4 ms·

Fossil Fuels Are Dead

lproven 4y ago
Disclaimer: Charlie is a friend of mine, but OTOH, that gives me some personal insight into his thinking. And I think he has a great mind. Saying that, this is one of the most shocking blog posts by anyone I've ever read. Yes, it was a year ago now, but this is cilivization-saving level stuff, if Charlie is right and Musk makes it work.
leereeves 4y ago
So these orbital power stations would be in high orbit, capturing sunlight 24/7, and transmitting it to Earth via microwave radiation. That's energy (and heat) that would otherwise have passed by Earth, now entering Earth's biosphere. What would that do to the climate?
- GenerocUsername 4y ago
  I'm fairly certain current global warming concerns are not caused by heat generation but by heat retention. And we do generate a lot of heat via fossil fuels. So generating additional heat (adding heat to the system) is not a current or future concern as long as heat retention stops growing
  - lven 4y ago
    Doesn't matter if the heat is coming from burning more fossils or nuclear fuels or intercepting more solar light - the effect on Earth's temeperature is negligible for now. You can do simple heat balance with Stefan Boltzman Law to show that the temperature of the Earth would increase by less than a tenth of a degree even if we burned 10x more fossil or nuclear fuels. The idea is that all the energy received and and generated on Earth must be reraridated at the Earth's blackbody temperature, and it only changes as the power to the 1/4th - so very small compared to the absolute temperature of the Earth ~300K, and the changes (e.g. seasons).
- picsao 4y ago
- jbotz 4y ago
  Well, first off this energy would be initially replacing energy that was previously coming from fossil fuels, so on account of that not much. But, as Stross points out there is a 70% loss in transmission, and presumably most of that ends up as heat in the atmosphere. Now as to the question of how significant is the waste heat from that energy? I once did a ball-park calculation in which I determined that something like 4% of global heating comes not from greenhouse effect but from waste heat[1]. If that's right, then if we replace all of our energy usage with space-based solar of which only 1/3 makes it to earth and the rest is turned to waste heat we'd be be down to about 12% of current (combined green-house and waste heat) global heating. That's seems like a huge win, and we'd have enough energy to spare to start extracting CO2 from the atmosphere until we even compensate for that. [1] I can't find my calculations right now, and I'd love for someone to independently check that.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    > that something like 4% of global heating comes not from greenhouse effect but from waste heat Amount is a subjet of the methodology, but to understand that there is a significant amount of, essentially, heating up of the street someone doesn't even need a fancy IR camera.
AzzieElbab 4y ago
Mandatory- fossil fuels have been dead for millions of years.
- mxkopy 4y ago
  Cackling maniacally, foaming at the mouth, thrashing against the restraints as though welcoming broken flesh, screaming in profane mirth - "HOW CAN FOSSILS DIE IF THEY'RE ALREADY SKELETONS"
  - downvotetruth 4y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qs_4hTMFweI https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qs_4hTMFweI
bryanlarsen 4y ago
I don't think Space Based Solar Power is going to be economically viable, even if Starship can launch for $2M per. It's not because Charlie is wrong, it's because ground based solar and storage batteries have gotten incredibly cheap and Wright's law is going to make them even more incredibly cheap in the future. https://www.tsungxu.com/clean-energy-transition-guide/ https://www.tsungxu.com/clean-energy-transition-guide/ The headline is right, though. fossil fuels are dead.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- simonebrunozzi 4y ago
  > Wright's law Agree with you. For the ones not familiar with Wright's law: Pioneered by Theodore Wright in 1936, Wright’s Law aims to provide a reliable framework for forecasting cost declines as a function of cumulative production. Specifically, it states that for every cumulative doubling of units produced, costs will fall by a constant percentage.
anonymousiam 4y ago
Ignoring the (significant) losses involved in transmitting power from space, let's assume you collect 150W/m2, and the solar panels produce at least 80% of this power for their 20-year lifespan. The energy required to put them in orbit (even with Starship) will far exceed everything they produce in their lifetime. Assuming that I'm wrong and it's still viable, what about the risk to the inhabitants of the Earth if/when the attitude control malfunctions and a directed energy beam incinerates a whole city?
- hirundo 4y ago
  They produce so little energy that they can't pay back a rocket launch in 20 years, but their power is so dangerous that a misdirected beam can incinerate a whole city? Those things seem to be contradictory.
- zardo 4y ago
  Are these solar panels orbiting Jupiter? Why only 150W/m^2?
- dexwiz 4y ago
  The microwaves used probably wouldn't be too dangerous. The main issue would be the size of the receivers. https://www.energy.gov/maps/space-based-solar-power https://www.energy.gov/maps/space-based-solar-power
dexwiz 4y ago
The microwave transmitters are still a big What-If? You can pretty easily argue for space based solar power, but getting it back down is still a huge question. A big pushback against wind is "what about the birds?" which is a dubious argument at best. The microwave beam probably wouldn't be the death laser you would imagine, but it would still end up with significant pushback from those susceptible to petrochem propaganda.
gmuslera 4y ago
Fossil fuels are not just used for energy generation, and there are more players that must cooperate for some global space based energy generation solution. Current governments are helping the big oil and coal lobbies more than trying to move to renewables. And probably the money behind oil and coal will try to obstruct the success of such competition in different ways. So no, not a lot of players will cooperate there. And that, assuming that it will work as intended, that won't be accidents of any kind, that will be possible to actually do that massive launch, and other things that may not work in practice. Yes, is a nice looking idea, we can buy the idea of giant shades floating in the sky generating clean energy for all the world. But humbler solutions may be within our reach, if we accept to slow down and change our lifestyle/economy/etc. Anything that try to sell us magic without changing the roots of the problem may be more a delay/distraction tactic than a solution at all.
vannevar 4y ago
This is an entertaining read and a plausible scenario, but Elon Musk is not one to be shy about sharing his plans, and he hasn't even hinted at SPS as far as I know. I'm not sure why he would keep this specific part of his Mars plan a secret while going out of his way to talk about every other aspect.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Elon Musk called Space Based Solar Power "the stupidest thing ever" in 2012. Let me tell you of one of my pet pieces: space solar power. OK, the stupidest thing ever. And if anybody should think, should like space solar power, it should be me. I’ve got a rocket company and a solar company. I should be like – I should really be on it, you know. But it’s like super obviously not going to work because if you have solar panels … First of all it has to be better than having solar panels on Earth, right? Solar panel is in orbit you get twice the solar energy, assuming that it’s out of Earth’s shadow, but you have got to do a double conversion. So you are going to covert it from photon to electron to photon back to electron. So you got to make this double conversion. What’s your conversion efficiency? All in you are going to have a real hard time actually even getting to sort of 50 percent. (Side comment on conversion efficiency responding to remark from the audience.) Take any given solar cell, is it better to have it on Earth or better to have it in orbit? What do you get for being in Orbit? You get twice as much sun, best case, but you have got to do a conversion – you’ve got to convert it to photons, the energy to photons or you have incoming photons that go to electrons but you’ve got to do two conversions that you don’t have to do on Earth which is you got to turn it into photons and turn the photons back into electrons – and that double conversion is going to get you back to where you started, basically. So why are you bothering sending them to bloody space? And, by the way, electron to photon converters are not free and nor is sending stuff to space. Obviously, super (likely meaning space solar power) doesn’t work. Case closed. https://www.spacefaringamerica.com/?p=277 https://www.spacefaringamerica.com/?p=277
lacker 4y ago
I was surprised to see the author refer to Elon Musk as "everybody's least favourite eccentric billionaire asshole". As far as I can tell, survey data indicates that Elon Musk is one of the most popular business figures in the world. https://today.yougov.com/topics/economy/explore/public_figure/Elon_Musk https://today.yougov.com/topics/economy/explore/public_figur... Mark Cuban or Warren Buffett are more popular if you measure by (positive - negative) rather than just number of people with a positive opinion. But any way you slice it, Elon Musk is generally popular.
more_corn 4y ago
Start salting your hat buddy. Musk publicly called space based solar the stupidest thing in the world. His argument being you’re lifting solar panels into space to catch photons, where you convert them to electricity, —you then convert them BACK to photons and send them to the ground —where you convert them BACK to electricity. It doesn’t matter if he’s right, if he thinks he’s right he’s not doing it.

Disclaimer: Charlie is a friend of mine, but OTOH, that gives me some personal insight into his thinking. And I think he has a great mind. Saying that, this is one of the most shocking blog posts by anyone I've ever read. Yes, it was a year ago now, but this is cilivization-saving level stuff, if Charlie is right and Musk makes it work.

leereeves 4y ago

So these orbital power stations would be in high orbit, capturing sunlight 24/7, and transmitting it to Earth via microwave radiation. That's energy (and heat) that would otherwise have passed by Earth, now entering Earth's biosphere. What would that do to the climate?

GenerocUsername 4y ago
I'm fairly certain current global warming concerns are not caused by heat generation but by heat retention. And we do generate a lot of heat via fossil fuels. So generating additional heat (adding heat to the system) is not a current or future concern as long as heat retention stops growing
- lven 4y ago
  Doesn't matter if the heat is coming from burning more fossils or nuclear fuels or intercepting more solar light - the effect on Earth's temeperature is negligible for now. You can do simple heat balance with Stefan Boltzman Law to show that the temperature of the Earth would increase by less than a tenth of a degree even if we burned 10x more fossil or nuclear fuels. The idea is that all the energy received and and generated on Earth must be reraridated at the Earth's blackbody temperature, and it only changes as the power to the 1/4th - so very small compared to the absolute temperature of the Earth ~300K, and the changes (e.g. seasons).
picsao 4y ago
jbotz 4y ago
Well, first off this energy would be initially replacing energy that was previously coming from fossil fuels, so on account of that not much. But, as Stross points out there is a 70% loss in transmission, and presumably most of that ends up as heat in the atmosphere. Now as to the question of how significant is the waste heat from that energy? I once did a ball-park calculation in which I determined that something like 4% of global heating comes not from greenhouse effect but from waste heat[1]. If that's right, then if we replace all of our energy usage with space-based solar of which only 1/3 makes it to earth and the rest is turned to waste heat we'd be be down to about 12% of current (combined green-house and waste heat) global heating. That's seems like a huge win, and we'd have enough energy to spare to start extracting CO2 from the atmosphere until we even compensate for that. [1] I can't find my calculations right now, and I'd love for someone to independently check that.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  > that something like 4% of global heating comes not from greenhouse effect but from waste heat Amount is a subjet of the methodology, but to understand that there is a significant amount of, essentially, heating up of the street someone doesn't even need a fancy IR camera.

AzzieElbab 4y ago

Mandatory- fossil fuels have been dead for millions of years.

mxkopy 4y ago
Cackling maniacally, foaming at the mouth, thrashing against the restraints as though welcoming broken flesh, screaming in profane mirth - "HOW CAN FOSSILS DIE IF THEY'RE ALREADY SKELETONS"
- downvotetruth 4y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qs_4hTMFweI https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qs_4hTMFweI

bryanlarsen 4y ago

I don't think Space Based Solar Power is going to be economically viable, even if Starship can launch for $2M per. It's not because Charlie is wrong, it's because ground based solar and storage batteries have gotten incredibly cheap and Wright's law is going to make them even more incredibly cheap in the future. https://www.tsungxu.com/clean-energy-transition-guide/ https://www.tsungxu.com/clean-energy-transition-guide/ The headline is right, though. fossil fuels are dead.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
> Wright's law Agree with you. For the ones not familiar with Wright's law: Pioneered by Theodore Wright in 1936, Wright’s Law aims to provide a reliable framework for forecasting cost declines as a function of cumulative production. Specifically, it states that for every cumulative doubling of units produced, costs will fall by a constant percentage.

anonymousiam 4y ago

Ignoring the (significant) losses involved in transmitting power from space, let's assume you collect 150W/m2, and the solar panels produce at least 80% of this power for their 20-year lifespan. The energy required to put them in orbit (even with Starship) will far exceed everything they produce in their lifetime. Assuming that I'm wrong and it's still viable, what about the risk to the inhabitants of the Earth if/when the attitude control malfunctions and a directed energy beam incinerates a whole city?

hirundo 4y ago
They produce so little energy that they can't pay back a rocket launch in 20 years, but their power is so dangerous that a misdirected beam can incinerate a whole city? Those things seem to be contradictory.
zardo 4y ago
Are these solar panels orbiting Jupiter? Why only 150W/m^2?
dexwiz 4y ago
The microwaves used probably wouldn't be too dangerous. The main issue would be the size of the receivers. https://www.energy.gov/maps/space-based-solar-power https://www.energy.gov/maps/space-based-solar-power

dexwiz 4y ago

The microwave transmitters are still a big What-If? You can pretty easily argue for space based solar power, but getting it back down is still a huge question. A big pushback against wind is "what about the birds?" which is a dubious argument at best. The microwave beam probably wouldn't be the death laser you would imagine, but it would still end up with significant pushback from those susceptible to petrochem propaganda.

gmuslera 4y ago

Fossil fuels are not just used for energy generation, and there are more players that must cooperate for some global space based energy generation solution. Current governments are helping the big oil and coal lobbies more than trying to move to renewables. And probably the money behind oil and coal will try to obstruct the success of such competition in different ways. So no, not a lot of players will cooperate there. And that, assuming that it will work as intended, that won't be accidents of any kind, that will be possible to actually do that massive launch, and other things that may not work in practice. Yes, is a nice looking idea, we can buy the idea of giant shades floating in the sky generating clean energy for all the world. But humbler solutions may be within our reach, if we accept to slow down and change our lifestyle/economy/etc. Anything that try to sell us magic without changing the roots of the problem may be more a delay/distraction tactic than a solution at all.

vannevar 4y ago

This is an entertaining read and a plausible scenario, but Elon Musk is not one to be shy about sharing his plans, and he hasn't even hinted at SPS as far as I know. I'm not sure why he would keep this specific part of his Mars plan a secret while going out of his way to talk about every other aspect.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
Elon Musk called Space Based Solar Power "the stupidest thing ever" in 2012. Let me tell you of one of my pet pieces: space solar power. OK, the stupidest thing ever. And if anybody should think, should like space solar power, it should be me. I’ve got a rocket company and a solar company. I should be like – I should really be on it, you know. But it’s like super obviously not going to work because if you have solar panels … First of all it has to be better than having solar panels on Earth, right? Solar panel is in orbit you get twice the solar energy, assuming that it’s out of Earth’s shadow, but you have got to do a double conversion. So you are going to covert it from photon to electron to photon back to electron. So you got to make this double conversion. What’s your conversion efficiency? All in you are going to have a real hard time actually even getting to sort of 50 percent. (Side comment on conversion efficiency responding to remark from the audience.) Take any given solar cell, is it better to have it on Earth or better to have it in orbit? What do you get for being in Orbit? You get twice as much sun, best case, but you have got to do a conversion – you’ve got to convert it to photons, the energy to photons or you have incoming photons that go to electrons but you’ve got to do two conversions that you don’t have to do on Earth which is you got to turn it into photons and turn the photons back into electrons – and that double conversion is going to get you back to where you started, basically. So why are you bothering sending them to bloody space? And, by the way, electron to photon converters are not free and nor is sending stuff to space. Obviously, super (likely meaning space solar power) doesn’t work. Case closed. https://www.spacefaringamerica.com/?p=277 https://www.spacefaringamerica.com/?p=277

lacker 4y ago

I was surprised to see the author refer to Elon Musk as "everybody's least favourite eccentric billionaire asshole". As far as I can tell, survey data indicates that Elon Musk is one of the most popular business figures in the world. https://today.yougov.com/topics/economy/explore/public_figure/Elon_Musk https://today.yougov.com/topics/economy/explore/public_figur... Mark Cuban or Warren Buffett are more popular if you measure by (positive - negative) rather than just number of people with a positive opinion. But any way you slice it, Elon Musk is generally popular.

more_corn 4y ago

Start salting your hat buddy. Musk publicly called space based solar the stupidest thing in the world. His argument being you’re lifting solar panels into space to catch photons, where you convert them to electricity, —you then convert them BACK to photons and send them to the ground —where you convert them BACK to electricity. It doesn’t matter if he’s right, if he thinks he’s right he’s not doing it.