...100 MW of Space Solar Power ...per single launch!
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From: Rick Jones on 15 Dec 2009 20:12 In sci.space.history Jonathan <Home(a)again.net> wrote: > Well would you expect them to? It doesn't make for good business to > give your product 'details' away for free. The test of their ideas > will be if it can go public and convince institutional investors to > buy their stock. If it is patentable and covered by patent, then they are protected for the duration of the patent, which, ostensibly, is supposed to cover the important details about what is being patented. That is the whole point behind a patent - once granted, it does not matter if everyone else knows what you are doing, they cannot do what you are doing without licencing your patent. If it is left merely as trade secret, if someone else figures-out what you have figured-out (at least if they do so by allowed means) then you have virtually no recourse. rick jones -- The computing industry isn't as much a game of "Follow The Leader" as it is one of "Ring Around the Rosy" or perhaps "Duck Duck Goose." - Rick Jones these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :) feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...
From: Pat Flannery on 15 Dec 2009 22:21 Peter Fairbrother wrote: > BTW there are a lot of studies available at > http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/index.htm if you are > interested, though I think many of them seem to miss the point a bit - > for instance, providing power to forward troops is not going to work > well politically, inciting claims of cooking the enemy etc. The military is still interested in that concept the last I heard; how to get the rectenna into position in the field is a good question - some sort of a thing that rolls up like a carpet for air transport? If you could be sure it wouldn't wander off target, you might be able to send down the power as a laser beam and run some sort of steam generator with it at the ground end... although that would be something that could be converted into a weapon in no time flat. It would at least get the size of the receiver device down somewhat compared to microwaves, but it still might be pretty wide if it came all the way down from GEO. > > The real money is in supplying fixed domestic and industrial power, > which has very few unwanted domestic (and pretty well zero > international) political consequences if done right. The initial cost though is going to be a real whopper to fund. This sounds like something the Chinese would do, as they seem really enthralled with giant projects at the moment. > > And no greenhouse gases, or very few, and no nuclear waste, and almost > zero environmental impact (except for some at the ground sites, which > IMO should be situated in deserts or otherwise empty areas). > > Personally I'd go for 100 GW Brayton cycle turbine systems rather than a > 400 MW direct semiconductor conversion system, with maybe 5 km diameter > space antennas and 8 km ground antennas - though I haven't done any > detailed studies on this, it's very BOTE. NASA seriously considered Brayton Cycle power generation for the ISS, but decided to go with the solar arrays instead. They did run a test Brayton or Stirling Cycle generator for a year or two nonstop with no problems though, IIRC. One problem with solar arrays in GEO is that solar storms slowly degrade them with their radiation, and that every decade or two you would need to replace them...not a easy thing to do considering the altitude of the orbit and size of the SPS. So maybe some sort of thermal system might have the advantage over solar arrays in this regard. Pat
From: Pat Flannery on 15 Dec 2009 22:35 Sylvia Else wrote: > That axis would be continuously changing because of the need to keep the > antenna pointed at Earth. So you would need to find a continuous torque > from somewhere (gyroscope effect), as well as deal with the structural > implications. I suspect that spinning it to put it in tension would > create more problems than it solves. You might run into some strange precession problems as it rotated, causing it to slowly wobble around the center of aim. Although keeping it aimed at the sun will be easy, as you've now turned it into a huge gyroscope, and it will keep aiming in the same direction as it orbits around the Earth in GEO. Most orbital behavior problems with the design can be studied by examining the design of Comsats for use in GEO, as this is basically one of those scaled up to huge size to where the microwaves are generating electrical power rather than just carrying communications signals. Pat
From: Sylvia Else on 16 Dec 2009 00:01 Jonathan wrote: > "BradGuth" <bradguth(a)gmail.com> wrote in message > news:6b4a5e28-24e8-423a-89d4-94a3d2e10e6a(a)x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > > >> 64% all-inclusive efficiency isn't half bad, > >> Getting so much created, deployed and serviced is likely going to >> consume most every megawatt of energy it produces, and then some. > >> Is this energy going to cost us $1/kw.h? > > It doesn't really matter, the greater benefit would be > the effect on all other energy sources. If it costs more than the other sources, then it won't have any effect on them. Sylvia.
From: tadchem on 16 Dec 2009 05:35
On Dec 14, 8:12 pm, Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6...(a)zen.co.uk> wrote: > tadchem wrote: > > On Dec 13, 11:18 am, Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6...(a)zen.co.uk> wrote: > >> tadchem wrote: > >>> [..] > >>> Nice, if there's somebody in orbit who can use 400 MW. > >>> If you want to use it planet-side, you have to get it down here. > >>> THAT creates problems. > >>> A storage device has mass, which brings all the transport problems of > >>> a safe re-entry and recovery. > >> Anti-matter? > > >>> A conduit would require materials with properties we have not > >>> developed yet. > >>> A beam would present an enormous safety and environmental hazard. You > >>> could cook an Airbus in milliseconds with a 400 megawatt microwave. > >>> That's about 200,000 heavy-duty microwave ovens - at once. > >> Not so, actually - an Airbus weighs about 400 tons, call the exposure 1 > >> kW/kg, or perhaps 1 degree C per second, so it would take several > >> minutes, not milliseconds, before the Airbus might start losing > >> structural strength. If it was flying rather than parked, the air would > >> cool it so much that it wouldn't be affected at all. > > > How long would the Airbus' avionics last in a 400 megawatt microwave > > beam? > > > You can't fly those crates by the seat-of-the-pants. Knock out the > > electronic fly-by-wire systems and the plane becomes a brick. > > Indeed, the power level in the beam is above the FAA standards - > aircraft would be required to avoid the area. > > However if there are only a few beams, say six in the US, and each > exclusion area would be about 15 miles across, and probably located far > from airports - not a big problem, eg you can't fly over Area 51 or > whatever nowadays. > > I was just pointing out that the aircraft, even a composite one, > wouldn't melt or anything like that! "Exclusion zones" are not foolproof. We have had several cases of unregulated aircraft inadvertently violating the Washington D.C. no- fly zone recently. I'm sure that would be of great consolation to the families of the victims. Tom Davidson Richmond, VA |