[eric_b]

Just how much credibility the pentagon has these days is debatable. This sounds like pork to me. I see you've put peak oil in quotes. Is that to say you consider the concept flawed?

I don't consider this a complex technical issue, I consider it a very basic thermodynamic problem - we aren't going to have as much net energy available in the very near future, short of a miracle.

In any case I wont bother you about this again and I'm certain you'll continue to spam away.

[Graeme]

Glad to see that you will let me have the last word. You obviously have nothing to contribute to this venture so you are doing the spamming.

Whether "peak oil" is going to occur in the near future (2010) is highly debatable. Yes, the concept is flawed because there are so many variables that can affect it. For instance, demand is affected by economics (e.g. price fixed by OPEC and demand destruction - 1973, alternative fuels, etc) and politics (e.g. nationalisation/cartels and deliberately holding oil in the ground or not refining enough to meet demand). Yes, there is a finite supply but we really don't know what the world's reserves are and how much of that can be refined. I prefer the AAPG analysis published in Science. I was waivering between the ASPO analysis and this one but since I have been attacked by many of the senior staff on this site, I will stick to the latter. Peak oil is actually now playing into the hands of the oil companies who would want high prices if oil is thought to be scarce. Ultimately, I think and hope we will move away from fossil fuels soon on mainly environmental grounds not because we are running out of oil.

If I can get back to the topic in question, you are right, the concept is good but at the moment it cannot be done as I found in this article.

"It's a formidable challenge — going back to the Moon might be easier," Smith said. "Currently with today's technology, we can't do it. I don't know if the technology of tomorrow can close the business case, but the technology from the day after tomorrow will close it. My job is to find the critical path to the day after tomorrow's technology."

I guess they are looking for that technology through public consultation. Perhaps it can be achieved by going back to the moon.

[Graeme]

Tapping Into Space For Energy

For the human race to be able to meet its energy requirements, it requires 10 billion tons of fuel equivalent a year. The energy that annually reaches the Earth from the Sun is equivalent to 100 trillion tons of fuel equivalent. By exploiting just one per cent of that amount, i.e. one trillion tons, humanity could solve many of its problems for centuries ahead.

Recently the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, near Moscow, developed a photo cell with an efficiency of almost 50%. Scientists describe their product as a "star battery." It is an example of how nanotechnology can improve the workings of well-known processes.

A preferable orbit would be the extended 12-hour sun-synchronous one, or one with similar properties. In that case, the power plant would appear above the horizon twice a day. Its furthest point would be above the North Pole at an altitude of 40,000 kilometers, and at its closest it would come within 500 kilometers of the Earth's surface above the South Pole. One such plant would send power during the 8 hours when it is nearest to the Earth, mostly to the northern regions of the country that are in most need of it. During the remaining 4 hours, storage plants would accumulate power for future needs.

But whatever way you look at them, solar plants in space are a better and less costly option for energy problems on the Earth than flying to the Moon to fetch helium-3 for fusion reactors.

energy-daily

[TheDude]

It would have to be an autofab lifted into LEO by a BDR.

The path toward evolving the technology could involve developing a demonstration satellite capable of providing about 400 kilowatts of power that could launch around 2012, followed by two 2-megawatt satellites by 2017, he said.

That's altogether pitiful. You'd never get reelected in SimCity with returns like that. Gen IV nukes are where to go for juice in the future.

It's such a paltry return and by their own admission impossible to do at the present, that it makes me wonder if the Pentagon isn't simply tapping into 'Net know-how for ideas on beamed weapon tech. I do like the idea of the Gov. using a blog for throwing ideas around - wish it weren't these 5 sided Angels of Death, is all.

[Graeme]

Whilst surfing, I accidently found this source:

Many energy “solutions” have been proposed - windmills, bio-fuels like ethanol, ground based solar, “clean” coal and even nuclear power. These merely nibble at the vast and growing environmental problems we face. Space Solar Power offers the ultimate truly clean baseload energy to our planet. Technically, there is no question SSP can be built; the question is how to build it economically – as a private company would. (An engineer has been defined as someone who can build for a dime what any fool can build for a dollar.)
Learning how to build SSP cost-effectively is why we should build a demonstrator satellite immediately. The established energy and aerospace corporations are incapable of pursuing the high risk development necessary to build such a Space Solar Power System. Government agencies, like NASA or DOE, are not the right tool to build SSP. It must be a commercial power generation company.

It even mentions ASPO and peak oil at the end!

[Graeme]

Space Solar Energy Has Future, U.S. Researchers Say

But the potential costs remain high, discouraging entrepreneurs and the government from investing in it. The major expense -- transporting equipment and materials into orbit aboard a space shuttle -- is $20,000 per kilogram of payload, or the carrying capacity of a space vehicle. Proponents of space solar power believe the project would become viable economically if the payload cost could be reduced to below $200 per kilogram, and the total expense of delivery and robotic assembly on orbit could be brought below $3,500 per kilogram.

Mankins believes the U.S. government is likely to return to the space solar power idea because of its many potential benefits and applications, including providing power for space exploration and commercial development of space resources.

“But when you look at the kind of things we as a modern society spend billions of dollars on, [supporting] the idea of limitless clean energy from space is not such a bad goal,” he said.

usinfo

[Graeme]

The rise and fall of great space powers

This is precisely what no space power has done to date, and until that changes, space remains an adjunct to activities on Earth: space systems limited to servicing terrestrial economies by collecting and relaying information from one point on Earth to another—and space programs being entirely subject to the ups and downs of those economies.

Indeed, he was sure that even if the United States failed to capitalize on the “endless wealth… out there for the taking,” and its potential to solve “not one but all of our crisis problems”—employment, inflation, pollution, population growth, energy, shortages of nonrenewable resources—other countries would surely do so.

Still, if these or other such plans were realized [a great deal of work likely remains to be done both lowering the cost of space launch, and reducing the size and weight of the payloads needed to get a space-based infrastructure up and running] they would mark the end of the time when space was just a critical node in terrestrial information flows, and the beginning of one in which space itself provides substantial, tangible, essential resources.

In a future where the world’s economy depends on an energy source mined in space, as seems possible to some, the Moon could well become the next Persian Gulf, and sharing control may be the only way to avoid a potentially disastrous conflict—which was the rationale behind agreements like the Outer Space Treaty in the first place.

In the end, despite assurances that the future of space development clearly lies in one direction or another, the field actually remains wide open. ...how, and indeed if, we go about the task will as much as anything reveal the shape of our economic and political future.

thespacereview

[zoidberg]

In the end, despite assurances that the future of space development clearly lies in one direction or another, the field actually remains wide open. ...how, and indeed if, we go about the task will as much as anything reveal the shape of our economic and political future.

There is absolutely no reason to expect the future of space exploration will differ substantially from terrestrial exploration. That is to say, it will result in empire building, wars, and dramatic changes in power according to who grabs the prizes first. People will still be people. Even in space. Except they'll be space people.

Nothing will happen until the cost of launching stuff into space makes things like launching megawatt capacity solar panels cost effective. Nobody can be expected to invest in that when investing in natural gas and such is so wildly profitable.

Theres a long ways to go. Its kinda like electric cars. Its popular to assume their many virtues should've naturally led them to lead and that their failure is the result of some conspiracy or overwhelming engineering problems. I think its neither and that their failure was simply due to the combination of the ICE and petroleum being an unbeatable combination. Things seem to be starting to move again now that peak oil is breaking that combo with hybrids and new types of lithium ion batteries, some fantastic sounding ultra capacitor things et al. Maybe space exploration will be analogous, once launch costs are brought down.

The key thing to watch is not how slow progress has been up to this point, but to see how fast it accelerates once it starts reaching the envelope of profitability. Maybe something will get worked out, maybe the dislocation from peak oil will derail all efforts. Neither course can be predicted(at least by me). But I know which outcome I want to see .

Hell I'd even be happy to see a line on my tax bill labeled space exploration.

[NEOPO]

at this point, knowing how nefarious these bastards are and what they will do with this new found power, I wouldn't give them a fucking clue. love ya-mean it.

[zoidberg]

at this point, knowing how nefarious these bastards are and what they will do with this new found power, I wouldn't give them a fucking clue. love ya-mean it.

Did I give them a clue about space exploration? Nah, its a huge enterprise requiring a large support base. Should we run telethons for it? Nobody would phone in - we have to pay taxes to make it work or to even try.

As for nefarious. Join the Dark Side.

[Graeme]

Thanks guys for contributing to this thread but I have more news for you - the space race has just begun again:

Russia plans manned Moon mission by 2025

"According to our estimates we will be ready for a manned flight to the Moon in 2025," Anatoly Perminov told reporters. An "inhabited station" could be built there between 2027 and 2032, he said.

physorg

Just how much cooperation there will be between nations (e.g. China, India, Japan, EU) remains to be seen.

[Graeme]

Space Based Solar Power Fuels Vision of Global Energy Security

The deployment of space platforms that capture sunlight for beaming down electrical power to Earth is under review by the Pentagon, as a way to offer global energy and security benefits – including the prospect of short-circuiting future resource wars between increasingly energy-starved nations.

A proposal is being vetted by U.S. military space strategists that 10 percent of the U.S. baseload of energy by 2050, perhaps sooner, could be produced by space based solar power (SBSP). Furthermore, a demonstration of the concept is being eyed to occur within the next five to seven years.

A mix of advocates, technologists and scientists, as well as legal and policy experts, took part in Space Based Solar Power – Charting a Course for Sustainable Energy, a meeting held here September 6-7 and sponsored by the United States Air Force Academy's Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies and the Pentagon's National Security Space Office.


Mankins told Space News that the International Space Station could also be a venue from which to conduct a whole range of in-space SBSP-related experiments on relevant component technologies or subsystem technologies. "The space station is perfect for that," he said, perhaps making use of Japan's still-to-be-lofted experiment module, Kibo, and its Exposed Facility located outside of the pressurized module.

To engage in an open public discussion of space solar power, go to this website sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation: http://spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/

space

[Doly]

The deployment of space platforms that capture sunlight for beaming down electrical power to Earth is under review by the Pentagon, as a way to offer global energy and security benefits – including the prospect of short-circuiting future resource wars between increasingly energy-starved nations.

So the Pentagon is openly talking about "resource wars between increasingly energy-starved nations". OK, the cat is out of the bag.

What nobody has explained satisfactorily yet is why send the solar panels to space when they work perfectly well down here. The cost of putting them in orbit surely outweights any benefits, such as no clouds.

[zoidberg]

What nobody has explained satisfactorily yet is why send the solar panels to space when they work perfectly well down here. The cost of putting them in orbit surely outweights any benefits, such as no clouds.

Thats why the Pentagon needs help with the research!

Its assumed launch costs have to come down, as well we'll have to develop a space based manufacturing industry that manufacture the panels in space.

In short - it depends on revolutionary leaps in our ability to operate outside our atmosphere and gravity well.

For the time being, of course, solar power is much better on ol' Terra Firma.

[Graeme]

New Alliance for Space Solar Power to Be Announced

On October 10, 2007, leading space advocacy organizations and Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin will announce the formation of a new alliance to advance a common goal: Ensuring that the benefits of renewable clean energy from space solar power are understood and supported by business, governments and the general public.

The inaugural event of the new alliance, to be held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., will highlight a study underway by the National Security Space Office (NSSO) on the viability of space-based solar power.

Space Solar Power means gathering energy in space and transmitting it wirelessly for use on Earth. Such technology could be a major solution to humanity's long-term energy needs, providing limitless renewable power with zero carbon emissions.

We invite you to join us for this special event, to hear interim results of the study, and to learn about the initial goals and members of the new alliance.

Date: Wednesday, Oct 10, 2007

Time: 9:00am-10:30am

Location: National Press Club, First Amendment Lounge

529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20045

Speakers:


Buzz Aldrin, Apollo Astronaut and Chairman, ShareSpace Foundation
John Mankins, President, SUNSAT Energy Council
Lt. Col. Paul Damphousse, National Security Space Office

spaceref

[Graeme]

The Space Solar Alliance for Future Energy

The study concludes that space-based solar power deserves substantial national investment as a path towards addressing America's future energy needs via a renewable energy source with no carbon emissions or hazardous waste. In the Space Solar Power concept, developed in the late nineteen-sixties by Dr. Peter Glaser, energy from sunlight is collected in space and transmitted wirelessly for use on Earth.

Mark Hopkins, Senior Vice President of the National Space Society, stated, "As the United States makes decisions now to answer the energy challenges of the next 50 years, space-based solar power must be a part of the answer. While the technical challenges are real, significant investment now can build Space Solar Power into the ultimate energy source: clean, green, renewable, and capable of providing the vast amounts of power that the world will need. Congress, federal agencies and the business community should begin that investment immediately."

spaceref

[Graeme]

Report Urges U.S. to Pursue Space-Based Solar Power

A Pentagon-chartered report urges the United States to take the lead in developing space platforms capable of capturing sunlight and beaming electrical power to Earth.

Space-based solar power, according to the report, has the potential to help the United States stave off climate change and avoid future conflicts over oil by harnessing the sun's power to provide an essentially inexhaustible supply of clean energy.

The report, "Space-Based Solar Power as an Opportunity for Strategic Security," was undertaken by the Pentagon's National Security Space Office this spring as a collaborative effort that relied heavily on Internet discussions by more than 170 scientific, legal, and business experts around the world. The Space Frontier Foundation, an activist organization normally critical of government-led space programs, hosted the website used to collect input for the report.

One critical area that has not made many advances since the 1990s or even the 1970s is the cost of launch. Mankins said commercially-viable space-based solar power platforms will only become feasible with the kind of dramatically cheaper launch costs promised by fully reusable launch vehicles flying dozens of times a year.

While the upfront costs are steep, Mankins and others said space-based solar power's potential to meet the world's future energy needs is huge.

According to the report, "a single kilometer-wide band of geosynchronous earth orbit experiences enough solar flux in one year to nearly equal the amount of energy contained within all known recoverable conventional oil reserves on Earth today."

space

[Graeme]

Power from space? Pentagon likes the idea

A new Pentagon study lays out the roadmap for a multibillion-dollar push to the final frontier of energy: a satellite system that collects gigawatts’ worth of solar power and beams it down to Earth.

The 75-page report, released Wednesday, says new economic incentives would have to be put in place to “close the business case” for space-based solar power systems — but it suggests that the technology could be tested in orbit by as early as 2012.

How it could work
The report sketches out how a space-based solar power system could work:

A network of satellites would be constructed in space with arrays of lightweight mirrors extending for several miles (kilometers) on each side.
Those mirrors would focus sunlight on solar cells, generating electrical power. The electricity would be converted into microwaves suitable for transmitting through Earth's atmosphere, at frequencies of 2.45 or 5.8 GHz.
The microwaves would be directed down to antenna arrays on Earth, as a beam of radiation about one-sixth as intense as noon sunlight. The antennas would convert the radiation back into electricity for distribution via conventional grids.

msnbc

[Carlhole]

[url=http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf]Space‐Based Solar Power
As an Opportunity for Strategic Security - Oct. 10, 2007 (pdf)[/url]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Consistent with the US National Security Strategy, energy and environmental security are not just problems for America, they are critical challenges for the entire world. Expanding human populations and declining natural resources are potential sources of local and strategic conflict in the 21st Century, and many see energy scarcity as the foremost threat to national security. Conflict prevention is of particular interest to security‐providing institutions such as the U.S. Department of Defense which has elevated energy and environmental security as priority issues with a mandate to proactively find and create solutions that ensure U.S. and partner strategic security is preserved.

The magnitude of the looming energy and environmental problems is significant enough to warrant consideration of all options, to include revisiting a concept called Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) first invented in the United States almost 40 years ago. The basic idea is very straightforward: place very large solar arrays into continuously and intensely sunlit Earth orbit (1,366 watts/m2) , collect gigawatts of electrical energy, electromagnetically beam it to Earth, and receive it on the surface for use either as baseload power via direct connection to the existing electrical grid, conversion into manufactured synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, or as low‐intensity broadcast power beamed directly to consumers. A single kilometer‐wide band of geosynchronous earth orbit experiences enough solar flux in one year to nearly equal the amount of energy contained within all known recoverable conventional oil reserves on Earth today. This amount of energy indicates that there is enormous potential for energy security, economic development, improved environmental stewardship, advancement of general space faring, and overall national security for those nations who construct and possess a SBSP capability.

NASA and DOE have collectively spent $80M over the last three decades in sporadic efforts studying this concept (by comparison, the U.S. Government has spent approximately $21B over the last 50 years continuously pursuing nuclear fusion). The first major effort occurred in the 1970’s where scientific feasibility of the concept was established and a reference 5 GW design was proposed. Unfortunately 1970’s architecture and technology levels could not support an economic case for development relative to other lower‐cost energy alternatives on the market.

In 1995‐1997 NASA initiated a “Fresh Look” Study to re‐examine the concept relative to modern technological capabilities. The report (validated by the National Research Council) indicated that technology vectors to satisfy SBSP development were converging quickly and provided recommended development focus areas, but for various reasons that again included the relatively lower cost of other energies, policy makers elected not to pursue a development effort.

The post‐9/11 situation has changed that calculus considerably. Oil prices have jumped from $15/barrel to now $80/barrel in less than a decade. In addition to the emergence of global concerns over climate change, American and allied energy source security is now under threat from actors that seek to destabilize or control global energy markets as well as increased energy demand competition by emerging global economies .

Our National Security Strategy recognizes that many nations are too dependent on foreign oil, often imported from unstable portions of the world, and seeks to remedy the problem by accelerating the deployment of clean technologies to enhance energy security, reduce poverty, and reduce pollution in a way that will ignite an era of global growth through free markets and free trade. Senior U.S. leaders need solutions with strategic impact that can be delivered in a relevant period of time.

In March of 2007, the National Security Space Office (NSSO) Advanced Concepts Office (“Dreamworks”) presented this idea to the agency director. Recognizing the potential for this concept to influence not only energy, but also space, economic, environmental, and national security, the Director instructed the Advanced Concepts Office to quickly collect as much information as possible on the feasibility of this concept. Without the time or funds to contract for a traditional architecture study, Dreamworks turned to an innovative solution: the creation on April 21, 2007, of an open source, internet‐based, interactive collaboration forum aimed at gathering the world’s SBSP experts into one particular cyberspace.

Discussion grew immediately and exponentially, such that there are now 170 active contributors as of the release of this report—this study approach was an unequivocal success and should serve as a model for DoD when considering other study topics.

Study leaders organized discussions into five groups:

1) a common plenary session
2) science & technology
3) law & policy
4) infrastructure and logistics
5) the business case

...and challenged the group to answer one fundamental question: Can the United States and partners enable the development and deployment of a space‐based solar power system within the first half of the 21st Century such that if constructed could provide affordable, clean, safe, reliable, sustainable, and expandable energy for its consumers?

This is a 41-page paper and seems pretty interesting. I posted a long portion of the Executive Summary so that people could read a little of it without having to open the PDF file.

It seems to be quite a strong acknowledgement of the Peak Oil threat.

I'd love to see an engineers' conception of an SBSP sattelite.

It seems naive of many on this site to naysay every initiative that comes along when (of course!) people will struggle to save their colective ass as the awful certainty grows of relentlessly declining energy supplies.

[Graeme]

Is space solar power closer than we think?

They might sound like they've read too much Arthur C. Clarke, but firms planning to harness solar power from orbiting satellites insist the technology could be in place within two years.

However, according to various viability studies a ten-fold increase in launches per year would create an economy of scale that would make SSP competitive with other renewable energy technologies. The US and Europe each currently launch around 10 to 15 space flights a year, but Space Island Group CEO Gene Meyers thinks his company alone will soon be launching close to one rocket a week.

The company has almost completed financing for a prototype system that it claims will be in orbit within 18 months, at a total cost of $200 million. "The satellite will deliver between 10 to 25 megawatts of power," says Meyers. "It will 'site-hop' across base stations in Europe, beaming 90 minutes of power to each one by microwave."

If the test proves successful, a 1 gigawatt installation for the UK domestic market would be the next step, he adds.

However, Space Island Group is not alone in its ambitions for an orbital power station. Kevin Reed, chief marketing officer at Welsom Space Power, a recently-formed consortium including a large US aerospace company and a leading Swiss thin-film solar cell manufacturer, says the company is planning to put a 1.2 megawatt satellite in orbit by 2010 with an eight megawatt operation scheduled for 2012.

vnunet