Solar panels in space ‘could provide 80% of Europe’s renewable energy by 2050’
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/21/solar-panels-in-space-could-provide-80-of-europes-renewable-energy-by-2050
Solar panels in space ‘could provide 80% of Europe’s renewable energy by 2050’
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/21/solar-panels-in-space-could-provide-80-of-europes-renewable-energy-by-2050
24 Comments
>Nor could the potential cost-effectiveness of SBSP be realised until 2050 because building, launching and maintaining it would be too expensive unless technological growth reduces its costs.
What’s with all those pie in the sky promises popping up? Is it meant to distract from more action to reduce emissions *now*?
Researchers have published a study suggesting that space-based solar power (SBSP) panels could replace up to 80% of Europe’s current terrestrial renewable energy capacity by 2050. Space-based solar panel arrays would avoid some of the problems associated with terrestrial solar, such as the variability in power output associated with changes in weather. The researchers who carried out the study suggest that SBSP is currently prohibitively expensive, but that technological advances may make it cost-effective by 2050. Japan has already begun to develop SBSP as part of its space and climate strategy. The authors of the study suggest that SBSP could play an important role in Europe’s transition to renewable energy.
Since the plan is mirrors reflecting sunlight to ground-based collectors, this system would still be weather dependent.
Given global warming, I don’t think *increasing* total solar irradiance coming in to Earth is a good idea.
Solar panels already work fine at the surface. Extending working hours is nice but launching mass into space is an extremely expensive way of doing that.
At first thought I was like how is the power going to be transfered. Then reading it’s not actually putting panels in space. It’s mirrors
So a big mirror in space shining a concentrated beam at the earth. What could possibly go wrong. Rip to any birds that fly in front of it. Or people it may accidently hit ( I’m assuming for efficiency it would concentrate the light into a beam making it more hotter and brighter than what sunlight is normally reaching the surface of the earth )
Also what about all the space trash nobody is doing anything about up there ? Wouldn’t it be floating past in front of it affecting the efficiency?
And a Dyson sphere around the sun would provide a trillion % of it (not a precise number..), but are we gonna get ’em?
sounds like nonsense to me, wind and solar and maybe some geothermal and cheaper power storage will do fine for the energy transition.
Cool, but this intrinsically requires orbital death ray technology.
Any mechanism you use to beam power down can be easily retrofitted to fry any part of the planet’s surface at will.
The German government is working very hard against that.
In space you have to collect the light, convert to leccy, convert to microwaves, beam down and then convert to leccy again. Theres a lot of losses.
Whereas if you just put the panels on the ground then they just convert once.
It’s cheaper, easier and so much simpler.
Let’s call it the “Kessler Array”. At least for the year or two before it generates a Kessler syndrome cascade and we rename it “the apocalypse machine”
Wat. Maintenance costs? Launch costs? Space debris? Are these problems close to being solved?
And a Dyson Sphere could power the entire solar system. These sorts of articles are pointless.
Isn’t there a shitload of centipeter sizes chunks of space trash floating around that would annihilate satellites?
But not the U.S. I think we’re going with clean coal?
So in essence a giant magnifying glass in space ,no chance for an oops we went out of alignment ,whats on fire Jonson ?
Solar panels on Eart in Deserts instead please,wich can provid +100 % world needs.
Can’t tell what is more embarrassingly stupid, this or the goal of the U.S. putting a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030.
Will Europe even need that that extra energy by 2050? Population will reduce in a lot of countries and in fact the energy consumed on Europe is already pass the peak. The gross available energy in the EU countries in 2023 was lower than in 1990.
If every engineer would be allowed by his boss to think for 5 minutes every day how to make his project more energy efficient, by 2050 the current amount of solar panels on earth would be enough to supply all energy.
This statement is less outrageous than the headline of the article.
Dumb question: how they transmit the energy to the soil?
it should all go to Europe too
ingrate Americans don’t deserve free energy from space… we’ll brand it “jew” and make up conspiracies about it’s “true purpose”.
we have brain worms is what i’m saying.
Geothermal is difficult and expensive but it can’t be more of a hassle than space solar. Like there’s no fuckign way.
If EU have that much fund, should pool into mars manned mission and continue on the result. That solar plan is just reflecting and can be obstructed by cloud anyway.
Or start mass orbital habitats, even if it’s for Elites like in Elysium.
Yeah, calling complete bullshit on that one. Europe is on the ground, not in space. What are they gonna do, run a bunch of extension cords?
Space based solar power’s fundamental flaw is that it is, well **in space**, and getting the collectors up there is just as problematic as getting the power back down to earth.
I heard something about this and wondered why you wouldn’t put energy intensive data centres in space, particularly for AI. It resolves cooling issues, you can get 24hr solar power and you just transmit the data to earth using existing technology. Why wait until 2050, it’s something we could do today if the price point worked.