The world’s energy needs are coming to a crisis point but technology could solve this in a Japanese plan to put solar cells around the moon’s equator. That’s 11,000 km of solar cells twinkling on the moon.
The electricity from the solar cells would be converted to microwaves and lasers would beam the power to Earth. Once the beams reach the Earth stations would convert the microwaves to electricity. This is called the luna ring concept and the Shimzu corporation says that this could meet the entire world’s energy needs.
Robots would be needed to build the structure but would be supported by teams of astronauts. Good work if you can get it! The aim would be to use the maximum lunar resources possible as it would cost too much to bring up the materials from Earth.
The ring of solar panels would be built up to a few kilometres wide to start off with but could be expanded as power needs dictate. It could extend up to 400 km wide. The major advantage of this idea is that there is no weather on the moon so the solar panels will provide year-round power with little or no weathering.
This is a great idea not only for power production but to give the moon a little sparkle.
For more information on this concept tries to weirdwarp article “ solar power beamed to Earth from space?”
Luna Ring
this is a cool idea, but how do they keep this thing from getting destroyed by asteroids/comets/space junk crashing into it?
I would think that the Earth acts as a protector for the moon from comets and asteroids as it’ s gravity is much higher. This is the same job as Jupiter does for us clearing asteroids and comets and minimising impacts on Earth although there still is a chance we will have a large impact sometime.
Also, since the robots to build it would be already up there, they could be used to repair any damage. The only real issue might be a lunar eclipse, but I think that could be mitigated, too, especially since we can predict when those will happen.