3 ms·

For reference, 100 GW are 3.3 % of the average world electricity production in 2020 of 3062 GW, but this is supposedly only required for a few minutes.

civilitty 3y ago
So it only requires 40% of all power produced by California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia combined [1]? For a few minutes? No problem then! Jokes aside, I don't think there are any interconnectors on the planet that can handle that amount of power for even a split second, let alone the infrastructure to supply it for minutes at a time to a single location. The biggest grid interconnectors in the world cap out at a few gigawatts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection
- cma 3y ago
  Wouldn't it likely need to charge up capacitors over time anyway?
- sp332 3y ago
  You would probably charge some on-site capacitors using a slower interconnect. That way you would only need a small distance to handle the discharge from the capacitors to the lasers.
- teruakohatu 3y ago
  The papers call for 10^8 individual lasers. So power connectors only need to handle a small fraction of the total power.
- petrocrat 3y ago
  If it's meant to transfer momentum to a lightsail, then there is no requirement that the power must be delivered to a single point on the electrical grid. Several of these lasers in a smaller form factor dispersed over a rather large geographic region can all focus on a point in orbit and transfer nearly the same momentum as a single laser focused on that point would.
dredmorbius 3y ago
The Saturn V S-IC first stage generated 166 GW of power output, roughly equivalent to the electrical generation capacity of France at the time. Though that was sustained for 168 seconds (2m48s). Power output vs. time comparisons can be interesting. The Hiroshima "Little Boy" bomb output about 18 GWh worth of energy, in a few milliseconds. A large electrical generation plant of 1 GW capacity generates the same amount of electrical power in about 18 hours, and is releasing the thermal energy in about 2--3 hours at typical Carnot efficiencies.

civilitty 3y ago

So it only requires 40% of all power produced by California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia combined [1]? For a few minutes? No problem then! Jokes aside, I don't think there are any interconnectors on the planet that can handle that amount of power for even a split second, let alone the infrastructure to supply it for minutes at a time to a single location. The biggest grid interconnectors in the world cap out at a few gigawatts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection

cma 3y ago
Wouldn't it likely need to charge up capacitors over time anyway?
sp332 3y ago
You would probably charge some on-site capacitors using a slower interconnect. That way you would only need a small distance to handle the discharge from the capacitors to the lasers.
teruakohatu 3y ago
The papers call for 10^8 individual lasers. So power connectors only need to handle a small fraction of the total power.
petrocrat 3y ago
If it's meant to transfer momentum to a lightsail, then there is no requirement that the power must be delivered to a single point on the electrical grid. Several of these lasers in a smaller form factor dispersed over a rather large geographic region can all focus on a point in orbit and transfer nearly the same momentum as a single laser focused on that point would.

dredmorbius 3y ago

The Saturn V S-IC first stage generated 166 GW of power output, roughly equivalent to the electrical generation capacity of France at the time. Though that was sustained for 168 seconds (2m48s). Power output vs. time comparisons can be interesting. The Hiroshima "Little Boy" bomb output about 18 GWh worth of energy, in a few milliseconds. A large electrical generation plant of 1 GW capacity generates the same amount of electrical power in about 18 hours, and is releasing the thermal energy in about 2--3 hours at typical Carnot efficiencies.