Space Based Solar Power
Clearly my efforts of becoming a relationship blogger are futile. So let’s just move on.
Energy independence would go a long way to make our homeland safe. Less dependence on foreign sources of energy would allow us to pull out of some of the more volatile regions of the world and stop pissing them off. I’ve heard President Bush talk about energy innovation and independence in his State of the Union addresses, but until there’s money set aside for specific programs, it’s all smoke and mirrors. As long as this war continues, funding for renewable energy sources from our federal government will be scarce at best.
I bring all this up because it has recently come to my attention that as early as 1975, we’ve had the technology to harvest and endless supply of energy. Imagine sending a satellite into low-earth orbit that was essentially a solar power collector and then beaming that energy safely to the surface. Sounds a bit far fetched, but as this video demonstrates, it is indeed possible to beam energy from point to point.
1975! Thirty-two years of siting on this technology and not implementing it. What a tragedy. Well, hope is not lost. It seems a little strange to say this, but this war may actually result in the development of space based solar power.
The Department of Defense may be now interested in developing this technology for practical applications. Last week on October 10, the National Security Space published a report entitled Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security. That’s a mouthful. The report makes four recommendations:
- Recommendation #1: The study group recommends that the U.S. Government should organize effectively to allow for the development of SBSP and conclude analyses to resolve remaining unknowns
- Recommendation #2: The study group recommends that the U.S. Government should retire a major portion of the technical risk for business development
- Recommendation #3: The study group recommends that the U.S. Government should create a facilitating policy, regulatory, and legal environment for the development of SBSP
- Recommendation #4: The study group recommends that the U.S. Government should become an early demonstrator/adopter/customer of SBSP and incentivize its development
And look, there’s even a nifty CG demonstration of a prototype:
The fact that this is coming from the Department of Defense is somewhat alarming. This technology should be used for the benefit of us all, not for some nefarious plan for strategic dominance. But if it starts the money flowing and there’s actual funding for this technology, the benefits are tremendous.
Imagine. Clean, infinite, renewable energy is just waiting for us on the other side of our atmosphere. And we could have been harvesting it for years.
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October 21st, 2007 at 9:56 am
I’m not wearing any pants, and don’t believe everything you read.
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:27 am
This is an interesting little promo you wrote here. But if I may, I dug out some of my aerospace mags, and I can re hash the big issues impedeing this project.
The first and most withstanding is the economics of the matter. War is war. And a roll is a roll and a toll is a toll. And the toll of war is leaving parts of our country barely able to buy rolls, let alone the government buying a new space toy.
Second is the concept of perfect geosynchronous orbit. The reality is, geosynchronous is not a fixed location. In fact, it’s defining characteristic is that it returns to the same point once a day. So for one brief window (potential only a moment depending on the pace of the orbit) and so the only way that this technique would really work would be with a geostationary orbit. And we are missing a key element to make one of those. The equator.
Their third great hurtle, and my personal favorite, is the energy’s piping. Although this latest release I am not privy to, I like to collect the articles on suggested techniques, and they all have some amusing problems. Concentration and then just firing it from relay to reciever. No, as funny as a ray gun in space would be, it would not work quite the same way. It would boil the region and let the entire environment slowly melt. Similar to why there is debate in Connecticut currently over opening a plant out on the Long Island Sound. There is great concern that with even a slight mistake means large amounts of destruction in a localized area. This will be fairly important to my last point. Keep it in mind. The two other methods of transport would be capsule release. We condense the enrgy into a pod and release periodically. If those calculations are wrong, we have a very large exploding shell falling into a metropolitan area. And the third way is using the heat concept from before and heat water for steam energy. As my time in writing this is being eaten up, I’ll leave you to see the list of problems there.
But going back to the doom and destruction that we can rain down on a targeted area, you can see where the last point comes up. International relations. Not only would all of our allies want in on our new limitless power, but our competitors on the World Stage would never be okay with us establishing our doomsday weapon on the darkside of the moon *cough-cough*, I mean space laser.
So, I would be estatic if we could do this. But you see the problems. Suggestions?
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:53 am
Yeah, the boiling and the melting of the environment does not sound so good.
Dang, and I thought we were on to something with this one. The issues you raise are certainly of great concern. I wish I was more scientifically inclined so I could come up with a response.
I am certain, however, that if they were serious about this technology, your concerns would have to be addressed. It just pains me to know that very little has been done thus far. Maybe if they kick it over to a private sector contract, the ball could get rolling even if it rolls slowly.
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
An avenue that cycles through periodically. Interesting that you would be quick to circumvent the government. We lose a lot of control here. I’m not suggesting we are dominating all the great government programs. But if Sunoco or BP takes over this enterprise, we will pay through the nose for what they get to keep collecting in large quantities and cheaply. We get blackballed in the market, and we decide not to operate off it, and this avenue closes abruptly.
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:14 pm
I just don’t see our government making real investments in renewable energy. I think it’ll happen in the private sector before the government decides it’s worth pursuing. Congress has more urgent concerns at the moment and I’m quite certain that funding renewable energies isn’t on the list.
However, if they ever do get around it, it’ll probably come in the form of contracts. It’ll be some sort of open bid contract to develop the technology put forth by either the Department of Defense or Department of Energy or maybe a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant and then companies will go to town.
Unfortunately, it’s going to take a lot of money to see this technology get to market whoever gets there first, private or public sector.