I'm still chuckling over this article. I swear, I didn't cook this
up. They actually wrote it.
Why don't we build a solar plant on the moon and beam the energy
back to Earth?
We don't do this for the same reason we don't cover North Dakota
with wind turbines to supply the whole country with electricity;
transmission costs. Disregarding the insanely expensive cost of
building a solar plant on the moon, transmitting this energy back
would be technically impossible. In addition, with the rotation of
the moon and the earth as they are, the transmission cables would
quickly become terribly tangled.
"Beaming" electricity is not quite the same as beaming Scotty up to
the Enterprise. Electricity travels along transmission cables that
are inefficient and very expensive: high voltage cables can cost
thousands of dollars per mile. [42] If we could devise a way to
efficiently "beam" electricity without transmission cables, we would
be utilizing this technology first to connect earthbound power
plants with various earthbound consumers.
Perhaps a better idea would be to build solar plants on the earth
and then just keep the energy here. It is true that the sunlight on
the moon's surface can be more intense than on the earth's surface,
due to its lack of atmosphere, but this greater intensity does not
justify the R&D effort that would be required to pursue extra-
terrestrial capture of solar energy for use on earth. Furthermore
since most industrialized countries experience power losses of about
10% between the generating plant and the customer, which is only at
most in the hundreds of kilometers, there is no way the energy would
be still coursing through the transmission cables after the 384,400
kilometers it would have to travel from the moon to the earth. [43]
[44]
What is worrying is that they are presenting themselves as an authority
on Renewable Energy.
Perhaps if we all email them they will put some correct information
under this section instead of fairytales.
I think you folks are badly mistaken. You should not assume the way we
used to do things is the best way for all times, or else we should go back
to building wood fires in caves for energy. Human skills at using
electromagnetic radiation is just beginning, hence such devices as cell
phones are only the "tip of the ice berg" that is coming. Microwaves can be
(have been) used to transport energy very efficiently; DC to microwaves,
tower to tower over 10 km distance, back to DC, with over 85% efficiency.
The Space Studies Institute sells a slide set showing demonstrations of this
folks who have to see pictures. But the Earth is round, so tall towers
every 10 km or so or satellites are required. But not for energy coming in
from outer space. The technical details of such schemes have been being
described by such visionary (and highly qualified) folks as Drs. Peter
Glasser and G. K. O'Neill since the early 1970's. Some schemes use
satellites to relay energy generated on the ground, and others to get energy
from the Sun, the latter being called Solar Satellite Power Stations,
Powersats, and other such terms. A popular scheme is to put SSPS at
Geosynch, and also to make these devices from extraterrestrial materials,
from the Moon, asteroids or comets.
Communication satellites are evolving to use larger and larger solar
collectors so they can beam more power in their communications to Earth.
This is not exactly delivering utility power to Earth, but by having more
energetic signals from space requires less utility power on Earth to recover
the communications signals at sufficient power levels, so it is replacing
energy that would have to be generated on Earth. There are many web sites,
books, articles, etc., some with no math, like chapter 8, power from the
Sun, the Moon and Asteroids in John S. Lewis' Mining the Sky, 1996. Some
web sites are very good, others are silly, but Google.com just turned up
over 500,000 sites on this topic. The Space Frontier Foundation, National
Space Society and Space Studies Institute, among others, promote these
ideas. Plans for the Moon include circumlunar equatorial railroads, which
could have solar power stations on the railroad cars which would stay in the
sunlight all of the time be traveling, as I recall, 8 miles per hour towards
the east. Old fashioned transmission lines along the rails, or maybe made
of the rails, could form the first of the utility power grid on the Moon.
Rails to the poles, where there is water, would complete the initial
utilities infrastructure. Some plans suggest that to pay for all of this,
power could be sold on Earth.
So, this idea is not a joke. Neither is building wind turbines to
generate electricity. Sorry if some folks didn't believe it possible, but
then that has always been the problem with new technology. Sincerely, Jay
Huebner
Yes it is sad, they are presenting the same wrong arguments which have
been debunked many times on this list.
obviously preaching to the choir here.
> What is worrying is that they are presenting themselves as an
> authority
> on Renewable Energy.
They are look fairly typical of many greenish sites and orgs.
>
> Perhaps if we all email them they will put some correct information
> under this section instead of fairytales.
>
Any volunteers ? I am afraid I have done battle with greenies so many
times that I am suffering from burnout and not particalrly interested in
starting another slugfest.
>
> > Why don't we build a solar plant on the moon and beam the energy
> > back to Earth?
> >
GEO would be a better place than the surface of the Moon IMHO, but
opinions differ amongst experts, and there are some pros and cons to
each.
>
> > We don't do this for the same reason we don't cover North Dakota
> > with wind turbines to supply the whole country with electricity;
> > transmission costs. Disregarding the insanely expensive cost of
> > building a solar plant on the moon, transmitting this energy back
>
Nonsense of course. We do not cover ND with wind turbines because
fossil fuels are so cheap, and it is much cheaper to build fossil fuel
plants near to the electricity consumers. Conventional transmission
costs on Earth are high because they increase with distance ( $X million
dollars per mile per amp) but with SPS rectennas can be put anywhere,
and the cost of the teansmission does nto scale with distance.
The authors of this wevsite did not address microwave power beaming at
all, so they have set up a strawman (cables to the Moon, ahaha) which is
trvially easy to shoot down. This is dishonest approach, aka deceptive
advertising. Sadly I see this kind of thing a lot in greenie world, and
even closer to home. People are pushing a personal agenda, and so
presented distored half truths to support their case.
Oh well. Fortunately some of here can see through that stuff.
> > would be technically impossible. In addition, with the rotation of
> > the moon and the earth as they are, the transmission cables would
> > quickly become terribly tangled.
> >
Gasp, I never thought of that, wow, I guess that pretty much kills the
whole notion of bringing power down from space.
Actually, power tower using stabilized tethers are feasible, but the
tether is for stabilization, not for transmission. Microwave power
beaming is better.
>
> > "Beaming" electricity is not quite the same as beaming Scotty up to
> > the Enterprise. Electricity travels along transmission cables that
> > are inefficient and very expensive: high voltage cables can cost
> > thousands of dollars per mile. [42] If we could devise a way to
> > efficiently "beam" electricity without transmission cables, we would
>
> > be utilizing this technology first to connect earthbound power
> > plants with various earthbound consumers.
> >
Jay has already responded to this. There are some real technical;
problems, beamed power does not scale down well because of antenna
diffraction limits. It is only useful for gigawatt sized systems.
That is the reason why it is not widely used for Earth plants. But
there are actually some experimetnal power beaming projects on Earth,
e.g. Reunion Island amd somewhere else I forget where, possibly Japan.
>
> > Perhaps a better idea would be to build solar plants on the earth
> > and then just keep the energy here. It is true that the sunlight on
> > the moon's surface can be more intense than on the earth's surface,
> > due to its lack of atmosphere, but this greater intensity does not
And the other reasons, 24/7 solar collection in space, whereas
terrestrial collectors on get power about 10% of the total time averaged
over a year. Plus the difficulty sterring arrays on Earth, it is
easier in space. And a space power system can use beam switching to
feed different cities/countries as diurnal load varies.
Terrestrial power is not presently widespread on Earth or in space
because of the cheap price of fossil fuels.
>
> > justify the R&D effort that would be required to pursue extra-
> > terrestrial capture of solar energy for use on earth. Furthermore
> > since most industrialized countries experience power losses of about
>
> > 10% between the generating plant and the customer, which is only at
> > most in the hundreds of kilometers, there is no way the energy would
>
> > be still coursing through the transmission cables after the 384,400
> > kilometers it would have to travel from the moon to the earth. [43]
> > [44]
> >
There is that strawman again.
They have reverted to assuming cables would be used.
Cheers,
Charles R.