I saw a bunch of Twitter criticism yesterday of ESA’s announcement that they want to develop tech for Space Based Solar Power. The criticism was not valid because it missed the entire point. Europe wants to move to 100% renewable energy — no dispatchable power for topping off. /1
2/ The closer you get to 100% renewable energy the more expensive it is to get the next percent. At close to 100% market penetration the cost is much higher than typical LCOE in today’s markets. This creates an economic space for a more expensive renewable that is baseload.
3/ You might ask, why not just use nuclear? Nuclear would be a great option, but for cultural and political reasons that is a non-starter in Europe . Why not hydroelectric? Europe doesn’t have nearly enough hydro electric sites. There aren’t many options.
4/ So as long as Europe is committed to going 100% carbon-free — and they are — then SBSP fits the economic niche even though it will be more expensive than other energy sources.
5/ The situation for renewable energy in Europe is much worse than in the US due to Europe’s low capacity factor on wind and solar. The *combined* wind and solar averages about 15%. That’s for the entire continent.
6/ So the @elonmusk quote that ‘solar is only 3x better in space than on Earth’ is factually incorrect. For all of Europe Space is 6x better. And the cost is nonlinear so it is far more than 6x cost, especially when trying to get 100% market penetration, as Europe wants to do.
7/ Another major error critics make (repeatedly even after you explain their error), is they think space solar competes against terrestrial solar. It does not. It competes against terrestrial energy storage and excess generation capacity to recharge the deep storage.
8/ So the facile arguments comparing space vs terrestrial PV efficiency are missing the point. It’s a good idea never to believe facile arguments. The proponents of SBSP in Europe know all the facile arguments, and know why they aren’t valid. They aren’t stupid. I mean HONESTLY
9/ So you can get into arguments whether the cost estimates are accurate or whether the government subsidies will be economically justified or enough — that’s all good. That’s why ESA commissioned independent studies to augment their internal studies. The debate should continue.
10/ But drop the facile arguments that entirely miss the point, OK? And please don’t give them airtime because it promotes poor thinking. /end. We now return to the original happy programming
Yes, and? An SPS microwave beam striking an airplane would do... nothing. Large aircraft are lighting-resistant thin metal Faraday cages... just like the inside of a microwave oven. NASA studies back in the 70's included shooting microwave beams of equivalent watts/square meter at organisms like birds and such... they didn't notice.
IIRC, Launch costs was the killer...
SPS - along with wind, ground-based solar, tidal, nuclear, fusion, geothermal, everything - was studied heavily in the 70s because OPEC raised the price of oil to high levels. But come the 80's, OPEC dropped the price of oil and *all* alternate power systems no longer looked affordable. Ground solar and wind continued to be studied and developed because small-scale applications were feasible. But there's no such thing as SPS just for one house; it is by definition something that needs to be *vast.* Which means vast startup costs. But once those costs are in place and manageable, SPS *might* well be one of the cheaper ways to power entire grids.
Microwave receivers approximate chickenwire due to the long wavelengths involved.
What? No. That's dumb. Take a look at the glass door of your microwave. See the metal mesh? The one you cans *see* through? it's there because all you need to block, reflect or absorb microwaves is a metal mesh, with gaps smaller than the wavelength of the microwaves. Visible light has much higher frequency/shorter wavelength, so it goes through the gaps in the mesh. Microwaves don't. So you *could* pave the area under the microwave receiver with solar panels. The original idea was to use the land for agricultural purposes, holding up the receiver as "netting" atop tall poles.
And it would be especially smart to beam in more solar energy if we're trying to slow down the planetary warming.
Just in time.
SOLARIS: ESA Prepares for Space-Based Solar Power
PARIS (ESA PR) — To prepare Europe for future decision making on Space-Based Solar Power, ESA has proposed a preparatory programme for Europe, initially named SOLARIS, for the upcoming ESA Council at Ministerial Level in November 2022. Space-based solar power is a potential source of clean...www.parabolicarc.com
I'm not holding my breath. Talk is cheap - Hermes and FESTIP come readily to mind.Just in time.
SOLARIS: ESA Prepares for Space-Based Solar Power
PARIS (ESA PR) — To prepare Europe for future decision making on Space-Based Solar Power, ESA has proposed a preparatory programme for Europe, initially named SOLARIS, for the upcoming ESA Council at Ministerial Level in November 2022. Space-based solar power is a potential source of clean...www.parabolicarc.com
I've heard so many negative things about SBSP over the years, I just cannot believe that, of all space powers, Europe has found it makes some limited sense for them. And thus wants to make it happen.
I swear I would never, ever have believed I would see such a weird development happen in my lifetime. Life is full of surprise.
Make no mistake, there are some important points to keep in mind.
a) It remains a niche
b) Against the background of accelerating global warming
c) And for Europe only.
Basically it will be developed to fill the (very) few percents (perhaps 1% of 2%) left by classic energy sources - nuclear, green, hydro, fossils.
PV's are, last I checked, doing pretty good if they are at 30%. That means 70% of the sunlight that falls on them reflects or is converted to heat. In an SPS, that efficiency loss takes place twenty thousand miles overhead, so the heat is sent off into space. The useful energy is beamed down to earth in the form of a single frequency of microwaves which can be converted to electricity at up to 95% efficiency.
His analysis was simplistic. He also pushes Hyperloop, so he's known to sometimes be incredibly wrong on technical matters.
We are not looking at the same thing.
Fine. But the fact remains that a terawatt of space based solar power will heat the planet far less than a terawatt of ground based solar unless the ground panels are all built over existing blacktop or relatively deep water. The moment you start building them over plants, sand or snow, you convert sunlight that would have bounced back to space into locally released heat.
I don't dispute that ground-based solar cells increase warming, the way they're being done.
All forms of electricity production entail efficiency losses, losses which equate to heat dumped into the system. Burnign coal and natural gas and whatnot obviously dumps a lot of heat. Nuclear power dumps a lot of heat. Solar dumps a lot of heat. But space-solar dumps very *little* heat into *Earth.* The conversion of microwaves to electricity is the only step that takes place on Earth, and the efficiency can be very high... far higher than pretty much any other energy production system.
Would that work with the same reactors anchored on the Moon, rather than floating in GEO ? just asking.
Maybe. Build a *gigantic* tank of, I dunno, sodium or something. During the day, dump heat into the sodium, slowly melting it. At sundown, turn on the fountain and spray tiny droplets of molten incandescent metal a kilometer into the sky to radiate to space and fall down into a collector. With fixed gravity and no wind, it *should* be possible to calibrate the system to fair precision.
I look forward wigth great anticipation to your design of a solar powered ballistic missile submarine and that manned spacecraft to Europa using wind turbines.
