`Drilling Up' Into Space for Energy
[...]
Unlike other ideas, however, one this year had an influential backer, the Pentagon, which is investigating whether space-based solar power -- beaming energy down from satellites -- will provide "affordable, clean, safe, reliable, sustainable and expandable energy for mankind."
[...]
And if it does it should be owned by the public.
The Defense Department this October quietly issued a 75-page study conducted for its National Security Space Office concluding that space power -- collection of energy by vast arrays of solar panels aboard mammoth satellites -- offers a potential energy source for global U.S. military operations.
It could be done with today's technology, experts say. But the prohibitive cost of lifting thousands of tons of equipment into space makes it uneconomical.
[...]
That's where Palau, a scattering of islands and 20,000 islanders, comes in.
In September, American entrepreneur Kevin Reed proposed at the 58th International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad, India, that Palau's uninhabited Helen Island would be an ideal spot for a small demonstration project, a 260-foot-diameter "rectifying antenna," or rectenna, to take in 1 megawatt of power transmitted earthward by a satellite orbiting 300 miles above Earth.
Unlike other ideas, however, one this year had an influential backer, the Pentagon, which is investigating whether space-based solar power -- beaming energy down from satellites -- will provide "affordable, clean, safe, reliable, sustainable and expandable energy for mankind."
[...]
And if it does it should be owned by the public.
The Defense Department this October quietly issued a 75-page study conducted for its National Security Space Office concluding that space power -- collection of energy by vast arrays of solar panels aboard mammoth satellites -- offers a potential energy source for global U.S. military operations.
It could be done with today's technology, experts say. But the prohibitive cost of lifting thousands of tons of equipment into space makes it uneconomical.
[...]
That's where Palau, a scattering of islands and 20,000 islanders, comes in.
In September, American entrepreneur Kevin Reed proposed at the 58th International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad, India, that Palau's uninhabited Helen Island would be an ideal spot for a small demonstration project, a 260-foot-diameter "rectifying antenna," or rectenna, to take in 1 megawatt of power transmitted earthward by a satellite orbiting 300 miles above Earth.
posted by TheFuriousGourmet | 5:14 PM
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