Space-based solar power - demonstration satellites in 3-4 years

[bananas]

http://www.solarnovus.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1115:space-based-solar-power-nearing-the-tipping-point&catid=38:application-tech-features&Itemid=246

Space-based Solar Power: Nearing the Tipping Point?
02 August 2010
By Rick DeMeis, Contributing Editor--US

<snip>

Solaren plans a 2014 space trial to deploy a foldable, large aperture antenna to check beam quality and tracking, which depend on obtaining the correct curvature of the extensive antenna. The test will validate antenna curvature mechanics in scaling up from the smaller antennas previously used, hoping to have overcome the challenge of packaging extremely large aperture antennas for launch and deployment.

Another player is Space Energy of Schaffhausen, Switzerland. The company says it will launch a 10-kW (kilowatt) low earth orbit (LEO) demonstration satellite two years after funding. "We are expecting funding within a year, but because of contract confidentiality we are unable to give a specific date or contracting partner," Paul Catches, research, web, and documentation administrator, told Solar Novus Today.

<snip>

In addition to private developers, governments are looking at space solar, most notably the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which is working with universities and Mitsubishi Electric and Electronics USA of Cypress, California. JAXA is targeting a satellite demonstration of hundreds of kW in 2020. Long range plans cite a 1 GW (gigawatt) operational system in 2030, which may be dependent on development of even higher efficiency solar conversion components and new heavy-lift or advanced propulsion systems to reach GEO.

<snip>

[OnlinePoker]

1. Microwaving the atmosphere.

How much will that add to global warming? More or less than the carbon produced by earthbound plants for the same energy produced?

[bananas]

2. Much less. nt

[TheMadMonk]

3. Much, much less. For power transmission you want a beam that doesn't...

...resonate/couple with atmospheric components.

The frequency of the microwaves in a microwave oven is picked to resonate with water. The frequency of the microwaves in a power transmission beam will be carefully chosen not to.

[tinrobot]

11. But you're still adding net energy to the system

And we honestly don't know the effects of megawatt scale microwaves on the ecosystem.

Might be best to start with the solar energy we already have here on the surface. We're hardly even tapping that.

[NickB79]

4. 1 GW of space-based solar by 2030

China is adding 1 GW of coal EVERY 2 WEEKS right now.

And here I thought we were having trouble scaling up land-based solar.

[bananas]

5. Long term R&D is important - you really don't understand that?

Yes, China should be installing more land-based solar, but that shouldn't stop Japan from doing long-term research on future energy technologies.

[NickB79]

6. It shows that orbital solar will not play much of a role in controlling global warming

Because if we don't cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050, we risk catastrophic runaway global climate change. Assuming we can do this (and that's a huge if at this point), only a few GW of the thousands of GW of renewables we have to install will come from orbital solar within the timeframe we have to reduce carbon emissions.

Yes, long-term R&D is important, but this is REALLY long-term as no one here will be alive to see orbital solar implemented in any meaningful way. I point this out because I have seen previous posts here at DU where people imply that orbital solar could be implemented economically and in a short enough time to be a salvation to our current set of ecological problems, which it is not. Rather, I see this research as useful for future ecological problems associated with the current push towards land-based renewable energy production. For example, in a hypothetical future where we have gotten our carbon emissions under control by 2050 and prevented a positive-feedback loop in the climate, orbital solar booming in the later 21st and early 22nd century could allow us to remove the millions of wind turbines and solar thermal stations that it was necessary to build during the mid-21st century so that land could be returned to wilderness.

[Nihil]

7. +1

> Yes, long-term R&D is important, but this is REALLY long-term as no one here
> will be alive to see orbital solar implemented in any meaningful way.

Alternatively, it is short-term as that's the time-scale where it will be
"real enough" to get funding, get prestige, profit from the IPO then move off
into some other start-up before the next bubble in the economy crashes the project.

This isn't so much "long-term R&D" as it is "short-term scam" and "let's distract
people from the sensible solutions".

[bananas]

9. If Japan IPO's, then it really will be "Japan Inc."

[Nihil]

10. Nice one!

Yeah, I should have excluded JAXA but was thinking about most of the article
rather than that bit! (Even then, all that will happen is that JAXA, Mitsubishi
and whoever will spin off a new business entity and the above applies once again.)

> But another vital step, Marzwell concludes, will be to convince investors
> that space-based solar can become profitable—which current plans aim to do.

A nice meaty carbon tax would help ... if only by taking out the short-term
profitable (long-term deadly) threats like this ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x256173

[bananas]

8. If Japan can reach their cost goals, then it may be a significant source by 2050

and could easily be a dominant source of energy by 2100:

"We’re aiming to produce stable, cheap power and hydrogen at a target price of 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=farming-solar-energy-in-space

[NickB79]

12. Define "significant source"

For perspective, the world currently uses 15 terawatts per year from all sources today. Future energy consumption could well top 25 TW per year by 2050.

We've spent the better part of 200 years building up our current Earth-based energy infrastructure. Short of some miraculous technology such as self-replicating nanotech, it is unrealistic to expect that we could replace a majority of this with orbital infrastructure in just a few decades. Even if they can get the price down, we don't have the global heavy-lift capability to launch hundreds of orbital platforms per year and these won't be built in quantity until orbital solar is proven to be cost-effective. Nowhere in your link did the researchers make the claim it could be a significant source by 2050; that appears to be strictly your belief.