Solar Power Collector Satellite
Regardless of the debate over solar panels in the Mojave Desert, California soon could be powered by solar energy from a unique source. That’s right, the Golden State is reaching for solar energy from space.
Led by the San Francisco-based utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, residents of California may soon be benefiting from the efforts of Solaren Corporation, a solar start-up, to tap into the vast solar resources just beyond the atmosphere. The proposed project would require the launch of a huge array of solar power collectors into orbit about 23,000 miles above the surface of Earth.
With the California proposal, solar energy would be beamed down from the satellite. A contract between PG&E and Solaren requires the new technology to work, of course! Hopefully, it will be a huge success as the goal is to power over 150,000 homes with the space-based solar energy.
Space-based solar power on the horizon
You may be wondering about the cost for such an ambitious project? Currently, ballpark figures are over $2 billion. However, with the advancing technology, solar power from space is expected to be comparable with Earth-based energy, but much cleaner.
This technology is not yet here, but is expected by the year 2016. It is hoped that the project will bring the state a step closer to the goal of 20% renewable energy by 2012, which rises to 30% by 2030.
Whether you think this is “pie in the sky” or achievable, you can at least look to the fact that space-based solar power has been the energy source for commercial satellites for 30-40 years.
Let’s beam that power back down to Earth, don’t you agree?
Tags: california solar power, pacific gas and electric, solar energy from space, solaren corporation, space-based solar power
June 16th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Talk about doublethink! They want us to believe that burning fossil fuels is causing global warming so we switch to solar, wind, geothermal, etc. People’s perception of capturing solar energy for electricity production is squeaky clean. So how could solar panels in space be any different? Well I’ll tell you.
Solar energy is being diverted to the earth that would normally pass it by.
This idea certainly would cause man made global warming since the earth would be receiving more solar energy than it would naturally. It doesn’t matter that it’s being converted to radio waves for transmission. Energy is energy. It cannot be created or destroyed. Once that extra energy is here on earth, it’s up to the earth to rid itself of it. There’s no debating that this idea would cause man made global warming.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:21 am
There are already sufficient amounts of solar energy hitting the earth’s surface that we can harness. What we need to work on is better energy storage. There exists today upper and lower reservoirs where water is pumped up when demand is low, and allowed to flow down to produce electricity when the demand is high.
We need smaller residential type systems so that the stored energy is close to the consumer, reducing the need for transmission lines over long distances. I don’t like the idea of conventional batteries because you have to dispose of them when they die. A system of electrolyzing water, storage and fuel cell would be more desirable.
I really hope this idea gets shut down before any large amounts of money are wasted on it.