Europe's Largest Space Corp to launch Solar Power Satellite
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From: Jonathan on 11 Mar 2010 20:12 Infrared laser transmission? European space company wants solar power plant in space January 21, 2010 by Lin Edwards "PhysOrg.com) -- EADS Astrium, Europe's biggest space company, plans to put a solar power satellite in orbit to demonstrate the collection of solar power in space and its transmission via infrared laser to provide electricity on Earth." http://www.physorg.com/news183278937.html
From: Brian Gaff on 12 Mar 2010 04:46 I've never quite understood the way this can work. Unless you can diffuse the output over a large area, you are going to cause atmospheric heating. If you do use large area collection, the its going to be very expensive in the ground station department and even at low density is going to have to be no go areas for aviation. Presumably, you would need a site where no cloud cover ever occurs, which presumably means high? Brian -- Brian Gaff - briang1(a)blueyonder.co.uk Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff' in the display name may be lost. Blind user, so no pictures please! "Jonathan" <Home(a)Again.net> wrote in message news:yMKdnW8B2b_bCATWnZ2dnUVZ_jOdnZ2d(a)giganews.com... > > Infrared laser transmission? > > > European space company wants solar power plant in space > January 21, 2010 by Lin Edwards > > "PhysOrg.com) -- EADS Astrium, Europe's biggest space company, plans to > put a solar power satellite in orbit to demonstrate the collection of > solar power in space and its transmission via infrared laser to provide > electricity on Earth." > > http://www.physorg.com/news183278937.html
From: Pat Flannery on 12 Mar 2010 11:18 On 3/12/2010 1:46 AM, Brian Gaff wrote: Presumably, you would need a site where no cloud > cover ever occurs, which presumably means high? The beam might just cut its way through any intervening clouds by heating the water vapor in them back up over its condensation point. Pat
From: Brian Gaff on 12 Mar 2010 16:39 If you do that you are losing energy in heating the water though. I'd have thought a frequency more akin to microwaves would have been better for that. Of course if they want to use focussed beams they need to unearth the stuff done in the 70s and 80s by the US Defense department on the attempted use of lasers as weapons. The problem was that the turbulance created by the beam defocussed it just like we see with starlight. I doubt adaptive optics could help you there. Brian -- Brian Gaff - briang1(a)blueyonder.co.uk Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff' in the display name may be lost. Blind user, so no pictures please! "Pat Flannery" <flanner(a)daktel.com> wrote in message news:2Z-dnZ9sZJOf0AfWnZ2dnUVZ_roAAAAA(a)posted.northdakotatelephone... > On 3/12/2010 1:46 AM, Brian Gaff wrote: > Presumably, you would need a site where no cloud >> cover ever occurs, which presumably means high? > > The beam might just cut its way through any intervening clouds by heating > the water vapor in them back up over its condensation point. > > Pat
From: Pat Flannery on 12 Mar 2010 22:39
On 3/12/2010 1:39 PM, Brian Gaff wrote: > If you do that you are losing energy in heating the water though. > > I'd have thought a frequency more akin to microwaves would have been better > for that. So would I; this is the first time I've heard lasers floated as a serious proposal rather than microwaves, although the laser concept has been discussed from time-to-time. It's clumsy though, as it works like this: Sunlight > electrical power > laser generation > laser reception > steam turbine > electrical power. Whereas the microwave one works like this: Sunlight > electrical power > conversion into microwaves > reconversion into electricity. Your adding a whole extra step by turning the sunlight into a electricity and then back into light again, and that's not good from a total efficiency point of view. The best of all would just be to reflect the sunlight down to the Earth's surface where it would fall onto a solar power plant's arrays and illuminate them at night to the same degree they are lit up in daylight, while doubling their power output during the daylight hours. Far cheaper than either alternative is simply to build a larger solar power plant on the Earth's surface and skip the very expensive space-based part of the equation. If they ever come up with superconducting power transmission cables the whole equation shifts markedly, as then the whole world can be electrically interconnected with power being transferred from the day half to the night half as needed. > > Of course if they want to use focussed beams they need to unearth the stuff > done in the 70s and 80s by the US Defense department on the attempted use > of lasers as weapons. The problem was that the turbulance created by the > beam defocussed it just like we see with starlight. The blooming of the beam only occurred when it heated the air up into plasma, I don't think they have that high of energy flux in mind for this project. Consider for a second what would happen if you made a conductive plasma path clean through the Earth's atmosphere, connecting the charged ionosphere to the surface, like shorting out a giant capacitor. Because I suspect it would make a lightning storm look pretty mild by comparison. Pat |