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Martian solar energy production has a few "unique" challenges. Including - Dust - Supply chain - ~40% less watts/square meter Of these the most unproven is t

by lumost 6y ago

Martian solar energy production has a few "unique" challenges. Including - Dust - Supply chain - ~40% less watts/square meter Of these the most unproven is the supply chain problem. The link below summarizes why solar doesn't work in the short-term for mars habitation missions - it's an open question as to whether there are economically extractable deposits of silicon, cadmium, and other materials to build out a solar farm. Bear in mind, terrestrial resource extraction makes extensive use of water. https://medium.com/swlh/solar-power-is-never-going-to-work-on-mars-and-everybody-knows-it-b2fb221722b1 https://medium.com/swlh/solar-power-is-never-going-to-work-o...

Balgair 6y ago
The comparison would be for locally produced solar. We know that making solar panels on Earth is a net positive energy expenditure, from raw materials to recycle/disposal, and just barely so. But the cost of creation of solar panels on Mars is unknown relative to net energy expenditure. I'm fairly certain that it would be many decades, if not centuries, before it became net positive. Sending solar panels to Mars is obviously not a good use of Watts.
tachyonbeam 6y ago
I don't think it's that bad. The SpaceX Starship should be able to carry ~125 metric tons to Mars, and there will be cargo-only variants. You could ship ultralight flexible solar panels in each Starship. Even if it's 40% less energy than on earth, I would say that's still not bad. You could easily fit enough panels to get a 100KW array in 10 metric tons of payload. You use the batteries from the ship itself to store the power for night time. If each cargo Starship can bring one such array, then you will pretty quickly have a megawatt of power generation. It's not huge, but if you pay attention to energy efficiency, it's enough to power tools to dig, lighting, heating, rovers, etc. As for dust, the Mars rovers have shown it's not a real issue, wind removes most of it, and if we actually have people there, we can occasionally clean the arrays too. Would I rather bring a nuclear reactor to Mars? Sure, but I also think we can make it work with just solar if we have to.
robocat 6y ago
The most proven problem of solar is dust storms: “dust storms which can obscure the sun for weeks at a time, thereby rendering solar panels highly ineffective” without another complementary energy source (wind? energy storage?) see https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2001/01_72AR.html https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2001/01_72AR...

by lumost 6y ago

Balgair 6y ago

The comparison would be for locally produced solar. We know that making solar panels on Earth is a net positive energy expenditure, from raw materials to recycle/disposal, and just barely so. But the cost of creation of solar panels on Mars is unknown relative to net energy expenditure. I'm fairly certain that it would be many decades, if not centuries, before it became net positive. Sending solar panels to Mars is obviously not a good use of Watts.

tachyonbeam 6y ago

I don't think it's that bad. The SpaceX Starship should be able to carry ~125 metric tons to Mars, and there will be cargo-only variants. You could ship ultralight flexible solar panels in each Starship. Even if it's 40% less energy than on earth, I would say that's still not bad. You could easily fit enough panels to get a 100KW array in 10 metric tons of payload. You use the batteries from the ship itself to store the power for night time. If each cargo Starship can bring one such array, then you will pretty quickly have a megawatt of power generation. It's not huge, but if you pay attention to energy efficiency, it's enough to power tools to dig, lighting, heating, rovers, etc. As for dust, the Mars rovers have shown it's not a real issue, wind removes most of it, and if we actually have people there, we can occasionally clean the arrays too. Would I rather bring a nuclear reactor to Mars? Sure, but I also think we can make it work with just solar if we have to.

robocat 6y ago

The most proven problem of solar is dust storms: “dust storms which can obscure the sun for weeks at a time, thereby rendering solar panels highly ineffective” without another complementary energy source (wind? energy storage?) see https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2001/01_72AR.html https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2001/01_72AR...