Orbital solar power plants touted for energy needs

"The sun's abundant energy, if harvested in space,
could provide a cost-effective way to meet global
power needs in as little as 30 years with seed
money from governments, according to a study
by an international scientific group.

Orbiting power plants capable of collecting solar
energy and beaming it to Earth appear "technically
feasible" within a decade or two based on
technologies now in the laboratory, a study group
of the Paris-headquartered International Academy
of Astronautics said.

Such a project may be able to achieve economic
viability in 30 years or less, it said, without laying
out a road map or proposing a specific architecture."

See:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/1...A-GoogleNewsUK

In article 5e5cda29-d8f9-474d-8399-
,
says...

"The sun's abundant energy, if harvested in space,
could provide a cost-effective way to meet global
power needs in as little as 30 years with seed
money from governments, according to a study
by an international scientific group.

Orbiting power plants capable of collecting solar
energy and beaming it to Earth appear "technically
feasible" within a decade or two based on
technologies now in the laboratory, a study group
of the Paris-headquartered International Academy
of Astronautics said.

Such a project may be able to achieve economic
viability in 30 years or less, it said, without laying
out a road map or proposing a specific architecture."

See:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/1...A-GoogleNewsUK

Nothing new about this. If someone can come up with a cheap launcher
then they're viable. If we keep on throwing away a multimillion dollar
rocket on every launch they won't ever be.

Le 15/11/11 04:22, a écrit :
"The sun's abundant energy, if harvested in space,
could provide a cost-effective way to meet global
power needs in as little as 30 years with seed
money from governments, according to a study
by an international scientific group.


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...

Maintenance?

Forget costly astronauts expeditions to replace old solar panels (they
last only 10-15 years in space)... You just take a truck and replace them.

If some meteorite hits them (yes, that *COULD* happen in earth too)
you just replace them very cheaply. But do not worry, they are shielded
from MOST meteorites by a thick gas blanket dozens of kilometers high.

At NO COST... Compare this with space where a micro-meteorite collision
is quite likely in a few years operation.

Health and security problems?

None. There is no need to beam the energy back to earth since they are
in the surface of the planet already. Forget problems with people
getting anxious that a microwave beam could fry them in the event
of any malfunction. There is NO BEAM, can you imagine? No health
hazards. No problems with birds being killed if they happen to
cross the beam. Or humans in small planes that wander into the
beam. And forget the energy lost to heating the atmosphere with
your beam. You get 100% efficiency on the ground since... YES!
THERE IS NO DEADLY BEAM!


Installation costs?

Almost nothing, your panels can be transported by a plain truck
to their destination. No satellites, no huge startup costs,
no problems with overcrowded skies where a microwave beam would fry any
satellite using a lower orbit... NO PROBLEMS or installation costs at
all. Pollution from the installation procedure reduces to the CO2
of the trucks transporting the panels. Compare to the pollution of
thousands of rockets (and associated exhaust fumes) the manufacturing
needs to build those rockets, and the pollution when they fall down and
are burn in the atmosphere.

End of life costs?

Almost none. Just take your panels and recycle them. No need to send
fuel and a transportation engine to make your panels burn in the
atmosphere, polluting the skies. Your panels can be dismantled and
replaced in no time by low qualified workers. No need to train
astronauts, devise a human transport system, etc.

Yes, your panels can be less efficient since they could be covered
by clouds. In the deserts of the U.S. anyway there are enough
days with full power to compensate any oddball cloudy days.

But of course, rationally thinking about solar power is not the
exercise here, as it seems.

jacob

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

On Nov 15, 2:49*pm, David Spain 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

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

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

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. 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.

With 26 million you can't even pay one trip to orbit... Not to mention
the payload... Installation of the panels in space, unfolding them,
astronauts needed to deploy them (and they DID have trouble with the
relatively SMALL solar panels of the ISS remember?)

You would need a permanent space station to keep those astronauts
in orbit and feed them, support them as they work in the panels
in the hostile environment of space.

Then you need the transport system to earth (the deadly BEAM)
a receiving station on earth, etc.

Compare to that distributed system where there is NO TRANSPORTATION
costs since electricity can be used at the homes, right where it is
produced. No beam needed!

And after 15 years you just replace the tiles with new ones, no
need to pay all transportation to space AGAIN!

Bottom line:

For 26 million you get 100 houses with 5KW to 12 Kw systems.
In the space railroad you get... well nothing, you can't even
pay a SINGLE trip to orbit to put a few square meters of solar panels
in geo-synchronous orbit!

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:38:07 -0800 (PST), bob haller
wrote:

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

a) But it will take many years longer to get Space Solar Power up and
running compared to putting solar tiles on your roof. Rooftop solar
can provide power next week. Space Solar Power is ten years away at
best. If the roof solar provides 8 hours of power a day, that's 29,200
hours of electricity from your roof before Space Solar Power provides
one hour. And then Space Solar Power only narrows the gap at the rate
of 16 hrs/day.

b) Solar Power (and wind) won't replace all power on Earth. It can't,
not from orbit and not from the ground. But solar can take a large
part of the load during the day and let traditional power (oil,
natural gas, etc.) handle the night and periods of calm winds.

This is enormously more efficient than Space Solar Power, and probably
will be no matter how low you get the cost of space launch.

This doesn't even get into the idea of ground-based solar farms in the
deserts and prairies.

Brian

On Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:02:59 +0100, jacob navia
wrote:


Then you need the transport system to earth (the deadly BEAM)
a receiving station on earth, etc.

Here, I think you're going a bit overboard. Most studies show that the
beam is not deadly, in fact it isn't much more dangerous than your
average radar, which we have all over the world.

But I do think the area used by the rectenna would be better used for
a solar farm.

Brian

Brian Thorn wrote:
But I do think the area used by the rectenna would be better used for
a solar farm.

How much "shading" would the rectenna provide? So much that one
couldn't put panels underneath it? I thought there were proposals to
grow crops under them (where there was water at least).

rick jones
--
web2.0 n, the dot.com reunion tour...
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

"jacob navia" wrote in message
...
Le 15/11/11 04:22, a écrit :
"The sun's abundant energy, if harvested in space,
could provide a cost-effective way to meet global
power needs in as little as 30 years with seed
money from governments, according to a study
by an international scientific group.




I can't see what is that big advantage of installing solar panels
in orbit compared to installing them in the sahara desert


Terrestrial solar suffers from the same limitations as most
green sources of energy. It's intermittent, and they CAN'T
be used for baseload power. Which means providing a
continuous flow of electricity directly /into/ an existing grid.

That ability is the Holy Grail of green energy.
SSP is the ONLY green source that can.

Terrestrial solar can only reduce demand on a grid, not
power a grid. That is the difference between a source that's
limited to minor or specialty niches, and a sea-change
in our energy future.

And SSP can be delivered far from the equator, and more
importantly to rural or rugged areas where conventional
power, green or not, can't reach. That article mentions India
several times, and the reason they're so interested in SSP is that
a fourth of all the food they grow spoils for lack of electricity.
Many there believe SSP could make India food self-sufficient.



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 you could power ...the desert. What about the
rest of the world?



Maintenance?

Forget costly astronauts expeditions to replace old solar panels (they
last only 10-15 years in space)... You just take a truck and replace them.


But a conventional power plant of coal, oil or natural gas has
to shell out big bucks each and every day to keep the flow
of fuel pouring in to make electricity. This is commonly called
an operating expense. SSP doesn't have any of these very
expensive operating costs, ZERO, and can beam baseload power
to the /majority/ of Earth where terrestrial solar is useless.



If some meteorite hits them (yes, that *COULD* happen in earth too)
you just replace them very cheaply. But do not worry, they are shielded
from MOST meteorites by a thick gas blanket dozens of kilometers high.


And if the advance most expect happens, which is using mirrors dozens
of feet in size, rather than solar arrays miles across, then SSP suddenly
doesn't seem nearly as difficult or expensive. The mirrors could be
in high orbit transmitting the power with lasers to orbiting satellites
which microwave it down wherever needed.

Maybe someday getting electricity might be as easy as getting
a cable TV signal. SSP is essentially....WIRELESS...power
transmission.

The other Holy Grail of the energy industry.

NASA seems desperate for a new reason for being.
By the way. And the planet needs hope for a new
clean energy source.


Jonathan


s


At NO COST... Compare this with space where a micro-meteorite collision
is quite likely in a few years operation.

Health and security problems?

None. There is no need to beam the energy back to earth since they are
in the surface of the planet already. Forget problems with people
getting anxious that a microwave beam could fry them in the event
of any malfunction. There is NO BEAM, can you imagine? No health hazards.
No problems with birds being killed if they happen to
cross the beam. Or humans in small planes that wander into the
beam. And forget the energy lost to heating the atmosphere with
your beam. You get 100% efficiency on the ground since... YES!
THERE IS NO DEADLY BEAM!


Installation costs?

Almost nothing, your panels can be transported by a plain truck
to their destination. No satellites, no huge startup costs,
no problems with overcrowded skies where a microwave beam would fry any
satellite using a lower orbit... NO PROBLEMS or installation costs at all.
Pollution from the installation procedure reduces to the CO2
of the trucks transporting the panels. Compare to the pollution of
thousands of rockets (and associated exhaust fumes) the manufacturing
needs to build those rockets, and the pollution when they fall down and
are burn in the atmosphere.

End of life costs?

Almost none. Just take your panels and recycle them. No need to send
fuel and a transportation engine to make your panels burn in the
atmosphere, polluting the skies. Your panels can be dismantled and
replaced in no time by low qualified workers. No need to train
astronauts, devise a human transport system, etc.

Yes, your panels can be less efficient since they could be covered
by clouds. In the deserts of the U.S. anyway there are enough
days with full power to compensate any oddball cloudy days.

But of course, rationally thinking about solar power is not the
exercise here, as it seems.

jacob