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Moon Power: Harnessing Solar Energy On The Moon & Beaming It To Earth

Moon Power

Plugging Into the Moon

In this month's issue of The Industrial Physicist, Criswell lays out his plan to build solar panels and micro transmitters from lunar materials and begin beaming solar energy to Earth.

Solar panels would convert the sun's rays to energy and transmit it through buried wires to microwave generators. The generators would then convert the energy into harmless microwave beams, which would be aimed at collecting stations on Earth. At Earth, they'd be converted back into electricity.


note: so, if you can charge things using microwaves *in theory* you could charge you mobile phone via remote access... :D
 
I remember this theory. I found it far out, before doing things like that how about making solar cells in Sahara? That should be enough for our energy needs.
 
This time the idea is to use structures in orbit.

WHETHER YOU’RE COVERING deserts, ugly parking lots, canals, or even sunny lakes with solar panels, clouds will occasionally get in the way—and every day the sun must set. No problem, says the European Space Agency: Just put the solar arrays in space.

The agency recently announced a new exploratory program called Solaris, which aims to figure out if it is technologically and economically feasible to launch solar structures into orbit, use them to harness the sun’s power, and transmit energy to the ground.

If this concept comes to fruition, by sometime in the 2030s Solaris could begin providing always-on space-based solar power. Eventually, it could make up 10 to 15 percent of Europe’s energy use, playing a role in the European Union’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. “We’re thinking about the climate crisis and the need to find solutions. What more could space do to help mitigate climate change—not just monitor it from above, as we’ve been doing for the past few decades?” asks Sanjay Vijendran, who heads the initiative and plays a leading role in the agency’s Mars program as well.

The primary driver for Solaris, Vijendran says, is the need for continuous clean energy sources. Unlike fossil fuel and nuclear power, solar and wind are intermittent—even the sunniest solar farms sit idle the majority of the time. It won’t be possible to store massive amounts of energy from renewables until battery technologies improve. Yet according to Vijendran, space solar arrays could be generating power more than 99 percent of the time. (The remaining 1 or so percent of the time, the Earth would be directly between the sun and the array, blocking the light.) ...

https://www.wired.com/story/a-bold-plan-to-beam-solar-energy-down-from-space/
 
ramonmercado said:
This time the idea is to use structures in orbit.

WHETHER YOU’RE COVERING deserts, ugly parking lots, canals, or even sunny lakes with solar panels, clouds will occasionally get in the way—and every day the sun must set. No problem, says the European Space Agency: Just put the solar arrays in space.

The agency recently announced a new exploratory program called Solaris, which aims to figure out if it is technologically and economically feasible to launch solar structures into orbit, use them to harness the sun’s power, and transmit energy to the ground.

If this concept comes to fruition, by sometime in the 2030s Solaris could begin providing always-on space-based solar power. Eventually, it could make up 10 to 15 percent of Europe’s energy use, playing a role in the European Union’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. “We’re thinking about the climate crisis and the need to find solutions. What more could space do to help mitigate climate change—not just monitor it from above, as we’ve been doing for the past few decades?” asks Sanjay Vijendran, who heads the initiative and plays a leading role in the agency’s Mars program as well.

The primary driver for Solaris, Vijendran says, is the need for continuous clean energy sources. Unlike fossil fuel and nuclear power, solar and wind are intermittent—even the sunniest solar farms sit idle the majority of the time. It won’t be possible to store massive amounts of energy from renewables until battery technologies improve. Yet according to Vijendran, space solar arrays could be generating power more than 99 percent of the time. (The remaining 1 or so percent of the time, the Earth would be directly between the sun and the array, blocking the light.) ...

https://www.wired.com/story/a-bold-plan-to-beam-solar-energy-down-from-space/
Click to expand...
Didn't the Russians plan to put giant reflectors in space to give the northern parts of the country more daylight in their long, dark winters?
 
The sheer amount of power loss and inefficiency during transmission makes this whole idea unworkable.
I don't even have to do the maths or think too hard to come to this conclusion.
 
Mythopoeika said:
The sheer amount of power loss and inefficiency during transmission makes this whole idea unworkable.
I don't even have to do the maths or think too hard to come to this conclusion.
Click to expand...
Well quite. Even if you got panels up there they'd all be mostly dead in a decade from radiation. Plus 'transmission losses' from the 'giant space laser' or whatever cockamamy idea they think will work.

Rough guess for 1GW, a quite small power station...

You typically need 10m^2 of solar panel for 1.5kw (peak). So for 1GW you'd need six million square meters of panels. Rough guess... :rofl:
 
Six square kilometres. That figure is roughly correct; even though sunlight is brighter outside the atmosphere, an array of solar panels on the Moon would rarely be pointed directly at the Sun, because the Moon rotates.

To get the same efficiency as the panels on the ISS, you'd need two square kilometres of solar panels in orbit around the Earth to get one GW. If you put the solar array into a polar orbit, you could do it with one square kilometre, since it would never be in shadow.

Putting this array on the Moon would not make sense, unless there was a factory on the Moon actually making solar panels from Lunar materials, thus reducing the cost of lifting the panels off the Earth. We are a long way from having that capability yet.
 
eburacum said:
Six square kilometres. That figure is roughly correct; even though sunlight is brighter outside the atmosphere*, an array of solar panels on the Moon would rarely be pointed directly at the Sun, because the Moon rotates.

To get the same efficiency as the panels on the ISS, you'd need two square kilometres of solar panels in orbit around the Earth to get one GW. If you put the solar array into a polar orbit, you could do it with one square kilometre, since it would never be in shadow.

Putting this array on the Moon would not make sense, unless there was a factory on the Moon actually making solar panels from Lunar materials, thus reducing the cost of lifting the panels off the Earth. We are a long way from having that capability yet.
Click to expand...
* I allowed for that - I assumed that a PV panel would basically operate at it's maximum output nearly all the time... :)

Worth noting that currently 'space' solar panels are mostly gallium arsenide, and while they start at 30% odd efficiency, they degrade quite quickly (radiation again). Plus we really don't have enough gallium for this kinda project. I based my wild guess on existing solar PV peak power/m^2.

Gallium is another one of those materials we really don't have much of. It's another one of those ideas that needs a flow chart with a box in which is written "Now a magic thing happens".

It's a pity the funders are innumerate, this isn't hard maths.
 
Plenty of gallium in the asteroid belt, but we have to get there first.
To be honest, even though I am fairly sure we will access space resources and space-based solar power eventually, these resources won't be exported to the Earth but used in space to fuel a space-based economy. Earth doesn't need the extra input of imported elements and power - this would make our precarious balance even more unstable.
 
It should be there according to the cosmic abundance of elements, which is a relatively good guide to the composition of objects in our Solar System.
There are some surprises, though; Jupiter seems to have lost most of its neon, early in the formation of the system, which is a bit strange. The current theory is that it has all rained down into the inaccessible core, which is a bit of a disappointment if you like gigantic illuminated signs.
 
Additionally, we get a representative sampling of bits of asteroids which fall down onto our heads as meteorites. Some asteroids are likely to have a composition similar to chondritic meteors, which contain cobalt, platinum, gallium, germanium, and arsenic. I presume any mining program would start with those.
 
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