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Putting the cells in orbit means that there's almost no night, and there's less loss due to the atmosphere. Of course, there are loads of problems with the ide
by kybernetikos 4y ago
Putting the cells in orbit means that there's almost no night, and there's less loss due to the atmosphere.
Of course, there are loads of problems with the idea but I can see why it's intuitively appealing.
- jackmott 4y agothere is loss from the atmosphere when you beam it down
- pfdietz 4y agoNot much, typically.
- MrOwnPut 4y agoI think 60% over a kilometer is the best efficiency thus far. What is the "typically" you are referencing?
- pfdietz 4y agoMicrowave beams are attenuated in heavy rain. Typically, the beam is not going through heavy rain. The 60% over a kilometer is not due to atmospheric absorption, it's due to losses at the transmitter and receiver (and beam spread exceeding the size of the receiver.) If microwaves lost 40% of their energy in a kilometer radar would have a hard time working. Millimeter waves are more strongly absorbed in clear air, so they are not as good for this use case. They may be good for powering aircraft.
- kybernetikos 4y agoyes, but you can concentrate the beam more than sunlight so that there's less atmosphere involved. You can also choose a beam technology (wavelength etc) based on it going through the atmosphere well, rather than having to stick with sunlight's properties.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoThe loss from the atmosphere is not the issue; plenty of energy still hits the earth while the sun is out, plenty of methods of capturing it (solar panels, mirrors to focus the heat, etc), the issue is that someone actually has to build it and it goes off at night. That, and transport.
- kybernetikos 4y agoIndeed, and this project is a way of fixing the "it goes off at night" problem by making all the other problems massively harder.