Better than Spielberg: Solar in Space

October 13, 2007 at 4:16 pm | Posted in Solar | 1 Comment
Tags: government, military, pentagon, Solar, space

Everyone is investing in solar power these days. There are plenty of options to chose from — traditional, thin-film, concentrated, and solar thermal — but one of the major problems with solar technology is figuring out where to put it.

Sure, houses and other buildings can be adorned with the sun-collecting panels, but that just doesn’t produce enough energy to power our entire country. You can put solar panels in the desert, but then how do you get the power to the folks living in Maine? Here’s another idea — put those solar panels in space.

A Pentagon-chartered report that came out this week is urging the U.S. to take the lead in developing space platforms that can capture sunlight and beam electrical power back to earth. It sounds like a concept taken straight out of a sci-fi novel, but it’s also not a bad idea. Too bad it won’t work.

The report, “Space-Based Solar Power as an Opportunity for Strategic Security” basically calls for the building of a giant solar collector in space built on a platform “bigger than the international space station and capable of beaming five to 10 megawatts of power to a receiving station on the ground,” according to Fox News.

Those 5-10 megawatts won’t do much for reducing our dependence on foreign oil, but it’ll be a start.

Really, though, it seems that the Pentagon is backing this idea for the military. Say what? The U.S. military would also benefit from the space solar station, since it could beam energy direct to the battlefield.

Apparently the Pentagon is unlikely to fund this research for that purpose alone, so it’s instead asking NASA or the Department of Energy to fund the project and do the research. Um, I’m pretty sure they’re busy funding projects that might produce a bit more energy ROI. I’ll give this dream team credit, they’ve at least got a pretty good argument that this research belongs in the hands of space or energy scientists, and not those focusing on direct military applications.

“One of the major findings was that space-based solar power does present strategic opportunity for us in the 21st century. It can advance our U.S. and partner security capability and freedom of action and merits significant additional study and demonstration on the part of the United States so we can help either the United State s develop this, or allow the commercial sector to step up.” — U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Paul Damphousse of the National Space Security Space Office

But what I’m not sure about is just how much energy these space stations can produce. Even if they figure out how to make five to 10 megawatts of power that can be beamed to the earth, that’s nothing. And how much will the energy produced by those solar stations cost?