Posted on 09/29/2009 7:59:37 AM PDT by Liberty1970
For Utilities, the Future Is Now Generating power from the sun and burying carbon underground are two old concepts on the cusp of reality. By Jim Ostroff, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
September 29, 2009 National Security Space Office, study on space based power
Note two exciting energy technology developments whose times have come: Space based power plants and a coal burning facility that emits no carbon dioxide. Both are likely to be key elements in helping electric utilities meet expected stringent U.S. emissions requirements without having to mothball a large number of existing coal fired power plants.
Power plants in space are no longer just a science fiction fantasy. In little more than six years, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) aims to supply enough power for 250,000 homes by tapping into an orbiting electricity generator.
The California utility has inked a deal with Solaren Corp. for 200 megawatts of electricity -- power to be generated by an orbiting solar cell plant and transmitted as microwaves to Fresno, where it’ll be converted to electricity.
Solaren, PowerSat, Space Energy and other firms working on orbital power are getting a lift from state laws requiring more use of renewable electricity sources. California’s power providers need to tap every nonfossil-fuel-made kilowatt of electricity they can find. PG&E, for example, is under the gun to boost renewables’ share of the electricity it sells from 14% now to 20% by 2013 and to 33% by 2020, says Jonathan Marshall, a company spokesman.
A coming federal mandate will also spur the space power race and expand the market for electricity beamed in from space. Congress is likely to enact a law within a year or so that will require all electric utilities to meet a 20% renewable power mandate by sometime in the 2020s.
Space based power has a luster unmatched by other renewables because around 95% of the sunlight captured by satellites’ solar panels can be converted into electricity. That’s about five times better than earth based solar cells and three times the efficiency of nuclear and coal powered electricity generating plants. Unlike today’s solar and wind power systems that are affected by day/night cycles and weather conditions, an orbital one can crank out electricity without interruption.
No new technological breakthroughs are needed to loft solar power plants into orbit and have them beam electricity to Earth. “Today’s communications satellites essentially do the same thing, but on a much smaller scale” than what’s being envisioned by Solaren, says Calvin Boerman, the company’s director of energy services.
The initial cost for Solaren’s system, including a launch vehicle, will be about $1 billion, and the company -- made up of aerospace and rocket industry veterans --are raising the money privately, with no investment dollars coming from PG&E, Boerman says. Start-up costs will come down as more orbiting power plants are built and launched into space.
Solaren and its competitors figure that they will have a steady customer in the Department of Defense (DoD), which wants to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and find an alternative to transporting large portable diesel generators to supply power to forward bases in remote areas. DoD’s National Security Space Office has concluded that space based power is ready to become a reality, nearly 70 years after science fiction writer Isaac Asimov first proposed it.
Also in the pipeline: A coal burning plant that puts out no carbon dioxide. SCS Energy is developing a 750 megawatt New Jersey facility that will siphon off the gas and pipe it far offshore for entombment beneath the Atlantic Ocean. The SCS facility is about five years off and will likely be followed by others. They’ll be expensive -- with initial costs 50% higher than for a standard coal burning plant. But the value of carbon credits earned under a coming climate change law will help offset that. Meanwhile, American Electric Power has launched a one-year test to determine the feasibility of sequestering CO2 from a conventional coal fired generator at its plant in New Haven, W.Va.
Carbon capture and storage will give utilities new tools to meet progressively tougher CO2 emissions limits expected to kick in around the middle of the next decade. Power companies will use these plants to offset emissions from older coal fired generators that now produce more than 50% of all U.S. electricity.
If this pans out, I could see a major shift to it as a primary power source within the next few decades. Of course, with increasing space junk and whatnot flying around I could also see it being a major flop. Freeper opinions?
Oh. What happens if the microwave transmission wanders off-course into a residential area?
What happens if it’s not accidental??
I suppose if you are moving fast enough it might not be a big deal. On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want to be in a hot air balloon that floated into the beam.
Another thought: what about birds flying through the beam? Would they survive, or would these be competing with giant windmill blades in the killing of fowl?
Enviros will whine about polluting the space above earth, danger of falling satellites, etc. And yeah, at 200 MW, you DON’T want to get in the path of that beam. Instant vaporization. No doubt some funding is being provided with the idea that this would make one hecka weapon.
Give me a break. Does PG&E have any idea what it costs to put one pound of payload into Geostationary orbit?
Will this mean anti-satellite weapons (missiles, other satellites, etc) will be able to kill not only communications and spy satellites but also kill power to whole areas of the country?
Space based power plants and a coal burning facility that emits no carbon dioxide.
They left out the Perpetual Motion Machine...
Also, how lossy the MW transmissions earthside would be.
And, I don't think that I'd want to get in their way. That would provide some Zotworthy photos. :-)
They’re forcing higher cost power on us to do 3 things:
1.Force smaller power suppliers out of the market to eliminate competition.
2.Increase the cost of power so the power companies can profit.
3.Increase the likely hood of shortages so they can profit even more.
And with all of this extra money they can fund these environmentalist orgs so they can propagandize the citizenry to vote even stricter environmental laws in which they can profit even more.
They set up quite a toxic scheme of corruption with cap n tax and the influence peddling that it will enable. It’s already going on, but cap n trade will put the corrupt system on steroids and institutionalize their criminal behavior.
Gerard K. O’Neill ping.
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