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This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 5:46 PM and filed under Articles, Video. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.

One Response to “YouTube - Space Based Solar Power - Alternative Energy Solution”

1. JohnZ said:

   This very slickly produced video clip promotes a seemingly perfect solution to the world’s energy needs. Gathering solar energy in space seems so perfect that it makes one want to run out and invest in any company that promotes this technology.

   Unfortunately, a careful analysis of the video paints a much less rosy picture.

   The application of elementary arithmetic to the data supplied in the video indicates that, in order to supply the amount of power that they estimate will be required by the world in 2100, we will have to launch solar-energy-collecting satellites whose total area is TWICE THE SIZE OF THE UNITED STATES!!!!! Read that sentence again! (Incidentally, the 2100 baseline date was chosen by the video, not me.) Even if it were somehow possible to construct such enormous satellites, launching them would not only deplete all of our planet’s resources many many times over, but it would also would generate a level of atmospheric pollution so severe that most life on earth would cease.

   Of even greater concern is how we would get the energy we gathered in space down to earth. Since there are no enormous “extension cords” going into space, the power would have to be sent down as some sort of electromagnetic radiation. The simplest system would be to concentrate the sunlight into a super-intense beam, and focus it at an energy receiver on earth. Clearly, the smaller the size of the receiver, the more concentrated the energy beam would have to be. For example, if we were to build a receiver the size of the state of Arizona, the beam coming down from space would still have to be over 100 times the strength of the sunlight that falls on earth in order to transport the required amount of energy. To make matters worse, many of the advocates of space-based solar power collection systems propose that the energy be sent down in the form of invisible “microwaves.” Since the microwave radiation generated would be “coherent” (like the radiation from lasers), the microwave beam would be far more damaging than sunlight of the equivalent power.).

   So, if the data presented in this video is correct, and if I have not made any errors in interpreting it, then why would anyone even propose such a preposterous project?

   I suggest that this video is an attempt to sell the people of the world on the idea that launching solar-energy-collecting and converting satellites would be a wonderful boon to humanity. The launching of a “feasibility study” satellite, perhaps only one ten-millionth the size of the satellites necessary for the full project, would receive little or no public opposition. Such a “feasibility study” satellite, though incapable of having any meaningful impact in supplying the earth’s energy requirements, would be the ultimate space terror weapon! Its invisible microwave beam could be pointed down anywhere on earth to incinerate wide paths through any country we wished to obliterate. As it is “non-ionizing” radiation, it would leave no radioactive debris to poison the land or blow over neighboring countries. In essence, the people would be unwittingly supporting the miniaturization of space while believing that they were solving the “energy crisis.”

   At even lower energy levels, the microwaves could be pulsed so as to totally incapacitate whole cities by making all of the unprotected people feel that they are being burned alive. This type of pulsed microwave weapon is NOT science fiction, it is currently being tested for crowd control. I am quite sure that it will be put into use against any unruly crowds at our upcoming political conventions. Suppressing dissent in China during the Olympics is another case where it may be utilized.

   As always, I look forward to other people’s comments, and, if you find my calculations in error, please be sure to speak up.

   John

   PS: For your convenience, I typed up a transcript of the video, and I am attaching it below. Note that although the U-tube poster is listed as “bagtaggar,” there is no person or group listed on the video as its author.

   Title: “Space Based Solar Power - Alternative Energy Solution”

   Music and still-picture-backed text panels. Text as follows:

   =====

   This is a message for the next president of the United States.

   Here are a few facts the oil industry would like you to ignore.

   Each American uses, in our products and services, about 60 barrels of oil each year.

   In Japan and Western Europe, shorter distances and better efficiencies reduces this to about 30 barrels each year.

   Our useable reserves of oil on this planet will only last another 45 years.

   And that’s optimistic.

   By 2100, the world will need more than three times the energy now coming from the oil, coal, and natural gas being produced each year.

   We will need at least 1,130 Quadrillion BTUs of energy.

   To generate even half of these BTUs using nuclear power would take 18,000 new reactors, more than we have money to build, the desire to live with, the fuel to fire up, and the waste storage facilities to handle.

   If a third of the land of the United States were covered with solar thermal concentrators, those highly advanced solar plants would only generate 5% of our global power needs.

   If we went to the max with every form of alternative energy we know, including solar, wind, geothermal, biofuel and tidal, it would provide only one third of the power we need by the year 2100.

   Using every existing energy generation technology, including coal, oil, nuclear, and alternative energy, we still fall short of our energy needs in 2100 by a whopping 66%.

   But what if we could tap an unlimited power source?

   What if we could create at least a million new jobs?

   What if we could become green and efficient in the process?

   What if we could remove the motivation for energy wars like our two military adventures in Iraq?

   What if we could restore this nation’s image as an innovator?

   What if we could make science fiction fantasies realities within our lifetimes?

   And what if we could do it all without using any imaginary technology, by using what we already know?

   How can we achieve these things?

   Harvest solar power where it’s twice the strength on earth.

   Harvest solar power where there is no night and the power of the sun is available 24 hours a day seven days a week.

   Harvest solar power where vast arrays of solar panels don’t destroy desert ecosystems.

   Harvest solar power where we already have 300 satellites with solar panels.

   Harvest solar power where we already have a $250-million-a-year telecommunications industry powered by the sun.

   Harvest solar power in space.

   Space Based Solar Power can solve our long term energy crisis and more.

   By building solar power platforms in orbit around the Earth, we will have a sustainable, limitless power source that will fill in the missing two thirds of our energy needs by 2100.

   Solar platforms in space can be enormous and can gather 100% more energy per square inch than their ground-based cousins.

   But we need to start now.

   We will need to pull this off before America’s alternative energy, oil, coal, and money to construct a space solar power infrastructure runs out.

   We will not do it because it is easy, but because it is hard. But not as hard–and not as expensive–as 18,000 new nuclear power plants.

   JAXA, the Japanese version of NASA, is already developing their own system for harvesting solar power in space.

   This is real.

   When it comes to energy, it’s time to drill up, not down.

   When it comes to energy, it’s time to look to the sky.

   google “Space Based Solar Power”
   Inform yourself.

   Posted on 07-Aug-08 at 12:17 am | Permalink

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