A renaissance for space solar power?

noosfractal · 2007-08-18 01:35:46

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/931/1

...
In recent months, however, a new potential champion for space solar power has emerged, and from a somewhat unlikely quarter. Over the lasts several months the National Security Space Office (NSSO) has been conducting a study about the feasibility of space solar power, with an eye towards military applications but also in broader terms of economic and national security.

Air Force Lt. Col. Michael “Coyote” Smith, leading the NSSO study, said during a session about space solar power at the NewSpace 2007 conference in Arlington, Virginia last month that the project had its origins in a study last year that identified energy, and the competition for it, as the pathway to “the worst nightmare war we could face in the 21st century.” If the United States is able to secure energy independence in the form of alternative, clean energy sources, he said, “that will buy us a form of security that would be phenomenal.”

At the same time, the DOD has been looking at alternative fuels and energy sources, given the military’s voracious appetite for energy, and the high expense—in dollars as well as lives—in getting that energy to troops deployed in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Soldiers, he noted, use the equivalent of one AA battery an hour while deployed to power all their devices. The total cost of a gallon of fuel delivered to troops in the field, shipped via a long and, in places, dangerous supply chain, can run between $300 and $800, he said, the higher cost taking into account the death benefits of soldiers killed in attacks on convoys shipping the fuel.

“The military would like nothing better than to have highly mobile energy sources that can provide our forces with some form of energy in those forward areas,” Smith said. One way to do that, he said, is with space solar power, something that Smith and a few fellow officers had been looking at in their spare time. They gave a briefing on the subject to Maj. Gen. James Armor, the head of the NSSO, who agreed earlier this year to commission a study on the feasibility of space solar power.
...

[ Sweet! That could bootstrap everything. ]

John Creighton · 2007-08-20 08:24:10

It sounds pretty cool. You know what the conspiracy theorists are going to say. They'll say the soldiers are getting sick because the government is beaming space radiation down on them. I wonder how small a collector they can use and how easy it will be to set up? Will the space beam give away their military position?

noosfractal · 2007-08-20 09:03:07

I wonder how small a collector they can use and how easy it will be to set up?

~10 km^2 with microwave. Hmmm, guess they'd better go with laser.

Will the space beam give away their military position?

Depends on how sophisticated the opponent is. Good thought though.

BTW, they're discussing it publicly here ...

http://spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/

John Creighton · 2007-08-20 12:34:08

I wonder how small a collector they can use and how easy it will be to set up?
~10 km^2 with microwave. Hmmm, guess they'd better go with laser.
Will the space beam give away their military position?
Depends on how sophisticated the opponent is. Good thought though.
BTW, they're discussing it publicly here ...
http://spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/

I found this interesting:

"In the general soup of contemporary alternate energy discussions, diode laser beamers in geostationary orbit are a total game-changer for demonstrating space based solar power experimentally. We can build and test them now. Can we beam electricity into Iraq even as the insurgency blows up power lines? Can’t say now how much it might cost, but it’s certainly feasible in principle. My predilections are to demonstrate beaming power to some poor African village, winning the hearts and minds of our brothers and sisters in the developing world, as opposed to blasting them to bits, as some will certainly accuse developers of laser power beaming of. But the thing about any new technology is that you really can’t say at the outset where exactly it will go. What we can say with some assurance that no one has a clue how to build a small, cheap fusion reactor that would work. But we can almost certainly build an SSP with laser beaming now that would work; and build it small enough to fit into a single launch vehicle payload at a small fraction of the cost of ITER, or for that matter of FutureGen (DoE’s proposed coal-gasification to electricity and hydrogen pilot plant with CO2 sequestered), or one of DoE’s new design Gen IV fission reactors on the drawing boards. So I want to strongly agree with Jordin Kare’s comments on a the viability of an laser SSP demo expressed in his E-Mail below."
http://spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/20 … e/#more-54

I wonder, some new cities in India have trouble meting power demands. If a business could set up a receiver on the roof they would be assured reliable power (atleast for sunny days)

John Creighton · 2007-08-20 12:43:38

I this puts the economics somewhat in perspective:

"First, 5MW is the power on orbit. Jay Penn has suggested that there 30% efficiency is achievable for end-to-end transmission efficiency. That is 1.5MW continuous on the ground.

Next, there are 8760 hours per year. If you assume 98% uptime (2% in shadows), that is 8585 hours of power delivered at 1.5 MW.

or 12.877 MILLION kwh delivered per year.

at $15 per kwh that is $189 Million revenue per year.

at $80 per kwh that is $1 Billion in revenue per year.

I am assuming that the DOD likes the lower end of the spectrum much more.

For just one operational 5 MW power system. If the service provider starts building these systems in series, pretty soon we are talking about real money.

The next issue is how much it will cost to build these systems in orbit. We still need to do that work.

Personally, I believe we are in the neighborhood of closing the business case. If the DOD is willing to pay $1B per year, the case probably closes using existing LVs. Assuming the DOD wants to pay on the lower end of the spectrum, we probably need much lower cost launch (reusable spaceplanes). A national investment in spaceplanes will deliver one more benefit to our nation. Other recommended policies that would lower the cost per kwh to the DOD are investment tax credits (for companies investing in this high risk industry), tax holidays (Zero G, Zero Tax), and access to low cost debt (in the form loan guarantees on the demand side, after the technology has been proven.)"
http://spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/20 … iscussion/

noosfractal · 2007-08-21 04:22:24

I found this interesting:

This document ...

http://spacesolarpower.files.wordpress. … _f2391.doc

... referenced in that post contains all the latest advances - 4300 W/kg thin film solar, Landis' integrated solid state laser, solar sail type 5 g/m^2 mass loading. Very nice.

This is exactly where they need to be going on this. These have to be gossamer structures. Launch costs will kill anything else.

John Creighton · 2007-08-21 08:50:31

I found this interesting:
This document ...
http://spacesolarpower.files.wordpress. … _f2391.doc
... referenced in that post contains all the latest advances - 4300 W/kg thin film solar, Landis' integrated solid state laser, solar sail type 5 g/m^2 mass loading. Very nice.
This is exactly where they need to be going on this. These have to be gossamer structures. Launch costs will kill anything else.

I'll look at it later. Anyway, is it worth 80 cents per killowat hour? I suppose logistically supplying gas or batteries could be hard but in terms of cost I think it would be much cheaper to just ship fuel to a generator. Anyway, at 1 billion dollar revenue per year that would be about a 10 billion dollar system at 10% a rate of return (which is reasonable). Do we think it would cost more or less then 10 billion to produce a 1.5 MW system? HOw much power does the international space station produce? Would this system be much cheaper per killowhat produced then the international space station? If they could build a 1.5 MW system for 1 billion dollars then they'd be laughing.

noosfractal · 2007-08-21 09:39:46

I think it would be much cheaper to just ship fuel to a generator.

This is less cheap in a war zone.

Do we think it would cost more or less then 10 billion to produce a 1.5 MW system?

This guy ...

http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/a_fr … gies.shtml

... says a cost to first power of $8-15 billion for a 250 MW system, with a 30 year lifetime cost of $50-60 billion.

But this is for a massive structure (the cabling and power management masses more than the old school solar cells, and the whole thing is thousands of tonnes). I don't think anyone has seriously proposed/priced a gossamer design.

HOw much power does the international space station produce?

110 kW

Would this system be much cheaper per killowhat produced then the international space station?

Yeah, no comparison.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2007-08-18 01:35:46

Re: A renaissance for space solar power?

#2 2007-08-20 08:24:10

Re: A renaissance for space solar power?

#3 2007-08-20 09:03:07

Re: A renaissance for space solar power?

#4 2007-08-20 12:34:08

Re: A renaissance for space solar power?

#5 2007-08-20 12:43:38

Re: A renaissance for space solar power?

#6 2007-08-21 04:22:24

Re: A renaissance for space solar power?

#7 2007-08-21 08:50:31

Re: A renaissance for space solar power?

#8 2007-08-21 09:39:46

Re: A renaissance for space solar power?

Board footer