4 ms·

Another perhaps even cooler and not so unrealistic that people are actually working on it, is building the solar farms out in space and beaming the energy down

Another perhaps even cooler and not so unrealistic that people are actually working on it, is building the solar farms out in space and beaming the energy down to where it’s needed! Edit: OK I looked it up again and there are two stages. The one that's having actual work done is beaming energy between two places on earth, but the space one is being "explored". https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/02/25/electricity-can-be-transmitted-through-the-air https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/02/25/...

folbec 5y ago
And the difference between a space solar farm and a military grade space ray is ? If you are beaming serous amount of energy toward earth, you better have a good answer to that. Or you will get the visit of very serious people with no sense of humor.
- henearkr 5y ago
  > is ? is the presence of failsafe mechanisms using lasers around the energy beam so that if any of these lasers are not anymore aligned with its receptors (or if they are interrupted by any obstacle) then the energy beam is immediately cut. It can even be implemented via optomechanical systems, to be better failure resilient.
  - vkou 5y ago
    That's not the problem. The problem is 'What assurance does the Department of State have that your space death ray is not going to be deliberately pointed at the next RNC?' and 'What assurances does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have that it is not going to be deliberately pointed at the May Day Parade?' You're incredibly unlikely to explain yourself to the satisfaction of both of those groups of people at the same time. Never mind that this is also a multiple-orders-of-magnitude-impractical means of generating energy.
    - WJW 5y ago
      Not to mention: - What assurances does the Department of Defense have that North Koreas orbital death ray will not cook the white house at any moment.
      - henearkr 5y ago
        Well obviously what I said only stands in non-dictatorship. I don't care to comment on the dictatorship case, that's bad anyway if they launch any satellite at all, we'll never know what's in, so that's not an actionable subject of discussion (except, shoot down all of their spacecrafts).
        vkou 5y ago
        Democracies have throughout history conducted plenty of assassinations, and started wars of aggression. Some of them have even killed a few hundred thousand people with firebombing and nuclear weapons. Any country with ASW capabilities would find it prudent to shoot this thing down, because there is no defense from it being used against it - with exactly zero warning.
        henearkr 5y ago
        Yes but again, the distinction is that, in democracies, such evil projects can only be conducted under military secret. So, any project conducted for the sake of energy production, i.e. in the civilian realm, would have no chance to include these elements of aggression. Heck, in democracies, even for military projects that are too evil, there are whistleblowers. Especially in high-tech projects, because among scientists there is quite a bit this kind of mindset.
    - henearkr 5y ago
      That's just baseless fear from the moment that the system has been designed to be safe. Plus, you can count on the bazillion scientists working on it to whistleblow any sticks that would have been put in their wheels during the design if the military wanted to middle. There are only two kinds of projects: secret projects for the military, and civil projects where the design and the safety are pretty much the thing of hundreds engineers not bound by military oaths.
- adwn 5y ago
  > And the difference between a space solar farm and a military grade space ray is ? And the difference between an airliner and a cruise missile is? And the difference between a rocket and an ICBM is? By your argument, we wouldn't be using those technologies. And yet we do, on a daily basis.
  - folbec 5y ago
    You will notice that ballistic missiles are regulated. Rocket launch are very publicly announced (and tracked). The known reaction time window of a ballistic missile is ~15 minutes (for russia) to 30m (for the USA) and is already too short, leading to near russian launch at least once that we know of. The reaction time for any space based weapon is down to minutes to seconds. Putting them into orbit is already a war declaration. This is not something that will be allowed without heavy international control and multi national regulation.
pjc50 5y ago
Given the astronomical amount of energy required for launch, this will almost certainly never even break even on energy.
- f00zz 5y ago
  The idea in those 1970s proposals was to build power satellites with materials mined on the Moon. I guess this sounded more realistic back when the Apollo landings were still within living memory.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    OK, so add the cost of building a lunar factory and the breakeven gets worse, not better. (Most of the 1970s proposals are basically pleas for funding with cool Syd Mead concept art attached, they were never mathematically feasible even in their own era without some other breakthroughs)
rasputnik6502 5y ago
The Sun is beaming free energy to Earth already. If it's not enough then humans should become extinct as a species unfit to live in Solar system
- khuey 5y ago
  There's value in concentrating the energy so that you don't have to cover the entire planet in solar panels.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    0.2% of the surface area of land on the planet, when covered in solar panels would produce enough energy to power the entire planet.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  The energy in fossil fuels also comes from the sun. Apart from geothermal, it's all sourced from solar, just different ways of storing and extracting that solar energy.
f00zz 5y ago
That idea has been around for a long time: https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-3-power-from-space/ https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-3-power-from...

folbec 5y ago

And the difference between a space solar farm and a military grade space ray is ? If you are beaming serous amount of energy toward earth, you better have a good answer to that. Or you will get the visit of very serious people with no sense of humor.

henearkr 5y ago
> is ? is the presence of failsafe mechanisms using lasers around the energy beam so that if any of these lasers are not anymore aligned with its receptors (or if they are interrupted by any obstacle) then the energy beam is immediately cut. It can even be implemented via optomechanical systems, to be better failure resilient.
- vkou 5y ago
  That's not the problem. The problem is 'What assurance does the Department of State have that your space death ray is not going to be deliberately pointed at the next RNC?' and 'What assurances does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have that it is not going to be deliberately pointed at the May Day Parade?' You're incredibly unlikely to explain yourself to the satisfaction of both of those groups of people at the same time. Never mind that this is also a multiple-orders-of-magnitude-impractical means of generating energy.
  - WJW 5y ago
    Not to mention: - What assurances does the Department of Defense have that North Koreas orbital death ray will not cook the white house at any moment.
    - henearkr 5y ago
      Well obviously what I said only stands in non-dictatorship. I don't care to comment on the dictatorship case, that's bad anyway if they launch any satellite at all, we'll never know what's in, so that's not an actionable subject of discussion (except, shoot down all of their spacecrafts).
      - vkou 5y ago
        Democracies have throughout history conducted plenty of assassinations, and started wars of aggression. Some of them have even killed a few hundred thousand people with firebombing and nuclear weapons. Any country with ASW capabilities would find it prudent to shoot this thing down, because there is no defense from it being used against it - with exactly zero warning.
        henearkr 5y ago
        Yes but again, the distinction is that, in democracies, such evil projects can only be conducted under military secret. So, any project conducted for the sake of energy production, i.e. in the civilian realm, would have no chance to include these elements of aggression. Heck, in democracies, even for military projects that are too evil, there are whistleblowers. Especially in high-tech projects, because among scientists there is quite a bit this kind of mindset.
  - henearkr 5y ago
    That's just baseless fear from the moment that the system has been designed to be safe. Plus, you can count on the bazillion scientists working on it to whistleblow any sticks that would have been put in their wheels during the design if the military wanted to middle. There are only two kinds of projects: secret projects for the military, and civil projects where the design and the safety are pretty much the thing of hundreds engineers not bound by military oaths.
adwn 5y ago
> And the difference between a space solar farm and a military grade space ray is ? And the difference between an airliner and a cruise missile is? And the difference between a rocket and an ICBM is? By your argument, we wouldn't be using those technologies. And yet we do, on a daily basis.
- folbec 5y ago
  You will notice that ballistic missiles are regulated. Rocket launch are very publicly announced (and tracked). The known reaction time window of a ballistic missile is ~15 minutes (for russia) to 30m (for the USA) and is already too short, leading to near russian launch at least once that we know of. The reaction time for any space based weapon is down to minutes to seconds. Putting them into orbit is already a war declaration. This is not something that will be allowed without heavy international control and multi national regulation.

pjc50 5y ago

Given the astronomical amount of energy required for launch, this will almost certainly never even break even on energy.

f00zz 5y ago
The idea in those 1970s proposals was to build power satellites with materials mined on the Moon. I guess this sounded more realistic back when the Apollo landings were still within living memory.
- pjc50 5y ago
  OK, so add the cost of building a lunar factory and the breakeven gets worse, not better. (Most of the 1970s proposals are basically pleas for funding with cool Syd Mead concept art attached, they were never mathematically feasible even in their own era without some other breakthroughs)

rasputnik6502 5y ago

The Sun is beaming free energy to Earth already. If it's not enough then humans should become extinct as a species unfit to live in Solar system

khuey 5y ago
There's value in concentrating the energy so that you don't have to cover the entire planet in solar panels.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  0.2% of the surface area of land on the planet, when covered in solar panels would produce enough energy to power the entire planet.
rsj_hn 5y ago
The energy in fossil fuels also comes from the sun. Apart from geothermal, it's all sourced from solar, just different ways of storing and extracting that solar energy.

f00zz 5y ago

That idea has been around for a long time: https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-3-power-from-space/ https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-3-power-from...