fecteau wrote:Solar power satellites have been discussed for decades. I think it's time we
start looking at them seriously.
Licho wrote:Japan plans SPS in longer term. With several hundred megawats of power. It's gonna be using microwaves (not laser), with intensity on Earth just a bit higher than that of cellular phones. Therefore, antena reciever has to be big, but you can still use space below antena (it allows about 1/2 of light to come through).
Plan suggest, that it should pay itself in similar time like nuclear plant.
And regarding heating of Earth - that's a minimal problem. We don't have global warming because of heat we produce by burning fossils/using any kind of energy, but because of CO2.
Licho wrote:Plan suggest, that it should pay itself in similar time like nuclear plant.
Licho wrote:And regarding heating of Earth - that's a minimal problem. We don't have global warming because of heat we produce by burning fossils/using any kind of energy, but because of CO2.
Devil wrote:1) Tell me how you are going to generate "several hundred megawatts" of microwave power. To generate 1 kW of CW microwave power (not pulsed) is already a challenge. I don't believe we have the technology for even a single MW.
2) Bearing in mind the inefficiency of CW TXs at those frequencies, I would imagine that, for a 500 MW space station, you would need about 4 to 6 km2 of solar panels to power it. How are you going to get them up there?
3) As such a station would need to be in geostationary orbit above the receiving dish, it will be in the dark for half the time.
4) How do you overcome atmospheric diffraction changes?
5) It is simple physics that if you increase the radiation energy into the earth's biosphere, so the latter will become warmer. However, half a dozen such stations would not make much difference.
6) What will you do with all the roast birds that will fall to earth (not to mention aircraft that inadvertently pass through the beam
7) How will you perform maintenance on a geostationary device using thermionic components?
Jack wrote:Neat idea---one would think that it would be an ideal way to generate power in isolated areas instead of using long transmission lines.
Scaling up to higher power levels would be straightforward, entailing simply the deployment of a larger amount of solar-collecting area in space. Power would be transmitted through the infrastructure of transmitters and receivers that will then be in place for the satellite communications systems. In this regard, microwave transmission has a decided advantage over conventional cable methods of transmitting power. A microwave system that is 80 percent efficient at sending 1 kilowatt will still be 80 percent efficient at sending 1 megawatt. This is fundamentally different from an electric utility transmission line, where you need thicker, and costlier, wires to carry more power. If too much power is put through a cable, it will melt the insulation.
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