Momentum for space solar power

Looks like there's a bit of momentum on space solar power again?
I did my part with a couple of letters to the editor - let's keep
up the pressure!

This is from Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper, reporting on
an article last Friday in Science magazine:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/298/5595/981

(you can get free access to the abstract with registration)

Arthur

>From globeandmail.com, Friday, November 1, 2002

Green options fall short, study says
Touted as solution to global warming,

energy alternatives won't feed demand
ANNE McILROY
SCIENCE REPORTER

Wind, solar power and tree planting won't do it.

Existing alternative energy sources can't provide enough power to replace fossil fuels and lower greenhouse gases enough to slow global warming, a major new study says.

The study assessed solar power, wind power, fuel cells and nuclear power. It checked into tree planting and energy-efficiency measures and concluded that even in combination, alternative energy sources as we know them today won't feed the world's rapidly growing appetite for energy, now satisfied mainly by fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas, however, produce carbon dioxide, which traps heat in the atmosphere and is a key culprit in global warming. Alternative energy sources are often cited as part of the solution to the problem.

But the scientists behind the study, published in today's edition of the journal Science, say they won't produce enough energy to stop global warming of a magnitude similar to the cooling the Earth experienced in the last Ice Age. Their paper calls for aggressive research and development programs to come up with revolutionary new energy technologies.

"We have done it before. We started World War II with bi-planes and ended with jet planes. We developed the atomic bomb. We went to the moon. These are comparable challenges, but we need a whole bunch of Apollo programs and Manhattan projects," New York University physicist Martin Hoffert, the lead author on the study, said in an interview yesterday.

"We need to develop alternative energy sources that can produce up to three times the amount of power we use today. Currently, these technologies simply don't exist."

Nuclear energy won't work, according to the study, because there is only enough nuclear fuel available to last from six to 30 years -- "hardly a basis for an energy policy," the study says.

Planting more trees would produce wood, which could be used to fire electrical generating plants or make ethanol. But to contribute significantly to climate stabilization, trees would have to be planted on 10 per cent of the Earth's land surface, the amount now used for agriculture.

For solar energy, the study notes that U.S. energy consumption would require panels covering 26,000 square kilometres. Right now, photovoltaic cells cover, at most, about three square kilometres in the United States.

Dr. Hoffert and his 17 co-authors, including two Canadian researchers, call for a massive investment in new energy sources like solar space power, which would trap the sun's energy in space and reflect it back to Earth. Another possibility is trapping excess carbon dioxide deep in the oceans or underground.

But the study didn't look at the possibility that consumers might change their lifestyles and reduce the amount of energy they consume.

"It puts far too much emphasis on technological solutions and on the supply side and on installing new sources of power when there is a tremendous amount that can be done on the customer side," Danny Harvey, a University of Toronto geography professor who had collaborated on the paper but pulled out before publication because he thought it was too negative, said in an interview.

Dr. Hoffert, however, noted that even if Western consumers started taking the bus or stopped driving gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles, increased energy use by India and China would overwhelm their efforts.

The study comes as the federal and provincial governments continue to feel their way on global warming, unsure of how to meet what the study describes as the relatively easy commitment of the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto agreement calls for developed nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. But Kyoto, the researchers say, is only a first step, a way to get people psychologically prepared for dealing with global warming. A Herculean effort may be needed to take the measures that will actually stabilize the climate.

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