5 ms·

So like all technological achievements, things will improve so the amount of power that can be transmitted will increase and the distance will increase. At som

So like all technological achievements, things will improve so the amount of power that can be transmitted will increase and the distance will increase. At some point in the future it might become feasible to beam the energy down from a Low Earth Orbiting Satellite, which would transfer logistical costs into the preemptive side of accountancy instead of reactionary accountancy, but if they could do this from a LEO, then perhaps its also become a bit of a non ballistics weapon which may not be covered/restrained by current international agreements.

FredPret 4y ago
There is a power plant in Sim City that operates on this principle. Would be cool to have a nuclear reactor in orbit!
- Terry_Roll 4y ago
  Tesla built the means to transmit power in the early 1900's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power_transfer#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power_transfer#Histor... I would imagine alot of Radio transmitting knowledge would be useful in this domain of knowledge.
  - uuyi 4y ago
    Ex RF engineer here. No he didn’t. He was a con man.
    - Terry_Roll 4y ago
      I thought he had actually built that tower, tv documentaries portray him as a genius who invented stuff but wasn't commercially successful.
      - uuyi 4y ago
        It was built but that’s not the real story. Ignore the TV documentaries. The real story was the tower was built for information not power delivery. But Marconi got there first and made it irrelevant. Tesla decided to repurpose the thinking around some fanciful bullshit for power delivery to pay off all the money he’d borrowed to build it. This cycled into non delivery, because quite frankly it didn’t work, and he ended up bankrupt, living in a hotel for free after giving the hotel owner a “death ray” for security. This turned out to be some primitive measurement device. Tesla did a lot of good work on AC power delivery however. But that was it. I’d rather remember him for this than the legendary bullshit.
DennisP 4y ago
Most solar power satellite designs put the sat in geostationary, which simplifies things dramatically. It makes the power density low enough at ground level that birds can fly through the beam without harm. The receiver has to be several square kilometers but it's mostly antenna wire. The transmitter would be a phased array antenna, and getting even that much focus would require a reference signal transmitted from the ground station.
- walrus01 4y ago
  In my opinion by the time you're going to the trouble to clear a flat plot of land and get into the construction project of erecting a several square km sized receiver array, you might as well just go whole-hog on commodity ground mount photovoltaics on the same area of land. And totally eliminate the cost of the satellite. There's plenty of contractors out there who specialize in building such things from existing COTS systems/subsystems and components. Look at the specifications and size of some of the large ground mount PV systems in China and India. Margins are very thin in this business and very competitive on $ per kWh feed-in tariff rates paid to contracted systems. The construction process has been optimized to nearly as good as it can get now. Labor is a major cost.
  - DennisP 4y ago
    And add the cost of batteries.
    - walrus01 4y ago
      doesn't necessarily have to have batteries, as in many common installations, daytime PV is used to flatten the curve of fuel consumed by regional coal, gas, other fossil fuel power plants servicing the daytime peak of load demand. Conveniently enough in many places with hot weather when the peak of load demand is occurring mid afternoon with everybody's air conditioner running, the PV system is also performing at its best. Or can be connected to something long distance similar in tech to the pacific HVDC inter-tie to move power long distances to where it's needed, or can be used to pump water uphill in a nearby pumped-storage hydroelectric system.

FredPret 4y ago

There is a power plant in Sim City that operates on this principle. Would be cool to have a nuclear reactor in orbit!

Terry_Roll 4y ago
Tesla built the means to transmit power in the early 1900's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power_transfer#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power_transfer#Histor... I would imagine alot of Radio transmitting knowledge would be useful in this domain of knowledge.
- uuyi 4y ago
  Ex RF engineer here. No he didn’t. He was a con man.
  - Terry_Roll 4y ago
    I thought he had actually built that tower, tv documentaries portray him as a genius who invented stuff but wasn't commercially successful.
    - uuyi 4y ago
      It was built but that’s not the real story. Ignore the TV documentaries. The real story was the tower was built for information not power delivery. But Marconi got there first and made it irrelevant. Tesla decided to repurpose the thinking around some fanciful bullshit for power delivery to pay off all the money he’d borrowed to build it. This cycled into non delivery, because quite frankly it didn’t work, and he ended up bankrupt, living in a hotel for free after giving the hotel owner a “death ray” for security. This turned out to be some primitive measurement device. Tesla did a lot of good work on AC power delivery however. But that was it. I’d rather remember him for this than the legendary bullshit.

DennisP 4y ago

Most solar power satellite designs put the sat in geostationary, which simplifies things dramatically. It makes the power density low enough at ground level that birds can fly through the beam without harm. The receiver has to be several square kilometers but it's mostly antenna wire. The transmitter would be a phased array antenna, and getting even that much focus would require a reference signal transmitted from the ground station.

walrus01 4y ago
In my opinion by the time you're going to the trouble to clear a flat plot of land and get into the construction project of erecting a several square km sized receiver array, you might as well just go whole-hog on commodity ground mount photovoltaics on the same area of land. And totally eliminate the cost of the satellite. There's plenty of contractors out there who specialize in building such things from existing COTS systems/subsystems and components. Look at the specifications and size of some of the large ground mount PV systems in China and India. Margins are very thin in this business and very competitive on $ per kWh feed-in tariff rates paid to contracted systems. The construction process has been optimized to nearly as good as it can get now. Labor is a major cost.
- DennisP 4y ago
  And add the cost of batteries.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    doesn't necessarily have to have batteries, as in many common installations, daytime PV is used to flatten the curve of fuel consumed by regional coal, gas, other fossil fuel power plants servicing the daytime peak of load demand. Conveniently enough in many places with hot weather when the peak of load demand is occurring mid afternoon with everybody's air conditioner running, the PV system is also performing at its best. Or can be connected to something long distance similar in tech to the pacific HVDC inter-tie to move power long distances to where it's needed, or can be used to pump water uphill in a nearby pumped-storage hydroelectric system.