
New Company Looks to Produce Space Based Solar Power Within a Decade - ivey
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/02/18/new-company-looks-to-produce-space-based-solar-power-within-a-decade/
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moxy
While interesting, this dream team of engineers is trying to tackle a problem
that has many more commercially, economically and environmentally viable
solutions.

For one, solar power may be easier to harness in outer space. But there's a
problem: _it's in outer space_. There is no reason why we should be resorting
to such measures when we have the potential to harness solar energy here on
the earth's surface.

There _are_ energy demands that must be met, and it is true that our needs
will grow exponentially. However, more earthlings than ever (percentage-wise)
have a sufficient source of energy, and I believe this number will continue to
climb.

This is not to say that this company's efforts are a waste of time. Far from
it. We need overambitious entrepreneurs to at least _attempt_ these solutions
so that we can better gauge the difficulty of the problem at hand. While this
technology may not be realistically implementable, it very may well lead to a
newer, more efficient way of harnessing solar energy. If this technology
works, more power to them. And to us.

~~~
sho
"If this technology works, more power to them. And to us."

That's the whole point!

Seriously though, space based solar power is definitely the future, unless of
course there is a breakthrough in fusion power. There's nothing in the way
(atmosphere, clouds .. 100% full power, all the time), you're not using up
land, and it's 24 hours. It may not be viable for a while, though, since
launch costs are still too high (space elevator?).

Solar panels in space don't get dirty, don't have to support themselves
against gravity (so they're way lighter), don't have to pay for the land they
sit on. Sure, it's expensive getting them up, and there's engineering
challenges to be solves. It's all doable, though, IMO.

It's a question of when, not if. Within 10 years seems a little optimistic.
But if there's no fusion breakthrough, if nuclear remains unpopular, and if
the climate change thing really starts to get serious (no more coal power),
it's definitely a viable option.

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tectonic
I don't understand how you could safely beam that amount of energy down to
earth as microwaves. In times of war could this be co-opted as a directed
energy weapon? What happens if a plane or birds fly through the beam?

~~~
russell
It would use a very large collector so that the energy density would be low
enough not to harm planes or birds.

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prospero
_this isn't some sort of Star Trek giggle factor_

Is that the technical term?

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helveticaman
Is this the right decade for this? I mean, there was a flying car in
production in 1929, but that didn't go so well.

