1. We try this.
2. We like it... commit the nation to a 30-year program for a full constellation of satellites that will render all current electrical production obsolete.
3. Europe does likewise.
4. The ChiComs snicker and immediately set up a bunch of ICBM’s to take out all of the power satellites once we’re 100% committed, throw the West into the dark ages, and take over the world.
Microwave energy transmission is nothing new. It is an old line of research that never panned out. The problem being focusing the power transfer beam. That is going to use more power than is generated. If you look at EM wave equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_wave_equation.... you can see that once it hits atmosphere the beam deteriorates to the point where in order to collect enough power to make this endeavor worth while they are going to have to transmit gigawatts of power to a location to make megawatts of power earth side and then you have to worry about radiation leakage, that can cause cancer, fires, kill live stock and birds, and all manner of very bad side effects.... I would be interested to see how they intend to mitigate these problems.
This concept was being studied in the 1970s. My father worked at Boeing back then and described a similar project. I believe it was a feasibility study. The idea was to convert solar energy to microwaves, then beam the energy down to a “rect-antenna”.
“Electricity Beam” = Microwaves
Adding energy to the existing ecosystem system is a dubious enterprise with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Also, very bad for anything living, electronic or mechanical thing that passes through the energy beam.
Some form of orbiting solar panels beaming down energy to Earth via microwaves has been proposed time and time again since the early 1980s at least.
What makes this proposal any different than all the previous ones? Cost of launching enough mass in the form of solar cells and microwave transmitters has always been sticking point #1.
Microwaving passing birds has been #2.
The inefficiency of the energy-tp-microwave-to-energy transport chain has been #3.
SimCity 2000 had this as an option for one of your power plants after a certain year. Occasionally the beam goes awry and fries half your city though...
I have been following this concept for decades, it isn’t anything new except for one thing: We may be able to get things into space much more inexpensively and at greater volume than we ever did before. I am all for having these arrays in space...if they can find a way.
It might make more sense to concentrate the gathered energy into chemical storage, and then parachute it down.
I was born in 1950. Avid Sci-fi reader most of the time...
It seems today’s young ones have ‘rediscovered’ something new in the way of impossible, wasteful BS.
All I can say is that if you ‘f@ck with Mother nature, she’ll f@ck you back.’
It really is all only about the money they can get to ‘study’ the problem. Nothing ever comes from it.
No need for microwaves.
Put it in geosynchronous orbit and just drop a power cord down to earth.
Sounds like this “unprecedented” project will require an endless supply of tax dollars for something that won’t work.
Birds, bats, insects, planes in the path of the bean will be fried and what is the dispersion on that beam - how much of the country side will be uninhabitable?
Back in 1976 Physicist Gerald O’Neil had the idea of using space colonies to manufacture these solar cells which would beam down the power with microwaves.
I wonder....
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4106962/posts
A solar flare hit Earth today, causing radio blackouts in Australia and New Zealand
Just build some new nuclear plants.
Wasn’t this done in a 007 movie? I hope their aim is better
“clean and affordable energy.” I’d like to see a cost analysis, just how “affordable” this energy might be.
And the transmission beams will have zero affect on clouds and weather patterns, right??? /sarc
What if the Klingons find out?
I think God did it first.