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 ...
Play hell with migratory animals!
Flying through a beam might be a bit interesting.
Atmospheric absorption and clouds will be an issue
This stupid idea has been around a long time.
Would work well on the moon!
Do that, too. But I think if you have limitless solar power coming in from outer space, it might undercut wind, Teran solar, hydro and nuclear. It will be the end of the Saudis, Russia, Iran and Venezuela. It might not have such a rose-colored result, but it’s worth a try.
“clean and affordable energy.” I’d like to see a cost analysis, just how “affordable” this energy might be.
So would I. So CalTech’s extraterrestrial adventure should continue, just to see if this works. It’s been a hope for 100 years.
Sounds like fun.
Well. If you think of it with respect to the square footage of the receiving device it does “ diminish”. You don’t receive the same amount you sent. With a big enough collection device you would. So, it depends.
And the transmission beams will have zero affect on clouds and weather patterns, right??? /sarc
Also called a space weapon. Never going to be permitted to happen.
What if the Klingons find out?
Sounds to dangerous to do
I tell you there IS a westerly route to India!
Y-you mean it might cause...GASP! ORGAN CHORD!...global warming?
yep
LOL!! “Danger Will Robinson!’’
I think God did it first.
He made the petrol in the ground. He made the sun and wind and water, the searing heat at the earth’s core. He made the dream that Tesla tried, and knows the means with which to do it...or not.
“Y-you mean it might cause...GASP! ORGAN CHORD!...global warming?”
Not partticularly. What I mean is the “scientists” proposing it have no idea at all what impact the energy beams may have on the atmosphere, the clouds, or anything related to them.
They are no better than the “green energy” agenda with mandates that have no idea at all of the bad economic impact the mandates make - zip, zilch, nada.
But there are ways to mitigate and minimize any damage. First, because it is an experimental program. They are not going to be hitting the...uh...ground running any time soon. First they gotta get a prototype up there. Right now, they just have a prototype. Second, it need not go through the entire atmosphere. Its receiving mechanism can be built at a high altitude. Third, the prototype, when it’s in place, and collecting solar energy, would be transmitting just a limited amount to test its safety and effectiveness under controlled conditions. Third, energy beams of an uncontrolled sort are hitting the planet fairly often from the sun and other bodies within the solar system, and those phenomena have been recorded and can be studied and extrapolated from. Scientists propose based on theories. Engineers draw up plans to implement those theories and work out the kinks in them. Then they implement those theories slowly and cautiously.
Columbus acted on a Greek scientific theory that the earth is round, and his own theory that there was a way to travel westward under a fair wind. He based his theory on his experience as a veteran sea captain and pirate/privateer. He then got a couple of monarchs to finance the project and sailed westward, and the Greeks were wrong. The earth was not a perfectly round sphere, and there was land in the way of his proposed route to India. But from his experimental sailing expedition, great things arose that nobody had any idea about initially. You’re living in one of those great things.
The earth has been thoroughly explored. Outer space beckons, and China is hot to trot to exploit the solar energy out there and also block Western access to it. Whoever is able to get ‘er done wins everything. If it can’t be done, or if the cost/benefit analysis comes up negative, it’s still worth trying in order to at least know that there is no pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow, and onward to colonize Mars.
“But there are ways to mitigate and minimize any damage.”
That requires knowing the damage, which they do not even know - at this point. And, they seem to be operating at this point as if there will be no possible damage to assess.
“Second, it need not go through the entire atmosphere. Its receiving mechanism can be built at a high altitude.”
Wrong. While the solar collection means my be at “high altitude”, the beams will travel through whereever they are in the atmosphere down through the atmosphere to whereever.
“Third, energy beams of an uncontrolled sort are hitting the planet fairly often from the sun and other bodies within the solar system, and those phenomena have been recorded and can be studied and extrapolated from. Scientists propose based on theories.”
Yes. And all the energy beams from the sun receive alot of deflection from earth’s magnetosphere, which is why the bad effects of many of them are minimized for us. The beams from the proposed devices would not receive most of the interference from the magnetosphere, and any damages from them would not be interfered with as much by the magnetosphere.
And why all that discussion? Because is is very well known that the various energy beams from the sun do affect earth’s atmosphere. To preted that manmade energy beams have no such possible impacts suggests to me the Caltech folks have got out on a limb they will have to climb back from.
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