Harvesting Energy By Beaming It Down From Space
Light is an essential element in our everyday life and Pranav Mehta agrees with this completely. He is the director of India operations for Space Island Group and lives in one village called Guajarat that is considered to be one of the most flourishing Indian states. But around it there are plenty rural villages with no electricity.
This is without any doubt a big problem in India and the government has to empower this region. According to India’s Planning Commission plans, by 2030 India will be able to cover the general demand by producing an extra 700,000 megawatts of power. For this to become true, they will use cool-fired power plants. A mega complex will be built in South of Tunda Wand and will cost no less than $4 billion (this being only the first one).
Even if this seems to be a viable option, Mehta thinks that the answer might consist in sun-gathering satellites in geosynchronous orbits.
Like this, gigawatts of solar energy will be turned into electricity and transferred to power grids. The satellites stay in direct sun-light 365 days/ year and they can provide non-stop electricity.
This idea of space solar power goes back to 1968 and it was introduced first by the American scientist Peter Glaser. After years of studies, NASA and the United States Department came to the conclusion that this process is too expensive. According to John Mankins, the president of the Space Power Association, costs will hit $1 trillion.
In the ’90s NASA’s “Fresh Look” study was stopped because they decided they don’t want to continue this research.
The opinions go both ways. Charles Miller, a director of the Space Frontier Foundation believes that the environment is waiting for this to happen and not it’s the perfect time to start this.
Nowadays, the people are interested once again in the solar energy and that is caused manly by the high oil price or changes of climate. Pentagon’s National Security Space Office released a report in 2007 supporting the development of space power systems. It said that only one kilometer-wide band of geosynchronous Earth orbit will provide an equal amount of energy with all oil reserves in the world. Another benefit is that solar energy from satellites can supply energy to developing nations and to disaster areas.
The country that will provide energy for the next 100 years will be will be the first one in line on space solar power.
Until now, Pentagon reported that Russia, India, China and European Union are interested in these ideas. Another important country in this matter is Japan because in the last decades they spent millions of dollars into space power studies.
Until then, there are a few engineering challenges that must be surmounted and the main one is the access in space that is still very expensive. After that, the robotic technology must be developed and supported and all this is translated in millions and millions of dollars.
Despite that, scientists are optimistic thinking that all this can become real in the next 10 years.
Source: CNN.com
