NewEnergyNews: SPACE POWER/

NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

The challenge now: To make every day Earth Day.

YESTERDAY

THINGS-TO-THINK-ABOUT WEDNESDAY, August 23:

  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And The New Energy Boom
  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And the EV Revolution
  • THE DAY BEFORE

  • Weekend Video: Coming Ocean Current Collapse Could Up Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Impacts Of The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current Collapse
  • Weekend Video: More Facts On The AMOC
  • THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 15-16:

  • Weekend Video: The Truth About China And The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Florida Insurance At The Climate Crisis Storm’s Eye
  • Weekend Video: The 9-1-1 On Rooftop Solar
  • THE DAY BEFORE THAT

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 8-9:

  • Weekend Video: Bill Nye Science Guy On The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: The Changes Causing The Crisis
  • Weekend Video: A “Massive Global Solar Boom” Now
  • THE LAST DAY UP HERE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 1-2:

  • The Global New Energy Boom Accelerates
  • Ukraine Faces The Climate Crisis While Fighting To Survive
  • Texas Heat And Politics Of Denial
  • --------------------------

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    Founding Editor Herman K. Trabish

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    WEEKEND VIDEOS, June 17-18

  • Fixing The Power System
  • The Energy Storage Solution
  • New Energy Equity With Community Solar
  • Weekend Video: The Way Wind Can Help Win Wars
  • Weekend Video: New Support For Hydropower
  • Some details about NewEnergyNews and the man behind the curtain: Herman K. Trabish, Agua Dulce, CA., Doctor with my hands, Writer with my head, Student of New Energy and Human Experience with my heart

    email: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

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  • WEEKEND VIDEOS, August 24-26:
  • Happy One-Year Birthday, Inflation Reduction Act
  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 1
  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 2

    Wednesday, January 02, 2008

    SPACE POWER

    Beaming huge amounts of solar energy undiminished by earth’s atmosphere down as microwaves is an old but always tantalizing idea. NASA, Japan and European space agencies have looked at it periodically since the 1960s. (See SOLAR FROM CLOSER TO THE SOURCE) These are the most concrete plans NewEnergyNews has yet heard of. Pentagon report: "It is imperative that this work for `drilling up' vs. drilling down for energy security begins immediately…"

    Apparently, science fiction is once again on its way to becoming science fact. But by the best guess of experts, don’t get rid of your house’s solar panels before 2030.

    One small obstacle: Nobody knows exactly how safe beaming huge amounts of solar energy down would be. Maybe as safe as a microwave oven. Maybe not.

    Interesting aside: If the idea works, the solar energy would require storage. Nobody has batteries big enough. The first idea floated? Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with V2G capability. The rectenna sends the juice to the grid, the grid sends it to the cars and the cars hold it until the grid needs it back.


    ‘Drilling up’ into space for energy
    Charles J. Hanley, December 23, 2007 (AP via Yahoo News)

    WHO
    The National Security Space Office (NSSO) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD); Tommy Remengesau Jr., President, Palau; American entrepreneur Kevin Reed;

    Artist's concept of an orbiting solar array. (click to enlarge)

    WHAT
    NSSO of DoD has outlined a plan for developing solar power beamed to earth from orbiting satellites. Reed proposed a privately financed trial to prove the technology and study its safety.

    WHEN
    - In September 2007, Reed proposed placing a rectifying antenna on Helen Island in Palau to receive solar energy from an orbiting satellite. Reed is aiming to have his trial project ready by 2012.
    - NSSO’s 75-page study was issued for DoD in October 2007.

    WHERE
    - The Republic of Palua is an island nation, scattered islands in the Western Pacific between the Philippines and Micronesia.
    - Uninhabited, Palau’s Helen Island is an ideal location for the rectenna.
    - The test proposal would have one satellite in a 300-mile-high orbit.
    - The ultimate DoD plan would put up huge arrays of geostationary satellites with receiving arrays at various earth locations.

    WHY
    - The technology is presently available but the cost of lifting enough equipment into orbit to provide a significant amount of solar energy is prohibitive.
    - Reed’s U.S.-Swiss-German consortium will begin making the ultralight solar panels in the next 2 years and is developing financing (estimated at $800 million) for launch vehicles, satellites, transmission technology.
    - The rectenna would be 260 feet in diameter and would receive 1 megawatt of solar energy from a Reed-Palau satellite that would pass once every 90 minutes and beam to the rectenna for 5 minutes.
    - Ultimately, DoD would put up a perhaps 3 by 6 mile array of satellites and beam 5 megawatts of solar energy down continuously to an equally huge array of rectennas.

    Artist's concept of the rectenna that would be on Palau. (click to enlarge)

    QUOTES
    - Tommy Remengesau Jr., President, Palau: " We are keen on alternative energy…And if this is something that can benefit Palau, I'm sure we'd like to look at it."
    - Mark Hopkins, senior vice president, National Space Society: "The climate change implications are pretty clear. You can get basically unlimited carbon-free power from this…You just have to find a way to make it cost-effective."
    - Robert N. Schock, future energy expert, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): "I wouldn't be surprised at the beginning of the next century to see significant power utilized on Earth from space — and maybe sooner."

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