Shimizu wants to cover Moon with solar panels

Good: Gets us to a non-carbon producing power source which would be more broadly and consistently available than Earth-bound solar or wind. And it gets us to use of lunar resources.

Bad: We're building solar power plants in a place which is dark for half the time. Yes, I'm aware the proposal is for a continuous belt completely encircling the moon. But each square meter of solar array (and we have to pay for each square meter) is in darkness for half the time. So you might think we have to build 2x the array area for the same power delivered, but in fact, it's even worse than that, because this array is flat to the ground which means less power available whenever the sun is not at its zenith.

The best solution is an orbital solar array built outside the shadow of any celestial body, and continuously oriented face-on to the sun. Yes, there are raw material lift-costs involved, but they're a one-time cost. The day/night and sun angle problems are operational disadvantages which last for the lifetime of the array.

But I did hear from someone at SSI that even though the moon is ~10x the distance of a GEO SPS, microwave power beaming from that distance ought to not be a problem.

I discuss some of these issues in an article I wrote on planetary chauvinism in general: Somewhere Else Entirely - http://writings.mike-combs.com/somewhere_else.htm

Additional discussion of lunar vs. GEO solar arrays here - http://writings.mike-combs.com/LSP_vs_L-SPS.htm

Regards,

Mike Combs

From: ssi_list@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ssi_list@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Vladimir Vasquez
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 9:00 PM
To: ssi_list@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ssi_list] Shimizu wants to cover Moon with solar panels

What is good and what is bad about this idea?

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/06/japans-shimizu-corporation-proposes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/advancednano+(nextbigfuture)

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