Pulling Solar Power from Space

After the shenanigans of the Copenhagen Climate Summit last week, its refreshing news to hear about some serious efforts undertaken by a Southern California company on the renewable energy front.

Solaren Corporation is talking about reaching up 22,000 miles above the earth’s surface, into outer space, for solar power.  There are two major benefits to this approach for solar energy: (1) no real estate fees, and (2) no cloud cover.

While these are sky-high aspirations, there are also some monumental challenges to solar power from space.  Solaren is drawing on decades of research regarding how to get all the components into space and then connect them in a cohesive system.

Solaren’s CEO noted:

“The thing in space was going to be so heavy, it was going to take hundreds or thousands of rockets to put in orbit and thousands of astronauts.”

Working with a number of engineers, Solaren set out to design an orbiting solar power plant light enough to be launched without great expense.  Instead of a single large power plant, the solution is to put separate modules together in a “geo-synchronous” neighborhood. Each component would serve a unique function, and communications/tracking would be through radar.

Solar Power from Space

Each of the components has a different function. First, a big mirror will collect and focus sunlight onto solar panels. The panels will beam energy to a giant antenna that then beams the solar power back to earth in the form of radio waves.  Because the basic technology is not new, Solaren expect that it will be pulling solar power from space by 2016.

Pacific Gas & Electric is on board already!  The utility signed the first commercial contract to purchase enough space solar power for 250,000 homes.  Jonathan Marshall, a PGE spokesperson stated:

“If it works, it could be a real game changer in the industry and indeed for the entire world. We’re paying only for the energy if and when its delivered. If they don’t deliver, we don’t pay.”

The biggest remaining question for Solaren is cost.  Although it can design and manufacture effective technology to beam solar power back to Earth, they have to be able to conduct a profitable business around the venture.

Somehow, I think they’ll get there!

The United States Pentagon is conducting a study on this subject, and NASA and the federal Department of Energy are also involved in looking into solar power from space. Preliminary estimates are that 1.2 million jobs could be created by developing space-based solar power  (SBSP) into a viable industry very soon.  As summarized on the National Space Society’s website, solar power from space can be obtained as follows:

“The basic idea is very straightforward: place very large solar arrays into continuously and intensely sunlit Earth orbit (1,366 watts/m²), collect gigawatts of electrical energy, electromagnetically beam it to Earth, and receive it on the surface for use either as baseload power via direct connection to the existing electrical grid, conversion into manufactured synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, or as low-intensity broadcast power beamed directly to consumers.”

Um, yeah.  That sounds pretty complicated to me.  To the right is a picture of the proposed sattelites, fitted with solar panels, which would collect solar power from space.

In order to get a better understanding of what would be required to get solar power from space, the following video was made.  Its creators call on the President-Elect to support their efforts, and they also hope to inspire students to become future engineers, scientists, researchers in the solar field.

Perhaps one of the most astounding facts I learned in preparing this post is that a single kilometer-wide band of the Earth’s orbit “experiences enough solar flux in one year to nearly equal the amount of energy contained within all known recoverable conventional oil reserves on Earth today.”  In other words, if we can start using solar power from space, in just one year we’ll gather enough energy than we ever could if we drilled every last bit of oil out of the ground.  With statistics like this, I don’t know why we wouldn’t pursue this incredible opportunity!

Equally important is the idea of job creation.  Today’s economy is in shambles, but one of the few remaining growing fields is in renewable energy.  Students could start preparing for a future in space-based solar power strategy.  Air Force Col. Michael “Coyote” Smith, a space-based solar power strategist, explains:

“A program to build space-based solar power technology would require people across hundreds of career tracks, ranging from electrical, mechanical, and aerospace engineers to metallurgists and welding technicians.”

Of course, one of the biggest stumbling blocks is the potential costs of solar power from space.  While the benefits include the fact of unobstructed view of the sun by the solar panels, as well as zero greenhouse emissions, the cost of constructing the satellites and launching them into space may be prohibitive.  For now.  Personally, I would love to see support for the research programs of the Pentagon, NASA and Department of Energy with respect to solar power from space.

Remember how people didn’t believe Kennedy when he said we could put a man on the moon?  I think the same leap of faith is required here.  This is one space race we cannot afford to lose.