Calif Announces Project To Power 250,000 Homes Using Energy Beamed From Space(VCs To Get Billions)

BusinessInsider ^ | |Dec. 8, 2009, 3:02 PM | Graham Winfrey

[fight_truth_decay]

( same like article Sept. 2009) "...energy would be collected over a 15-year period, transmitted back to Earth via radio frequency power, and converted to renewable electricity for PG&E and its customers..." "thanks to massive VC investment in cleantech startups, dramatic gains have been made in seemingly dormant research. With traditional capital providers refocusing priorities, the investment baton has clearly been passed to utilities to help us benefit from groundbreaking, VC-infused cleantech efforts."

"Thanks to massive VC investment in cleantech startups?

"VCs are changing their roles as the government becomes a big factor in determining which cleantech startups succeed...For example, cleantech group LLC : SAIL-backed cleantech startups to secure $3B in government funds & loan guarantees to commercialize their technologies...a new kind of VC organization that makes partnership with government a core competency and asset. Risk taking and government agencies simply don’t go together. Yet this is what is being attempted."

[BurbankKarl]

Oh brother.

[Poundstone]

WTF?

[EGPWS]

California is making waves today....

You can say that again, financially.

[Oldexpat]

So Uncle Sugar will pay the start up and then the consumers will pay whatever it takes..and PG&E will get it added to their base rate. No matter what it costs.

[FromLori]

Next thing you know they will be monitoring all of our energy usage obama plans a new electrical grid and internet and I can easily see him taking charge of things like this.

Going High-Tech to Track Home Energy Use

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/30/earlyshow/leisure/gamesgadgetsgizmos/main5834076.shtml?tag=cbsnewsLeadStoriesArea

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHNQ_enUS345US345&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=obama+wants+new+electrical+grid

[UCANSEE2]

If one piece of space junk ends up in the right place, out go the lights.

[steveo]

Is there a chance the track could bend?

Not on your life, my Hindu friend.

[HD1200]

OH oh. Capturing solar energy that would have missed or bounced off the earths atmosphere and piping it down to earth just adds to the heat load of the earth. Wait until the global warming nuts hear about this.

[doc1019]

I thought the sun was already doing this? ;-)

[Cicero]

How can I resist?

“Beam me up, Scotty.”

[UCANSEE2]

It is not just monitoring. The 'sensors' are being built by a company that Obama's 'buddies' own, and they CUT your power (by powering off selected devices), to maintain an even load on the grid.

So, even if you are willing to pay for the electricity, too bad. You have been deemed to stupid to conserve electricity usage by yourself. The government is going to do it for you. There will be an extra charge for that, btw.

[smokingfrog]

Looks like some kind of solar powered space weapon to me.

[Psycho_Bunny]

This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

[fight_truth_decay]

"as the government becomes a big factor in determining which cleantech startups succeed"

Clean Tech Forum 2009: Smart Grid Panel Speakers

Thomas E. Cain, Managing Partner, Sail Venture Partners
Wesley K. Clark, Chairman and CEO, Wesley K. Clark & Associates
Peter A. Darbee, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation
William Clay Ford, Jr., Executive Chairman, Ford Motor Company
Jeff Ziarko, Legislative Assistant to Congressman Sander Levin... etc...

[calljack]

never happen

saw this idea 30 years ago when i was in the solar industry with hughes research labs. Microwaves will kill any birds that fly into the transmit path, planes cant fly through it. ground based solar is way cheaper, point of use solar power generation is a better solution.
Distribution from a central source can always become a control issue, price is always going to be more expensive when all factors are considered.point of use power generation solves it all.

[The_Reader_David]

And, if you happen to get in the way of the microwave beam that transmits the power to earth, a solar powered space weapon is exactly what it is.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Any bets on this monstrosity ever starting up and producing power?

[calljack]

the biggest problem was current flow set up magnetic fields that warped the power busses. It cost too much to put up something that was heavy and strong enough to not warp out of shape when the current started to flow. Maybe they fixed that but that was only 1 of many problems. now there is probably too much space junk (400,000 pieces and counting)
to keep it producing long enough to pay for itself.

[fight_truth_decay]

never happen

They still get the billions..

The New World Order
“We shall have world government whether or not you like it, by conquest or consent.” - Statement by Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member James Warburg to The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17th, 1950.
"We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence; on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly-knit highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed." John F. Kennedy