Space Based Solar Power the Energy of the Future?
source: http://globalwarming.change.org/blog/view/space_based_solar_power_the_energy_of_the_future_a...
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- pjacobs51
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Of course, the Space Solar Power people promise to do things in an environmentally friendly way. But in a country in which people think that overhead power lines give them cancer, which state is going to welcome having about 100 square kilometers bathed in microwave energy??? What does beaming microwave energy through the atmosphere do to the atmosphere? Does it heat the atmosphere at all? Wouldnt that sort of defeat the purpose of global warming?
Your microwave oven works by heating the water molecules in food. Will microwave energy from space pass through clouds? Will it be absorbed? Refracted? Reflected? If it is absorbed, what happens to the clouds?
In our house we use the microwave to sterilize our kitchen sponges. What will the microwave energy do to the soil around the receiving antenna?
The report from the National Security Space Office states that the antenna in orbit will be 8.5 km in diameter. At a distance of 35405km, that will cover a disc of about 54 arcseconds in diameter, as large as the planet Venus. With the addition of the rest of the powersat structure (based on an eyeball estimate of the diagram in the NSSO report), the whole thing might cover 90 arcseconds, about 1/20th the diameter of the full moon. What will its visible magnitude be at its brightest, when the sunlight hits it just right? What does the astronomy community think about a fleet of these along the celestial equator?
I would hate to gain free electrical power and lose the night sky in the bargain.
Your microwave oven works by heating the water molecules in food. Will microwave energy from space pass through clouds? Will it be absorbed? Refracted? Reflected? If it is absorbed, what happens to the clouds?
In our house we use the microwave to sterilize our kitchen sponges. What will the microwave energy do to the soil around the receiving antenna?
The report from the National Security Space Office states that the antenna in orbit will be 8.5 km in diameter. At a distance of 35405km, that will cover a disc of about 54 arcseconds in diameter, as large as the planet Venus. With the addition of the rest of the powersat structure (based on an eyeball estimate of the diagram in the NSSO report), the whole thing might cover 90 arcseconds, about 1/20th the diameter of the full moon. What will its visible magnitude be at its brightest, when the sunlight hits it just right? What does the astronomy community think about a fleet of these along the celestial equator?
I would hate to gain free electrical power and lose the night sky in the bargain.
