Space Based Solar Cells Could Power Entire Earth

And just what does the non-science-fiction intend doing with all that heat when it has been used and thrown away? Beam it back into space into a giant radiator?

Given a microwave background (t1) of 4degK, an average surface ambient temperature of 298degK (t2) and a current global dissipation from all non-income fuel sources including nuclear of 0.4% solar input, substituting this fuel source with 7x that amount of extraterrestial solar would result in a rise in surface temperature compared to no fuel use of 2degK, according to:

Q = σ A (t₂⁴ - t₁⁴) [radiative heat transfer] where Q is the loss of heat to outer space, A is the planet's surface area and σ is a constant. So all these satellites have done is screwed up the planet's weather!

Next!

Yeh ...and I bet they'd cast a shaddow over the Uk..and those trailing leads would be a bu**er!

Shadow over the UK? How would you know? Do you guys ever get to see the Sun?

My solar hot water panels can attest to the fact that we do see some sun. Plenty of rain too to wash 'em clean.

By the way, how many such gizmos would it take to nudge the earth out of its normal path about the sun?

apparently they can still measure the earths wobble from the arizona impact as well as from the russian siberian "thing" that fell down there not that long ago.

They were only small in relative terms, what if something slightly bigger.......

ok I am gonna go now, I am scaring myself.

One attractive solution would be to put the collectors and the dissipators on the moon and make a moon-earth connecting cable. You could then receive energy and get rid of excess heat by making the cable bi-directional.

The optimal cable would have an odd shape, I think: thicker near the zero net gravity point. How thick should it be to support itself, using the best (tensile strength)/ (density) material? Steel? Carbon fiber? Spider-web fiber?

Like this ?

Can't do it? Sing it!

And you think Global Warming can give us a problem!!

Just had a brill idea...

Bring back steam locos... focus the power from the satelites onto the boiler!

(or maybe not )

Will the microwaves or lasers cause any harm to animals or people that pass through them?

Yes. They go

Lets see, a 5.8GHz microwave beam with a total transmitted power level of around 200MW. Yes, I would not advise being anywhere near it.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/1997-Mankins-FreshLookAtSpaceSolarPower.pdf

This idea has been around since the 1970's. It didn't work back then due to the limitations of the technology. Today, it looks better (due, in part to the advances in thin film solar technology), but I don't believe we are there yet with a viable solution. I am still waiting for the new solar developments such as quantum dots, or more efficient organic solar conversion cells that could be grown.

I am not happy about the proposed military applications. Supplying power to troops on a peace-keeping mission in a foreign country using what amounts to a giant orbital death ray platform (which it could be used for), seems like it would cause far more problems than solve (the media and local propaganda ministry would have a field day with it). Why cannot they just take the local oil and refine it locally in a mobile refinery to produce the fuel they need (just an idea).

Can anyone find the information on what the current conversion efficiency of the cells is in orbit as apposed to simply placing an installation in the middle of a patch of spare, unusable land (desert, etc). I just cannot see it being economically justifiable, as there are a great many problems an orbital station will suffer as compared to a terrestrial-based station (our atmosphere works both ways, it is after all a protective shield).

A potentially promising application which is still waiting for the technology to be viable.

why spend all that money first and risking losing it to some twat in the defence department?

We can do it here on earth already, just nobody wants to do it for some stupid reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_collector

Someone on here recently reckoned that the current world power consumption was only 1/2000 of the solar power received from the sun. Why bother with transmitting it in from space? A bit of wobble and we start shovelling up cindered bodies.

Aw jeez, again with the frickin' "lasers".

I know we have a pressing global warming problem but with winter coming on here can we cut out ideas that'll make it any bloomin' darker than it already is?? We'll end up increasing our energy consumption making and switching on more darned bulbs.

Speaking of which, if we didn't have excess street lighting how near would we be to solving the CO2 probelm? Serious question: why light up roads when cars have to have lights fitted? Many of them are not shared by pedestrians, even most perhaps in this sedentary age.

Hi Wrenched, Here is another problem that you missed: Last week I was on my way to a meeting at the university of Birmingham on global warming and the need to cut down on our energy needs! What did I see on my way, every office block had their lights on, when I questioned this at the meeting I was met with silence? Another thing that I noticed was that the main speakers talked about the need for every private person to switch off their lights at home when leaving the room! Is there one law for the working person and another for the corperations who leave all their lights on? Spencer.

That's interesting, someone I was listening to was also pointing the finger at office lighting, to which we can add all that paraphenalia like PCs and monitors.

I actually can't explain why people don't turn off lights in their own homes, for which they pay. Perhaps these don't quite make it to the Sentient Threshold.

I've a suspicion that some of the quoted savings associated with low-energy bulbs are based on 'average' behaviour, not 'best practice'. What I'm sure of is that if I'm forced (by my democratic government) to fit energy saving bulbs in the toilets at home, some of us will leave the lights on instead of turning them off because of the miserable warm-up time.

That may make me sound a doubter. I am not (so far as global warming is concerned) but I am a sceptic and have seen so much possibly well-intentioned regulation spewing out of recent governments that has quickly been shown to have the opposite effects to those intended.

On the subject of energy saving, there is a very wide gulf between what is feasible and what corporations, institutions, public bodies and individuals are willing to embrace. From a technical point of view I could work from home very easily, from a management point of view I'm quite sure I could work from home maybe three days a week but I travel the best part of 300mls in a private vehicle each week instead. Laterly in a lift-share scheme - but guess what - I'm missing out on a serious tax-deductable expense!!!

I'm quite sure I could work from home maybe three days a week .

Such heresy is enough to give some pompous over-paid HR Obergruppenführer an apoplectic fit!

How do you expect 'em to justify their existence if there is no one about to harangue and generally obstruct in the execution of real work...?

Whoops my prejudices are showing...

Well put sir, well put!!!

Hi Del, We already have a huge potensial from space, it is called the SUN. If politicians and big business could think beyond huge instant profits for once and concentrate on the problem at hand, we could have more than enough power at our fingertips. There are two problems we have to overcome, the first is exessive beuraucracy, the second is educating people and businesses to cut down on their dependance of fossil fuels. There will come a day when the world wakes up and finds itself in a terrible mess if nothing is done to stop this depenancy!. Spencer.

One possible solution to the excessive use of electricity for lighting, etc. Have the power companies shut off the power for 4-8 hrs each day. [That could save fuel and reduce GW.] Yeh, I know it's nonsense. Power losses happen a lot in poor 3rd world countries all the time anyway. While we're at it, we could have the power company execs hire the engineers from these countries to act as consultants as to how to reduce power usage. They could save big money because they dont do maintenance. Problem solved. I could be Dilberts pointy haired manager.

You're right! I've just realised how short is my memory (as it seems are those of many), because it isn't that long ago we did just that. Ted Heath's arguments with unions etc.

I'm all for it, between the hours of about 11:30pm and 6:30am will do nicely. What? That won't save anything because no one uses any power then?

Well it's a start. I suppose the thousands who are charging their nice clean electric commutermobiles or filling their hydrogen tanks will have a problem, dang there's always a catch.

Some entries on this thread have speculated that earth-based collectors might work just as well as space-based collectors. In fact, space-based collectors have serious advantages:

1) No night-time.

2) No clouds.

3) No snow, dust storms, bird poop, or other precipitates.

The biggest problem with space-based collectors is getting the energy from the collectors to the earth without endangering local life-forms.

Yeh, I think we'd worked out at least No 1 for ourselves.

The point being that 1,2 &3 are less bad than..

The biggest problem with space-based collectors is getting the energy from the collectors to the earth without endangering local life-forms.

To overcome 1, it's easier to transmit power around the world safely (from the sunny to the dark side) than to transmit it from space.

Big platform blocking the sun to lower sunlight received on earth hence solve global warming problem.

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