Solar Power Beamed To Earth From Space?

There are many renewable, green sources of energy one of them being solar power.  This  can be taken 1 step further by having the solar panels put into space. Obviously that requires a little more, OK a lot more effort than the words imply but would be worth it.

There are benefits to outsourcing solar power beyond the stratosphere. Apart from the more obvious reason of avoiding the large land-use footprint by collections of solar panels, there’s the fact that the sun actually does shine brighter on the other side of the fence. In this case, eight times brighter.

Satellite

Without the obstacles like rain, clouds and night time, solar arrays based in space would receive more concentrated solar rays than they would on Earth. The panels also wouldn’t be subject to the seasonal fluctuations that are unavoidable on Earth (lucky panels)

Space solar power, or SSP, would basically work the same way that regular solar power works. The only difference is that the solar panels would either be attached to orbiting satellites or stationed on the moon (in which case it would be called lunar solar power, logical?). The electricity created would be converted into microwaves and beamed down to Earth. Rectifying antennas, or rectennas, on the ground would collect the microwaves and convert them back into electricity.

Space based solar panel

There are some advantages and disadvantages, as you might expect.

• Unlike oil, gas, ethanol, and coal plants, space solar power does not emit greenhouse gases.
• Unlike coal and nuclear plants, space solar power does not compete for or depend upon increasingly scarce fresh water resources.
• Unlike bio-ethanol or bio-diesel, space solar power does not compete for increasingly valuable farm land or depend on natural-gas-derived fertilizer. Food can continue to be a major export instead of a fuel provider.
• Unlike nuclear power plants, space solar power will not produce hazardous waste, which needs to be stored and guarded for hundreds of years.
• Unlike terrestrial solar and wind power plants, space solar power is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in huge quantities. It works regardless of cloud cover, daylight, or wind speed.
• Unlike nuclear power plants, space solar power does not provide easy targets for terrorists.
• Unlike coal and nuclear fuels, space solar power does not need environmentally unfriendly  mining operations.
• Space solar power will provide true energy independence for the nations that develop it, eliminating a major source of national competition for limited Earth-based energy resources.
• Space solar power will not require dependence on unstable or hostile foreign oil providers to meet energy needs, enabling resources to be spent in other ways (not so good if you are the nation selling the oil).
• Space solar power can be exported to virtually any place in the world, and its energy can be converted for local needs — such as manufacture of methanol for use in places like rural India where there are no electric power grids. Space solar power can also be used for desalination of sea water.
• Space solar power can provide a market large enough to develop the low-cost space transportation system that is required for its deployment. This, in turn, will also bring the resources of the solar system within economic reach.

Satellite

When in space the solar panels will just maintain station just like any stationary satellite. On the moon installation is quite easy. But how do the actual panels work?

Simply put photovoltaic tiles and other forms of solar energy work by converting some of the energy in sunlight into a clean form of electricity that can be used in our houses. The PV cells consist of a positive and a negative slice of silicon placed under a thin slice of glass. As the protons of the sunlight beat down onto the PV cell they knock the neutrons off the silicon.

The negatively charged free neutrons are attracted to the silicon but are trapped by the magnetic field that is formed from the opposing fields. Small wires on the silicon catch these neutrons and when connected in a circuit an electric current is formed.

A lot of these panels would be needed to catch sunlight at a meaningful rate. One benefit, which may not sound like a benefit until it happens, is that the system would be big and would basically say “we are here”. A signpost  to other civilisations that our civilisation exists.

This idea has been around for ages but we are getting closer and closer to something like this as the political climate becomes favourable and rockets become more efficient.

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