that when you are thinking of energy costs you are thinking mostly about your electric or gas bill, which is small compared to your total expenses. But the cost of energy overall to the economy is almost omnipresent. The cost of paper is pretty much the cost of trees + cost of energy to make paper + cost of labor. The cost of trees is cost of labor + cost of energy used by vehicles, machines etc + cost of logging rights. The cost of the vehicles is cost of energy used to make them + labor + capital costs, etc, etc.
The reason that people don't realize the true expense of energy to the economy is that it is implicit in the cost of everything.
Re:Average income? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, consumer goods would become much cheaper with cheaper energy, but the majority of people's paychecks go to pay for housing (and taxes). That's not going to get any cheaper no matter how cheap energy gets, because most of the cost of a house is in the land value (which has nothing to do with energy), and in the labor of building the house. Building materials aren't that expensive, but paying laborers US-scale wages to put them together is. And since land value is dictated by location, location, location, that's not going to change with energy costs either.
Having More Stuff: 1200 vs 2000 (Score:5, Insightful)
If I lived in the middle ages, I would be one of the oldest living people in my village. I'd likely be regarded with suspicion of witchcraft because I still have all my teeth, and despite my advanced age, both my mother and my grandmother, are still alive. The Devil Himself must be protecting them, for how else would they live past the unearthly ages fifty - sixty - seventy - eighty - years?
My humble apartment affords me better protection from the elements than that of any Lord, and I pay for it with about a week's work. The food I cook every night with the help of my $12.99 spice rack would be something the King himself could only fantasize about. That's less than a day's wages, after tax, even at minimum wage.
In the palm of my hand, in the form of a $49.99 flash ROM, I can hold a library rivaling that of Alexandria, for it contains not only every book that had been printed until 1200, but every book that would ever be printed for the next five centuries.
So in answer to your question, having more "stuff" really does make it better.
The Matrix is becoming reality. (Score:5, Funny)
Yup. We're screwed.
But will it explode? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But will it explode? (Score:5, Funny)
Popcorn (Score:5, Funny)
No chance (Score:5, Funny)
Great (Score:5, Funny)
What, the unstoppable cyborgs sent from the past to kill our future leaders wasn't enough? Controlling our nuclear arsenal not enough?
Why don't we just send up the robots to build the solar array in a big ass cube and call it a day?
Sure, sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, he doesn't exactly say how besides "increased investment opportunities". Uh huh. Ditto for the comment about raising the average third world income to $20k.
In fact, the entire testimony is rather short on details, and seems to omit such essential items as how much it would take to build the whole system.
-Erwos
Re:Sure, sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, when everybody is making $150,000 per annum, the inflation rate will make it seem like $35,000.
Why the wild claims of increased income? Surely there has to be some OTHER way of justifying this?
Re:Sure, sure (Score:5, Funny)
Who cares about inflation rates anymore when roasted pigeons fly into your open mouth?
Re:Sure, sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Or how we're going to build robots sophisticated enough to figure out how to build solar cells and microwave transmitters out of moon rocks.
Hell, we're already having a hard enough time making robots that don't walk/roll straight off the table without even slowing down.
Dr Criswell (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sure, sure (Score:3, Insightful)
The conceptual problem I think you're having is that you're picturing some sort of humanoid general purpose robot that walks around doing this in the same way a human would. That's a stupid way to design a robot. The proper way is to design a specialized single purpose machine, or per
Re:Sure, sure (Score:3, Funny)
There's about $0.6 trillion in circulation [amark.com] in the US. Supposing for simplicity's sake that multiplying the available currency by 5 would devalue the currency to 1/5 of its current value, that means we need an additional 2.4 trillion dollars.
A dollar bill is 66x156mm, so that currency has an area of about 24,710 square km. Now, New Hampshire is roughly 24,000 square km [ucla.edu].
I think we can safely conclude that his plan involv
Re:Sure, sure (Score:5, Insightful)
No kidding, especially when almost all the people involved in energy production get thrown out of work. You know, like the people making enormous amounts of money to do dangerous offshore drilling, etc., and the little industries that cater to them. Not to mention all the Native American reservations and senior citizens that rely on oil rights for big and small checks every month. Alaska's economy, largely supported by fossil fuel taxes, might literally "go south" with any major shift away from those fuels.
And yes, if the average income is about $150K a year, the CPI will rise to meet it, though it may lag a quarter or two as people spend their income on luxury goods first. Housing generally costs 1/3 of Americans' income (can't quote you a source, but that was the figure we used in my economics classes) so suddenly the average apartment will rent for over $4K a month. Those who are recently out of work will find that their $300 weekly unemployment checks are almost worthless, but state governments won't have the funds right away to approve increases. Most peoples' savings will be wiped out. Not to mention that the government won't be able to maintain relativistic price supports for milk and other foodstuffs, and many farms (mostly corporate these days) will go under, causing potential shortages, though the crisis pricing may keep too many from going under if they rise quickly enough...
If you want an example of what happens when monetary supply is suddenly shifted outward and the basis of income for large quantities of people suddenly disappears at the same time, just look at good old post-cold war Russia right now. Those who managed to gain control over useful capital before the change are now extremely wealthy, while the unemployment rate soars, food is scarce, and so many kids are orphaned and hungry that it's now become a major center of child abuse and exploitation. Not to mention all the diseases that people can't afford to treat, running through the population.
Microwave energy would be a great resource, but until we change our society, it won't be "free." However wrongly, our economy and society is based on energy as a tradeable commodity, and we can't ignore that.
Inflation (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm willing to bet that inflation will have more to do with it than microware power
Re:Inflation (Score:5, Interesting)
x = 3.14%
Yep, that's not an unreasonable average rate of inflation over the next half century. So implementing this project will result in wages only matching inflation, not growing along with GDP (about 5% - can't be bothered to lookup). As someone else pointed out - "a few billion apiece for the people who control the power".
But please, don't give the machines a power source that is solar based...
Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a non-idea if ever I heard one. What is the point of going to all that trouble when we have ample power supplies here on earth (contra to our current moral panic about power supplies). Fair enough to try to build a justification to increasing lunar exploration but this is far too easily shot down.
I think we need more political imaginaries - if you try to justify most space projects in terms of economic benefits likes this you are liable to look a fool. Space projects are fundamentally state financed projects (due to their horrific costs and risks) and will remain so for the foreseeable future. But we should be seizing the possibility of exploring space as a project for mankind.. dreaming the impossible..
Re:Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
Fusion. (Score:3, Insightful)
See [iter.org]?
(I saw a more detailed picture with points drawn for major reactor projects like JET in my quantum book, but have been unable to find another since. Foo. Anyone out there seen it?)
--grendel drago
Re:Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
At present we are in an interesting situation whereby all the forecasts from the 70s about our impending running out of Oil/Gas/Coal have been proved to be completely wrong. Additionally we are now experimenting with geothermal, hydroelectric, solar and nuclear (fusion and fission).
Granted there are risks and uncertainties with some of these technologies but the costs of flying equipment to THE MOON and then sending microwaves back to the earth.. come on.. that is hardly a feasible or practical soluti
eh $150,000? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't say I'm terribly worried about mishaps relating to this type of technology. We've been working with Microwaves for a very long time. I'm sure a reasonably safe system can be developed and launched cheaply. I'm more concerned with construction on the moon. Seems like it'd be a PITA to both construct and maintain. Do we really want to put our energy dependency in a very difficult to reach place? What if an angry country figures out a way to fire a missile up there?
Only $150,000? (Score:5, Informative)
It better be a lot more than that. By 2050 inflation alone should push a $35,000/year income to $225,000/year (assuming the inflation rates of the last 47 years stay about the same over the next 47).
Our duty is clear: To build and maintain (Score:4, Funny)
They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall
mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by
small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is
clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you.
FYI, SimCity reference (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe if they play Simcity for awhile, they'll realize that this invention might work much better if they do, in fact, build such a power plant with a few fire-stations nearby... but I'd imagine a real-world application would have some form of laser-alignment system that has the array blocked until it's properly aligned with the receiving station.
FYI, old-tech warning (Score:4, Insightful)
At the power transmitter, the beam from the ground is captured at many points along the array. The pseudo-random phase changes are subtracted, and the result determines the shape of the wavefront as it's arriving from the ground. This wave-front is then reversed, sending a stream of energy directly back to the transmitter which sent the alignment (actually, phase-reference) beam up to the satellite. Safety features:
- The system is cryptographically secured against redirecting the beam.
- The use of the phase-reference beam automatically compensates for variations in the refractive index of the atmosphere.
- If the reference beam is lost, the myriad small emitters which form the power-transmitter phased array go out of coherence and effectively transmit all over space in a half-dipole pattern.
This addresses all of the major concerns. The real crime is that this was being written about in the late 1970's, and 20 years later people still have no clue about the groundwork. For this, I blame over-simplified games like... Sim City.as the movie quote goes.. (Score:2)
I hope he's talking... (Score:2)
Not so dangerous... (Score:2)
Slight chance of tan. No chance of humongous fires and scrolling death rays.
-T
Practical? (Score:3, Interesting)
First of all, you'd have to get all the equipment up there. Not only is that amount of equipment extremely expensive, but putting that much equipment on the moon is mind-bogglingly expensive.
Second, you have to get the power here. Now, it's all well and good to say "Let's just beam it with microwave" but the moon is a few hundred thousand miles away. Even a concentrated laser beam will diverge to a diameter of a mile or so over that distance; microwave will be even worse. You just diluted your power density a whole lot: is it still a higher power per unit area than simply placing your solar cells directly on Earth's surface?
Re:Practical? (Score:5, Informative)
Read here [nasa.gov]
We are hitting a reflectr 46cm^2 thats A LOT less than a mile deviation. the 46cm is just for things like vibration, and aiming issues.
BTW, this laster tells us the moon is drifting away from the earth, at 3.8cm per year!
Inflation (Score:2)
that's some beam density (Score:3, Informative)
Compared to this, I think a plain ordinary nuclear reactor would be lots safer.
Economics (Score:3, Interesting)
I just fail to see where that huge amount of money comes from. I know that I'm not spending enough money on electricity to jump my spendable cash from $30,000 to $150,000 should electricity become mind-bogglingly cheap or even free - my annual income is in the $20s, and I can afford to pay for electricity. What is the USA filled with rich bastards I haven't met who somehow succeed in finding wasy to jack their annual electricity bills up to $120,000 a year?
What I haven't seen explained... (Score:4, Interesting)
Lunar microwave power article from Space.com (Score:5, Insightful)
including some commentary here [space.com]
Excerpts:
Not everyone is ready to hook up to Criswell's lunar power supply, however.
"My own feeling is that he may well be right, but the idea is downstream," said Bryan Erb, president of the Sunsat Energy Council, based in Houston, Texas. The group backs a first-things-first approach, namely the building of satellite power stations in Earth orbit.
"It takes a big investment to get back to the moon," Erb said. "I just don't see a graceful migration path to get to a lunar power system without a massive up-front investment," he said.
Taking a wait-and-see attitude is Paul Werbos, program director for control networks and computational intelligence at the National Science Foundation. He recently co-sponsored with NASA a workshop that looked over the Criswell plan, among other space-research issues.
Werbos said that a critical aspect of Criswell's idea is use of tele-autonomy, that is, how to coordinate human beings on Earth with on-the-job robots stationed on the moon.
"That's the key concept in my mind in order to build any kind of large-scale space power system -- on the Earth or on the moon," he said. "How do you get robots smart enough to do their job under a kind of loose supervision arrangement?"
Um.... the moon, like, moves... (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember the early ideas for solar power sats way back when, and they almost always involved geosynchronous satellites so you don't have to aim at a moving target. Not as optimal as an LEO, but I believe for a focused beam most of your losses are in the atmosphere anyway, so another 20,000 miles or so of space is a good trade for the issues of aiming or relaying.
Now in the past few years we keep seeing these wacky plans to put the arrays on the moon (very far away and down in another gravity well making servicing a really big issue, robots or not), and beam the energy around via realy satellites. It just seems so wastetful. The only advantage I can think of is that the lunar array could *maybe* be built so large that the transmission losses don't matter.
It just seems like geosync is such a better solution, though. You could incorporate the next generation of communication satellites into the power arrays.
Woo (Score:5, Funny)
Rus
America's Moon (Score:4, Interesting)
As an American, I'm happy to imagine my income going from "most affluent nation on the planet" to "even more affluent".
But as a human being I have to ask: what about the rest of humanity? Do they get a share?
Fried birds for dinner anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, and lets not forget the satellites and other spacecraft that might fly through the beam while orbiting the earth.
TheVampire
Insightful? RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
Even if a bird HOVERED over the area for hours it wouldn't be harmed.
Hell, they can probably put out c
Lots of problems with this (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, the moon is not geosynchronous. Since the moon does not stay in a fixed position over the surface of Earth, how are you going to be able to have a centralized power station receive this energy? Oh you could build hundreds of them, but everyone would have to take their turn. And besides that this sounds like an "American" project. I'd love to hear about how they plan on getting power when the moon happens to be on the other side of the planet.
Relay satellites will not work. Yes, I read the bit about the relay satellites, but that's ridiculous. They would work fine for radio, which only needs miniscule amounts of current in order to work, but if you want to generate enough electricity to power even a lightbulb, you are talking about an enormous amount of radio power. There are only two ways a radio beam can be "bent": Either you bounce it off of something, or you have a station repeat the signal. In the case of power generation, the latter will not work...How are you going to regenerate that much power in a tiny satellite? And if you could, what would be the point of having the lunar base to begin with? Using the satellite as a passive relay would cause enormous power loss.
Besides all this, there's just too much complexity here. Every time you convert from one kind of energy to another there is always some loss involved. So what this guy's proposing is that you have a solar array on the moon, which converts sunlight to electricity at about 20% efficiency, which then converts this electricity to microwaves, which is then beamed down to earth, but never to a fixed location because the moon doesn't stay in one place relative to the surface of the earth, so then you could possibly go though relay satellites which would cause insane power loss. When the beam gets to earth, probably about 4% of its original strength, it's then converted to electricty again and might be able to power some blinky LED's, if you're lucky.
Wouldn't it be easier just to build a massive solar array HERE ON EARTH??
Relay satellites == microwave mirror (Score:3, Informative)
The relay satellites are microwave mirrors. They just need to be steered to the correct angle to reflect the beam to the receiver. The surface of such a mirror can be 99% vacuum - a mesh with holes smaller than the wavelength.
Wouldn't it be easier just to build a massive solar array HERE ON EARTH??
To meet global power requirements you'll need to cover a significant portion of the Earth's surface and
Once again, the wrong way (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not put solar panels on everyones house. Or on the top of building and have them feed battery array.
Or create lots of small fuel cells instead of one big coal power generator.
Or have our new cars charge themselves and then the power grid with solar/fuel cell combos.
Microwaves power is such a cool, but stupid idea. Kind of line nuclear power. Lets create a really expensive solution that leave nuclear waste for our kids to deal with, great....think outside the box people.
A giant orbiting laser pointed at your planet? (Score:5, Funny)
Been tried before. Probably still not a good idea.
We're doing it! (Score:3, Interesting)
150k/yr & inflation (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheap Orbital Power Stations (Score:3, Insightful)
I would agree, but as we see in the ISS, it is very expensive to build such massive projects. The Space.com article mentions that the Moon based project could be built in stages and in pieces.
This gave me an idea. What if small orbital power satellites were built. I mean small, less than a square foot in area. The solar array on them would be hexagonal and they would be designed to plug into other copies on either side.
Then, everytime anyone launches anything you stick a couple of these in any free space in the launch module. NASA launches would require you to add one to each launch as a cost of doing business or in return for a tax break or other incentive.
Each unit would have a small booster on them and they would fly slowly up to a predefined location and hook up with their brothers into a larger array, maybe built around a prelaunched rectenna unit. Maybe the booster would be an ion rocket powered by the solar array. If you are patient you would only need to get them to LEO.
If the Xbox prize guys come through they could go into a side business of launching these units also, maybe get a % of any money generated by selling the resulting electricity.
The big advantage is that if any unit fails or gets blown up during launch you're not out a lot of money. If they are mass produced and optimized they should be cheaper than one large station and maybe more than one company could make them.
Slowly, eventually a huge array would be built.
Increase of energy usage -- more heat generated!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Eventually all this energy will turn into heat, so it is quite possible that this will eventually raise earth's temperature..
I think that it may be wiser to increase the efficiency usage of energy than to increase the amount of energy used, well unless of course we need to warm up the earth..
Re:What about the 'whoops'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about the 'whoops'? (Score:5, Insightful)
Before you answer that microwaves don't get refracted that much by air, please recall the scale of volume we're talking about, as well as the fact that the beam also has to go through the upper atomsphere which, full of ions, probably does scatter microwaves.
Daniel
Refraction is neglible. (Score:5, Informative)
This 14 foot refraction is also roughly proportional to the absolute temperature of the air. Between summer (35 C) and winter(-35 C), we have a temperature range of about 23%. So the beam will wander about only about 3 feet over the most extreme temperature variations that are likely. (This calculation is only an approximation, but I am sure it is accurate enough to show that refraction is not a big deal.)
Others will have to comment on scattering.
Re:Refraction is neglible. (Score:4, Interesting)
Then, have sensors detect if it ever varies more than 20 feet outside the center of the recieving station to send a signal to turn the microwave off.
Build this station in the middle of deserts, or away from cities, the extra power consumed to transport it to cities is nothing in comparison to having a major accident in a residential area.
Pretty simple suggestions, but why not try and make use of this?
Re:What about the 'whoops'? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not hard to think of very robust failsafes. The microwave satellite could have a modest optical laser pointing exactly parallel to the microwave beam. This would bounce off a mirror at the receiving station on the ground and back to a detector on the satellite. If that signal was interrupted, then the assumption is that the laser is no longer hitting the mirror, so you have a pointing error. So then you immediately shut down the microwave beam, or divert it harmlessly into space. Okay, it wouldn't work on a cloudy day, but this could be one of several failsafes; I'm sure people can think of more (GPS, temperature sensors placed around the receiving dish, IR camera on the satellite monitoring the surface temperature around the receiver, etc.).
Re:What about the 'whoops'? (Score:2)
Doesn't sound infeasible. I'd not like to be the underwriters though
Simon
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The fools! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Zoned areas... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Inflation (Score:4, Insightful)
It boils down to: While having "unlimited" "almost free" energy would be great, any suggestion along the line of "this investment is guaranteed to bring ridiculous profit" about almost anything legit will be bullshit - if profit margins are significantly above average returns on investment investors will be queuing up to invest in it AND to fund competitors.
And in this case there is a long list of countries with launch capabilities that will have a significant political and economical interest in competing, and in the case of China even actual ambition to develop.
But of course if one party starts a project like this it could be the factor to finally kickstart another space race.
Re:barbeque (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Average income says nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
If anything, the wealth gaps in Africa is ridiculously large. You have people in most African countries that are close to the wealth levels of the richest people in the developed countries, yet the poorest people live on much less than most poor people in the developed countries, and make up
And I just can't agree with you about the "rewards". Most of the wealth held by the richest couple of perce
Re:bad idea -- inverse square law (Score:3, Informative)
Same thing with helicopters. They aren't gonna bathe the countryside in energy just to get a whirlygig in the air.
It's simple conservation of energy. If you transmit X joules of energy, it all has to go somewhere. And odds are they're going to spend a lot of time to ensure most of i
Re:Can you say "Global Warming" anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then consider the following: They claim an efficiency approaching 50%; so, 50% is becoming waste heat. In a typical power plant, there's a bunch of efficiencies that have to be added up: 85% for boiler, 95% for turbine and 95% for generation. That yields 75% system efficiency. Not quite as good for beamed solar; but, not terrible.
The real nightmare occurs when you realize the transmission system is only 70% efficient. So, if we fix that, we can account for quite a bit
Now, here's where you should be concerned about warming: The Earth's heat budget assumes a certain amount of sunlight striking it's surface -- based simply on the amount of surface area facing the Sun. We'd be increasing the heat energy the Earth would be receiving because we'd be increasing the exposed surface area by the area of the collectors. If they remain small (few sq miles) it will be insignificant. If we start building really big ones (100's sq miles) then it might become a real problem.
Re:1.21 Gigawatts.... (Score:3, Funny)
"Oh, well I'm sure that in 1985 you can buy plutonium in every corner drug store, but in 1955 it's very hard to come by!"