phookz Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Japan is planning a $21 Billion dollar solar power in space plant to beam power to earth: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aJ529lsdk9HI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajackson Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth Pretty unambitious in compared to Solaren, though more likely to succeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SSgt Baloo Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth Japan is planning a $21 Billion dollar solar power in space plant to beam power to earth: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aJ529lsdk9HI It's about time somebody did it! If Americans weren't so paranoid about supervillains gaining control and microwaving random cities we might already have something of the sort in service by now. All you Eco-friendlies dreaming about hydrogen as the Fuel of the Future? Cheap electricity will help make that dream come true, and unlike hydroelectric power, we won't have to flood an existing ecosystem to get the juice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraven Kor Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth For some reason 150,000 homes seems a small number for such an ambitious project. And I wonder what possible environmental issues might arise from this? Power Plant Administrator: "Well, it works great, but everyone in a 100 mile radius of the receiving tower has turned into a flesh-craving zombie killing machine." Corporate PR Guy: ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajackson Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth For some reason 150' date='000 homes seems a small number for such an ambitious project.[/quote'] Let's see. Assume it's a $21B base investment, and between RoI it has an annual cost of 10%, or $2.1B, or $24,000 per hour. Assuming 1 kW per person, that's 150,000 kWh/hr, or a price of $0.16/kWh. Dunno what actual power level is being assumed, but that seems on the right general scale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phookz Posted September 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth The proposed Japanese plant will be a 1 GW generator, which, according to the article, is enough to cover 229,000 Tokyo homes. The 150,000 homes is from a different article for Solaren, Inc. The math doesn't add up - the Solaren plan is 200 MW, which they claim is the estimated average usage of 150,000 homes (American homes). So for 5x the powerplant only 1.5x as many homes would be served? Tokyo must use a lot of power. My math is rusty, but if it's a 1 GW plant, using the $2.1B that ajackson supposed (which, by the way, is $240,000 per hour, not $24,000), this would be $0.24/kWh. That's about what Hawaii paid for power in 2007 (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/esr/table5.html). But all of this is moot - what's important is this, like the Solaren plan, is an actual plan to beam power from space! That has geeky sci-fi coolness written all over it, and it might actually be done in my lifetime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted September 3, 2009 Report Share Posted September 3, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth I admit I am not keen on the orbital station/microwave power beam concept. With 1 GW in effective delivered power, the power in the side lobes of the beam is still going to be enormous. Its intensity will not be that large, of course, but even if the side lobes are down by 30 dB from the main beam ... which is better than most of the antenna patterns I've ever heard of ... that's still a MW of microwave power bathing that half of Earth. If nothing else, you can kiss off radio astronomy on that half of the planet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajackson Posted September 3, 2009 Report Share Posted September 3, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth If nothing else' date=' you can kiss off radio astronomy on that half of the planet.[/quote'] No, because (a) radio astronomy uses directional antennas, ( the emissions are quite narrow band, and © 1 megawatt really isn't that much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted September 3, 2009 Report Share Posted September 3, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth Radio telescopes have side lobes too, and the power transmitter will have out-of-frequency-band harmonics. I exaggerated when I said "kiss off", but it could be a crippling problem for some observations. I have colleagues who are quite concerned about the situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alibear Posted September 4, 2009 Report Share Posted September 4, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth Is there a reason we couldn't just lay a big cable into space? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulcan Posted September 4, 2009 Report Share Posted September 4, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth Get the space elevator working and that's a disticnt possibility, Alibear. And if we can get the elevator up and working, setting up radio astronomy on the moon is a breeze. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajackson Posted September 4, 2009 Report Share Posted September 4, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth Is there a reason we couldn't just lay a big cable into space? Sadly, we don't have sufficiently strong cables. Other than that, unless superconducting, transmission losses would be unacceptable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted September 4, 2009 Report Share Posted September 4, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth Is there a reason we couldn't just lay a big cable into space? Oh, it starts easily enough. But then the newspapers want to start printing in space, and the International Space Station decides to upgrade to cable TV, and before you know it, Earth orbit is such a snarl of wires and cables that we'll never get off the planet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted September 4, 2009 Report Share Posted September 4, 2009 Re: Japan Plans Solar Space Powerplant to Beam Power to Earth The subject line is a bit of an overstatement. All they are doing is some experimenting with the possibility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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