Posted on 11/07/2022 8:59:59 AM PST by Eleutheria5
Technology capable of collecting solar power in space and beaming it to Earth to provide a global supply of clean and affordable energy was once considered science fiction. Now it is moving closer to reality. Through the Space-based Solar Power Project (SSPP), a team of California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researchers is working to deploy a constellation of modular spacecraft that collect sunlight, transform it into electricity, then wirelessly transmit that electricity wherever it is needed. They could even send it to places that currently have no access to reliable power.
“This is an extraordinary and unprecedented project,” says Harry Atwater, an SSPP researcher and Otis Booth Leadership Chair of Caltech’s Division of Engineering and Applied Science. “It exemplifies the boldness and ambition needed to address one of the most significant challenges of our time, providing clean and affordable energy...
(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...
Remember how much derision there was when some Republican candidate — I forget where — speculated that such a beam could’ve caused the forest fires? And how they insisted there was no such beam?
Imagine if your passenger aircraft were to fly through an electricity beam. Sounds very cool and may even be promising.
Called the ozone hole grower?.
The only problem with beaming energy from space is that every repair to the system will cost millions as they have to rocket into space each time.
Power beam? As in, what Tesla was trying to develop?
Don’t accidentally fly into the beam zone/cone.
unless maytag makes it
Prohibitively expensive.
Best comment on that site:
“NASA/Glaser published a Detailed Report on Geo-Synchronous Sattelite based Microwave Power Transmission over 50 years back.. yes probably when these authors were kids or not even born… but is being promoted as “SOMETHING NEW & SPECTACULAR”..
Who are they kidding..???”
This is old, old news and these guys are smokin’ wacky terbacky if they think it’s ever gonna be adopted for routine power production.
FAR too many terrestrial options.
That shouldn’t warm the atmosphere too much.
I don’t envy the job of being the continuous lightning bolt catcher. That’s what beaming wireless electricity from the atmosphere is. One heck of a bank of capacitors to catch and hold it too!
And you thought windmills were bad for birds.
Just wait till a flock of migrating whooping cranes flies through the 1.21 GigaWatt beam and incinerates themselves on the way to Aransas Pass.
How many cents per kw-hr?
No need to imagine.
Put a wad of aluminum foil in your microwave oven and turn it on.
First it was the huge windmill Bird Cuisinarts.
Now it's going to be the Emeril Bird Air Fryer.
Leave the fn birds alone.
Oh yeah and I'm sure the beam would never slice through a plane or be aimed to roast a small town.
Could never happen.
No thanks.
Jeez.
I saw a preliminary plan for this in 1982 when I was building solar panels for satellites. Lets not pretend for one minute that this is even remotely new or possible. You know the limiting factor that disqualified it from being able to be built in 1982? The weight of the power bus bars that would be necessary to make them strong enough to carry enough current to make it worthwhile. The magnetic flux of the flow of electricity would bend and warp them so much they would weaken and break very quickly.
Microwave transmission is nothing new, but it is highly inefficient. And if you concentrate the “beam” too much, you’d end up cooking whatever gets in between point A and point B. You think windmills kill a lot of birds, just wait.
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