Orbital solar power plants touted for energy needs

On Nov 18, 10:42*am, William Mook wrote:
On Nov 18, 5:14*am, William Mook wrote:





On Nov 17, 9:32*pm, bob haller wrote:

On Nov 17, wrote:

On Nov 17, 2:47*pm, bob haller wrote:

On Nov 17, 2:24*pm, Doug Freyburger wrote:

Brian Thorn wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Space based power can supplement base load. *Ground based solar can't.

Huh? Ground based solar already is, a tiny fraction of course, but it
already is

Maybe you don't know what "base load" means. *It's the 24/7 generating
infrastructure. *Ground solar has an issue called night that means the
only way it can supply base load is to have transmission lines that
cross the oceans.

supplementing.

Peak load generation is not the same thing as base load generation.
Ground based solar can and does supply supplemental or peak load power.

i do wonder what percentage of homes roofs would really be useful for
solar panels?

Putting panels on roofs actually increases their cost. *Putting arrays
of panels on surface mines to reclaim them, provides the lowest cost
implementation. *To have solar energy provide more than 12% of the
world's energy requires that they

a) generate hydrogen from water and
b) produce 5x to 6x more power than used on average when the sun
shines.

This means that to be competitive solar panels have to be VASTLY less
expensive than any other form of generation.

I have achieved this.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20024019/W...to-Mok-FINAL-1

At $0.05 per peak watt, located in a region that has 1,700 hours of
illumination per year, I can produce hydrogen for $85 per metric ton.

In sci.space.policy message , Thu, 17 Nov
2011 19:24:18, Doug Freyburger posted:

Ground solar has an issue called night that means the
only way it can supply base load is to have transmission lines that
cross the oceans.

Not entirely exact. Argentinian solar farms would be ideally placed to
supply Beijing's street lighting, and the lines would only need to cross
the Panama Canal and the Bering Straits, neither of which are oceans.

A Bering Tunnel is routinely in contemplation, and it should be easy
enough to tunnel under the Canal.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Turnpike 6.05 WinXP.
Web http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQ-type topics, acronyms, and links.
Command-prompt MiniTrue is useful for viewing/searching/altering files. Free,
DOS/Win/UNIX now 2.0.6; see URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/pc-links.htm.

On Nov 18, 3:40*pm, bob haller wrote:
On Nov 18, 10:42*am, William Mook wrote:









On Nov 18, 5:14*am, William Mook wrote:

On Nov 17, 9:32*pm, bob haller wrote:

On Nov 17, wrote:

On Nov 17, 2:47*pm, bob haller wrote:

On Nov 17, 2:24*pm, Doug Freyburger wrote:

Brian Thorn wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Space based power can supplement base load. *Ground based solar can't.

Huh? Ground based solar already is, a tiny fraction of course, but it
already is

Maybe you don't know what "base load" means. *It's the 24/7 generating
infrastructure. *Ground solar has an issue called night that means the
only way it can supply base load is to have transmission lines that
cross the oceans.

supplementing.

Peak load generation is not the same thing as base load generation.
Ground based solar can and does supply supplemental or peak load power.

i do wonder what percentage of homes roofs would really be useful for
solar panels?

Putting panels on roofs actually increases their cost. *Putting arrays
of panels on surface mines to reclaim them, provides the lowest cost
implementation. *To have solar energy provide more than 12% of the
world's energy requires that they

a) generate hydrogen from water and
b) produce 5x to 6x more power than used on average when the sun
shines.

This means that to be competitive solar panels have to be VASTLY less
expensive than any other form of generation.

I have achieved this.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20024019/W...to-Mok-FINAL-1

At $0.05 per peak watt, located in a region that has 1,700 hours of
illumination per year, I can produce hydrogen for $85 per metric ton.

Radio interview - revolution radiohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ99nFW3KLU&feature=list_related&playn...

Other radio interview - talktainment radiohttp://67.72.16.232/talk/2565604.mp3

At this price hydrogen is the least expensive fuel on the planet, and
the least polluting.

How to enter the market?

Use hydrogen to convert coal to crude oil and sell the crude oil.

Then use hydrogen to convert stationary power plants to burn hydrogen.

Then, buy oil retailers to distribute coal derived crude oil
efficiently.

Then add hydrogen pumps at the oil retailer.

Sell hydrogen as a loss leader to drive crude oil out of business..

Then add beamed power from space to beam to the large solar arrays,
increasing their output 16x.

Then beam high intensity beams to users around the world, including
vehicles and rockets.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

so it should be possible to locate solar panels in deserts, that would
not only generate power directly, but collect beamed power at the same
time?

consol coal says they have a coal to gasoline technology too.

and growing non food plants converting them to alcohol should help too

Correct! *This combined with water projects will provide the means to
support up to 21 billion people on Earth.

Crash program for continental developmenthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjR3tWBDPbI

Power generation from ultra-low-cost solar panels in the major
deserts.

(1) Sahara
(2) Arabian
(3) Kalahari
(4) Gobi
(5) Australian
(6) US Southwestern
(7) Atacama

A world of 8.51 billion people in 2030 consuming energy at a rate of
11,000 Watts requires 93.6 TW of power. *Dividing this by 7 means 13.4
TW per site - if power is delivered 24/7.

Today the world consumes 17 TW of primary power. *To produce this with
terrestrial solar panels requires 2.4 TW averge per site. *That's 13.4
TW per site peak, 13,400 sq km per site for 7 sites when the sun is
shining.

Beaming band-gap matched energy at 1,000 W/m2 and converting it with
nearly perfect efficiency 24/7 increases the power output to 13.4 TW
per site - raising the peak to the average.

This requires the addition of 8510 satellites that are 5 km in
diameter and produce 11 GW each - separated by 31.2 km.

With one launch every eight hours this requires 7.77 years to deploy
the fleet. *With six vehicles (42 elements) cycle times of two days -
are required to sustain this launch rate.

Launcherhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/30943696/ETDHLRLV

Launcher Addendumhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/31261680/Etdhlrlv-Addendum

Power sathttp://www.scribd.com/doc/35439593/Solar-Power-Satellite-GEO

Seven solar collector sites 130 km in diameter located in the deserts
provide for the energy needs of the planet today- without pollution.
Launching a 5 km diameter satellite to GEO every eight hours,
increases this output to 11,000 Watts per person - for 8.51 billion -
in 7.77 years - to sustain a very high standard of living.

Sending satellites to within 3.75 million km of the sun and beaming
220 GW to Earth to redirect it to satellite receivers on the ground
increases power level to 220,000 Watts per person - allowing routine
access to space.

Ballistic Transporthttp://www.scribd.com/doc/54316434/Ballistic-Transport

Space transporthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33_-teBjZ4w

Space Colonizationhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgrdAUFFMrA

Star Travelhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPjXxKpM4DM

The use of bio-mass to power machines takes food from a population
that is already starving since it takes 3 calories of machine energy
to efficiently grow 1 calorie of food energy.

The use of coal in combination with ultra-low-cost solar hydrogen to
make low-cost petroleum is a way to enter and compete in the existing
energy markets. *We do the following;

(1) Acquire an under-valued coal reserve,
(2) Sell hydrogen to coal fired power plants,
(3) Combine hydrogen with stranded coal to make petrol
(4) Merge with an under-valued oil retailer and create integrated oil
company
(5) Add hydrogen and sell oil as a loss-leader
(6) Acquire under-valued oil companies
(7) Convert coal and oil to high value plastics production only, use
hydrogen as fuel only- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

dont grow foodstuffs at all for fuel. how about sawgrass that has zero
food value, but still refiness into liquid fuel

The same economics apply. You must sow, tend, feed, water, harvest,
transport, process, the biomass, it all takes energy. More energy
than is derived from the bio-fuel. The same effort and capital can be
used to grow food instead. The only point where biomass makes sense
is when you use waste products from existing food and fiber
harvesting. Woodchips, chaff, and so forth. Then, you are
recapturing a portion of the energy used to grow the food.

On Nov 18, 5:56*pm, Dr J R Stockton
wrote:
In sci.space.policy message , Thu, 17 Nov
2011 19:24:18, Doug Freyburger posted:

*Ground solar has an issue called night that means the
only way it can supply base load is to have transmission lines that
cross the oceans.

Not entirely exact. *Argentinian solar farms would be ideally placed to
supply Beijing's street lighting, and the lines would only need to cross
the Panama Canal and the Bering Straits, neither of which are oceans.

A Bering Tunnel is routinely in contemplation, and it should be easy
enough to tunnel under the Canal.

--
*(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. *Turnpike 6.05 *WinXP.
*Web *http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQ-type topics, acronyms, and links.
*Command-prompt MiniTrue is useful for viewing/searching/altering files.. Free,
*DOS/Win/UNIX now 2.0.6; see URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/pc-links.htm.

My system uses hydrogen producing solar panels that use water filled
lenses to focus light to a point. Small photovoltaic units stay in
that light spot and produce streams of hydrogen and oxygen bubbles,
which are captured in a header system. At 5,000x concentration a
square meter of PET plastic film costs only a few cents, and focuses
light on to 1,500 photovoltaic dots that total 2 square cm. The
molded PET film includes the header system which is molded in place.
The photovoltaic dots total $15. The same header that collects the
bubbles, feeds water the other way. Strings of panels are molded
together folded for transport, unfolded in place, and filled from
tanks which act to gather the bubbles into a gas, which is compressed
for transmission through a gathering system. The gathering system
compresses the gas further and transmits it to empty gas wells. Those
wells store gas for up to 90 days.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20047598/M...a-low-cost-CPV

Gas is withdrawn as needed and fed into a large long distance
transmission line. This transmission line is part of a global network
which includes trains, highways, canals, water pipelines, and other
infrastructure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjR3tWBDPbI

The total cost if applied 100% to hydrogen means that to make 1 metric
ton of hydrogen from 9 kiloliters of water is $84 delivered anywhere
on Earth making it the least expensive fuel on the planet.

Seven regional solar collector arrays, built in the seven major
deserts of the world, provide hydrogen for use to replace coal in coal
fired power plants eliminating CO2 production altogether. Those power
plants also use additional hydrogen to convert the stranded coal to
petroleum liquids which are then sold, tripling the value of the
plants, while reducing the cost of electricity, to zero.

To replace the 5.5 billion tons of coal with hydrogen each year
requires 0.9 billion tons of hydrogen gas. This requires 7 collectors
each 1,430 sq km in area.

An additional 0.5 billion tons of hydrogen convert the 5.5 billion
tons of coal into 37.4 billion barrels of liquid fuels. At $100 per
barrel, this is $3.74 trillion per year! This requires an expansion
to 2,265 sq km of solar collectors at each site.

To build these out in 1.5 years requires 7 facilities of this size

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20024194/P...rom-Mok-Report

Continuing to expand this system to replace all the world's primary
fuels with hydrogen made from sunlight and water, requires that each
site be enlarged to an area of 5,000 sq km.

Orbiting over 8510 power satellites of this type

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35439593/S...-Satellite-GEO

and expanding each area to 5,350 sq km, provides a way to supply
11,000 watts of continuous power per person for a world filled with
8.51 billion people.

On Nov 18, 10:54*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
jacob navia wrote:
Le 15/11/11 22:38, bob haller a écrit :
On Nov 15, 2:49 pm, David *wrote:
jacob navia wrote:
I can't see what is that big advantage of installing solar panels
in orbit compared to installing them in the sahara desert or in other
more accessible places in the surface of the earth. The U.S. has a
fair share of solar power in a lot of deserts, installing solar panels
in there would be a no brainer...

And what typically makes for a good desert also typically makes for a good
location for solar power.

Dave

however space solar could likely provide power for many more hours
than land based solar

OK.

I can buy solar tiles for around 240 US$ per square meter at

http://www.solarenergyexperts.co.uk/...ar-tile-prices

Really? *Is the British Pound worth less than fifty US cents now?

"One square meter of solar PV tiles will cost around £500, and that
doesn’t include installation or any of the rest of the system."

That takes you up around $800/m^2, not $240/m^2.



Suppose I install just 100 square meters in my roof, what makes for
24 000 dollars.

$79,000



1000 of those houses would make for 100 000 square meters, i.e. 10
square kilometers of solar power. True, that system would cost 24
million.

$79 million and that's just for the tiles. *If you want them installed
and hooked up to actually generate electricity, it will cost much
more.



Solar tiles aren't that efficient and produce only
between 50 and 120 Watts per square meter. The output of that
system would be 100 000 * 50 = 5MW to 12 MW of electricity.

Installation of solar tiles is very easy, just replacing your normal
tiles with solar ones and a bit of cabling. All can be done by
local workers, 1000 homes re-roofing is maybe expensive but just doable.
Le's say installation costs are 2000 dollars per house. Makes
2 million dollars for the 1000 homes.

You think you can get your entire roof replaced AND all the gear
required to get the power in a usable form for only $2k? *REALLY?

silly assumptions removed

Your conclusion is correct, but your numbers and your assumptions are
ludicrous.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
*man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
*all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * --George Bernard Shaw

My system consists of sheets of molded PET plastic that forms lens
like cavities. These cavities are filled with water which focus light
to spots within those cavities. At these spots are photovoltaic
dots. 1,500 per square meter. With a total area of 2 sq cm. These
convert the water to hydrogen in oxygen in the cell, and deliver it to
a molded in place header system. This system collects the hydrogen
and oxygen bubbles, while delivering replacement water to the lens.
Each square meter delivers 12 grams of hydrogen from 108 cc of water
each hour of full illumination. The cost of each square meter is less
than $20 - including the hydrogen collection and gathering system and
installation costs.

In most sunny locations I produce hydrogen for $84 per ton from water
and sunlight.

The highest best use of this hydrogen is to replace coal in coal fired
power plants. The world uses 5.5 billion tons of coal in this way
each year. A total of 0.9 billion tons of hydrogen made from 8.1
trillion liters of water each year using 10,000 sq km of solar panels
of this type installed at a total cost of $200 billion.

Delivering an additional 0.5 billion tons of hydrogen made from 4.5
trillion liters of water each year using an additional 5,860 sq km of
solar panels, costing an additional $115 billion, permits the
conversion of the 5.5 billion tons of stranded coal into 37.4 billion
barrels of petroleum liquids. This requires the installation of $1.8
trillion of coal conversion equipment, but produces over $3.7 trillion
worth of petroleum fuels each year, if sold at $100 per barrel. This
also allows zeroing out the cost of electricity world wide - while
cutting our carbon footprint in half.

Expanding the solar arrays to 35,000 sq km at a cost of $400 billion
allows the replacement of all petroleum liquids with hydrogen gas.

Orbiting solar power satellites that beam bandgap matched laser energy
to terrestrial collectors at 2,500 W/m2 the 40,000 sq km of solar
panels produce enough hydrogen to supply 8.51 billion people with
11,000 watts of power on average from 8,510 solar power satellites in
Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35439593/S...-Satellite-GEO

The supply chain costs $45 billion to build, including launcher and
launch center infrastructure. They produce satellites costing $2
billion each, including launch costs. A fleet of 9 ships puts up
three satellites per day, with a 3 day turn-around, and recovery of
all components.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31261680/Etdhlrlv-Addendum

Which permits deployment of the system in 7.7 years.

Solar power satellite beaming band gap matched IR laser energy to a
terrestrial collector can operate at 2.5x solar intensity, convert 98%
of the incident energy to useful form, especially if the load makes
hydrogen and oxygen from water based on illumination level, which
increases hydrogen output 30x from terrestrial solar.

Conventional Terrestrial Solar
1800 hours/yr x 400 W/m2 / 39,720 Wh/kg = 18.1 kg/m2/yr

SPS Laser Power Assist
8766 hours/yr x 2,500 W/m2 / 39,720 Wh/kg = 551.7 kg/m2/yr

The cost of hydrogen drops from $84 per metric ton in the first
instance to $3 per metric ton in the second instance.

On Nov 18, 11:11*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Space based power can supplement base load. *Ground based solar can't.

Why not?

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
*territory."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * --G. Behn

It requires global interconnection and/or intermediate storage. My
solar panels produce hydrogen and oxygen from water. The hydrogen is
gathered and stored in depleted gas wells for up to 90 days. The
hydrogen is withdrawn as needed and transmitted to stationary power
plants where it replaced carbon fuels. Additional hydrogen is used to
convert carbon fuel to liquid transportation fuels. Those fuels are
replaced with hydrogen as mobile systems are converted to hydrogen
use.

J. Clarke wrote:
Two major benefits of orbital solar are that it doesn't have to deal
with the day/night cycle and it can put the power where it's needed--NYC
needs a lot more power than does Flagstaff, Arizona, but has a lot less
convenient desert.

Just to be clear about this, even for orbital solar power, output is not
continuous 24/7. For powersats orbiting at GEO there is a short period of time
(about 1 hr) at geographical midnight (for the ground based zenith) where the
powersat passes into the Earth's shadow. For a photo-electric based powersat
the output drops to zero, for a thermal-electric powersat it would drop in
proportion to the thermal "inertia" of the powersat, until it emerges from the
Earth's shadow a little under an hour later.

This cycle repeats nightly. Although 1 hour is indeed a lot less than the
*typical* day/night cycle on Earth's surface (depending upon season and latitude).

Dave

In article , nospam@
127.0.0.1 says...

J. Clarke wrote:
Two major benefits of orbital solar are that it doesn't have to deal
with the day/night cycle and it can put the power where it's needed--NYC
needs a lot more power than does Flagstaff, Arizona, but has a lot less
convenient desert.

Just to be clear about this, even for orbital solar power, output is not
continuous 24/7. For powersats orbiting at GEO there is a short period of time
(about 1 hr) at geographical midnight (for the ground based zenith) where the
powersat passes into the Earth's shadow. For a photo-electric based powersat
the output drops to zero, for a thermal-electric powersat it would drop in
proportion to the thermal "inertia" of the powersat, until it emerges from the
Earth's shadow a little under an hour later.

This cycle repeats nightly. Although 1 hour is indeed a lot less than the
*typical* day/night cycle on Earth's surface (depending upon season and latitude).

It happens for a period ranging from about 6 minutes to about 70 minutes
90 days out of the year, it doesn't happen every night. And there are a
variety of ways of handling it that don't involve power storage.

On 11/21/2011 07:16 AM, David Spain wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
Two major benefits of orbital solar are that it doesn't have to deal
with the day/night cycle and it can put the power where it's
needed--NYC needs a lot more power than does Flagstaff, Arizona, but
has a lot less convenient desert.

Just to be clear about this, even for orbital solar power, output is not
continuous 24/7. For powersats orbiting at GEO there is a short period
of time (about 1 hr) at geographical midnight (for the ground based
zenith) where the powersat passes into the Earth's shadow. For a
photo-electric based powersat the output drops to zero, for a
thermal-electric powersat it would drop in proportion to the thermal
"inertia" of the powersat, until it emerges from the Earth's shadow a
little under an hour later.

This cycle repeats nightly. Although 1 hour is indeed a lot less than
the *typical* day/night cycle on Earth's surface (depending upon season
and latitude).

GEO eclipses don't occur every night due to the obliquity of the
ecliptic. The GEO sats are on the equatorial plane but the earth's umbra
and penumbra lie along the ecliptic plane. During northern hemisphere
summer and winter the GEO sats pass above and below the shadow,
respectively. GEO eclipses are only possible when the satellites are
within about 8.7 deg of the ecliptic, which occurs around the equinoxes.
Even then, the max duration eclipse only occurs *at* the equinox.