China plans on building enormous 1 kilometre wide solar array in space. The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from Earth
https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3294091/china-plans-build-three-gorges-dam-space-harness-solar-power
25 Comments
I’m sure we could do it in the US, but oil companies would make less profit, and that would be unacceptable
Welcome to the 1970s. NASA has looked at these things for better than half a century. All things considered, the cons outweigh the pros. Would make a fantastic weapon though.
1361W/m^2 × (1000m)^2 = 1.36GW.
I’m pretty sure there are windmill farms that produce more energy than this array would be hit by, and solar panels are about 20% efficient.
Edit to add: also at least 9 powerplants *each* making more power than that using various types of oil. Some of which have been for decades. Which is about how long solar panels tend to last in orbit.
How do they plan on getting the energy down from space?
Not sure if this could actually work, or the practicality or cost effectiveness of it… but it’s interesting to see things like this being explored. Who knows? Maybe this results in a truly viable option for humanity’s growing energy needs. If nothing else, maybe it spurns more creative solutions across the globe.
What would be the technology to transmit all the power that is created to earth?
Not practical for commercial power due to all the various transmission & conversion losses. If a weapon, its practicality also questionable. Too vulnerable I’d think, just sitting out in space.
That thing and its huge radiator array will be swiss cheese within a year.
Many here asking the logic behind this is to collect data and not as a profit mechanism, the data will be studied and understood as how it can be useful in other avenues.
1km² at best give you a fraction of a gigawatt
Not this nonsense again. This had already been posted, rubbished and removed.
This is complete nonsense. A 1 km square array would make about 300 mW. About as much as a very small nuclear reactor. And that doesn’t include any transmission solution and the losses incured there.
The math is off by about 3-4 orders of magnitude.
Edit: 300 MW…typo.
I just imagine a really long extension cable going from the ground to the sky flapping in the wind.
The US military is also testing out wireless power transfers using microwaves. So this is not as far fetched as some would think.
[https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3005894/nrl-conducts-successful-terrestrial-microwave-power-beaming-demonstration/](https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3005894/nrl-conducts-successful-terrestrial-microwave-power-beaming-demonstration/)
You don’t need cords. The energy could be redirected toward earth and stored . I saw a documentary on this tech years ago that was canceled due to concerns of how the energy would affect things like airplanes . If someone has seen this doc please post it.
I call bullshit in the amount of oil energy equivalent in a year.
I could envision a scenario where the targeting sensor for the transmission beam has a calibration issue and causes an “accident” that vaporized a certain derelict Philippines Navy ship that China hates so much. Oopsy daisy
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[DARPA](/r/Space/comments/1i9qmgh/stub/m948jw9 “Last usage”)|(Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency, DoD|
|DoD|US Department of Defense|
|[GEO](/r/Space/comments/1i9qmgh/stub/m94cjh7 “Last usage”)|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)|
|[SBSP](/r/Space/comments/1i9qmgh/stub/m94cjh7 “Last usage”)|Space-Based Solar Power generation|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1i9qmgh/stub/m948hkv “Last usage”)|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[cryogenic](/r/Space/comments/1i9qmgh/stub/m94eugf “Last usage”)|Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure|
| |(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox|
|hydrolox|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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GDI Ion Cannon Sattelite, except the Brotherhood of NOD got there first.
Solar power station concepts were born in the 70s by [Peter Glaser ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Glaser)and [Gerrard K. O’Neill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O%27Neill).
Materials science, rocketry and electronics now are just able to make this dream possible. Maybe, Perhaps.
Using masers to transmit space power to the [rectenna ](https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2022/08/receiving_rectenna_on_the_ground/24427315-1-eng-GB/Receiving_rectenna_on_the_ground_pillars.jpg)on Earth, the beam diameter is wide so birds and aircraft flying through do not get fried. I would not want to be a neighbor, though.
OK, endless solar power, great, but efficiencies are still rather low. There is also the question of the heat generated by the users of that power: it adds to Earth’s atmospheric heat. Still, space solar power is just possible and better than oil, but as always it depends on who controls it.
A: this is South China Morning Post, I’m pretty sure it is often used as a mouthpiece for the CCP, which loves to talk a big game about huge tech projects.
B: the first sentence is “a scientist has proposed a plan…”, well the US Army proposed a plan to use claymore shotguns to conduct infantry warfare on the moon, and other wild ideas, that were as much intellectual exercises as fantasies. Cool and sometimes inspiring thoughts experiments who’s value does not come from actually building anything.
This is far from the last time someone will propose a Dyson [shape], and it is far from the first time the proposal was an idea that the media treated as a commitment. That said, of all the nations in space, I think China would be the first to try something like this.
I plan on becoming the first man to walk on Mars. I just need some money, time and a spaceship
This is good for something in the future. Either to help fully power multiple space stations, or having to figure out a way to beam power elsewhere to say a lunar base. Base. Obviously beaming the power to Earth would probably be dangerous, or could easily be used in a dangerous manner 0
No, the arithmetic is wrong somewhere, a 1km x 1km array would generate much less than 1 GW of power from the sun, that’s far less than the power from the world’s oil.
Calculation : for a solation of 1368 W/m^2 and an area of 10^6 m^2 the input power is 1368 MW, but that has to be reduced by the conversion and transmission efficiencies.
Nah. They are more likely to build a fission power plant for Sky Palace expansion. It is cheaper to build a fission plant network on the planet, that produces something like 50 gigawatts (which is a lot), than it is to build a constellation of solar panels in space to produce energy.