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Japan building 1GW, $21bn solar power station in space
- jacquesm 17y agoI seriously doubt this will ever be completed, but I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of interesting technology developed and independently successful as spin-offs of this project. It is extremely ambitious, the article puts a possible date of operation around 2030, which is about 5-7 years after ITER should come on line. If you can make a 1GW (1000 MW) energy plant for about 1.5 billion terristrially then to pay a 14 fold premium to put the same thing in space (but renewable) as well as a whole bunch of very serious problems to overcome (microwave radiation can be 'tight' beamed but that 'tight' is not as sharply delineated as you'd want to for an application like this, there are serious technical issues there) is a pretty brave thing to do. I hope they will succeed with this, and that if they do not that we will gain lots of useful knowledge.
- tc 17y agoIf you can make a 1GW energy plant for about 1.5 billion terristrially then to pay a 14 fold premium to put the same thing in space... is a pretty brave thing to do. If Richard Branson (to pick a random spacefaring billionaire) was fronting a few billion dollars of his own money, that might be brave. Spending other people's money on boondoggles that are wildly unlikely to produce a positive return is not brave.
- jacquesm 17y agoIf we'd follow that to its conclusion space shuttles wouldn't fly, the moon visit would have never happened, the computer you are writing on would not be connected to the internet, highways wouldn't exist and so on. Plenty of infrastructure projects have started either as military or pure research projects. Eventually we all benefit, even the countries where the spending did not take place.
- tc 17y agomoon visit would have never happened This is my favorite example of this type of argument, because the moon visits should not have happened when they did. A handful of government employees spent a few days on the moon (at an enormous cost to other Americans) at least 40 years before there was any useful reason to get there. The evidence of this is that we haven't gone back. As for your other examples, your claim is as absurd as saying that if it weren't for Edison we wouldn't have interior lighting or if it weren't for Bell we wouldn't have telephones. If in 1978, we had diverted 5% of GDP for 10 years to building something like Google, we probably could have done it. But in 1988, it wouldn't have been terribly useful, and by waiting 10 years we got Google anyway at a much lower cost (and without coercively spending other people's money).
- jacquesm 17y agoIn 1978 google could not have been built simply because there was not yet a need for a google to be built. The need for a google came in to being by the combined existence of a large pool of accessible data called the world wide web and the frustration with the search engines of the day, notably altavista and inktomi. Only when those conditions arose was a google possible, and in many ways inevitable. To compare the invention of electric light and the telephone with the moonshot is to compare apples with oranges about as bad as I've ever seen it. Compared to the amount of money wasted on various nonsense projects in their time, SDI comes to mind but there are plenty of other examples the moon saga was one of the high points in the history of humankind. Sure the telephone and the electric light are great inventions, not a day goes by without use of them for a large portion of the people on the planet. But they did not inspire a generation of kids to follow the path of science the way the moon episode did. We would most definitely be in a completely different world technology wise had that not happened, it probably was one of the best returns on investment in the history of man.
- tc 17y agoAs far as I can tell, your argument boils down to: $125B+ (inflation adjusted) was worthwhile for inspiring people about what was possible. Listen, I don't disagree that there were some benefits of the space program. But $125B+ is a lot of money for Velcro and inspiration. Let's keep a sense of scale here: if you assume YC invests $25k per company, $125B is 5 million startups (and 15 million or so founders). [1] Just remember that the resources have to come from somewhere, and that if you're going to do it through government, you're spending other people's money to get things that you want. Someone else may not care about technology or the moon, and may prefer to spend that money on social programs or farm subsidies. Once you open the door that government takes the money and spends it, how can you possibly determine whose value system is better? Also, to tie this back around to where we started, whether you support the idea of spending other people's money on projects that you like or not, my initial point was simply that risking money that isn't yours is not brave, whatever else you want to call it, because the politicians are not personally at risk of any loss. Worthless boondoggles don't even seem to negatively affect their reputation, and may even get them called bold. [1] Note that I'm not proposing that the government should have invested in 5 million companies, but that an equivalent amount of resources was removed from the economy -- resources that could have built other things that people want.
- bcl 17y agoThis is new ground. It always takes more to develop the technology initially than it does in production. Once the technologies have been developed and refined the costs of space solar should come down considerably. Not to mention the added benefits that always come from advanced R&D efforts.
- tc 17y agoThis is akin to companies that claim you should judge them by their EBITDA on an ongoing basis, as if capital expenses aren't real expenses. To justify the capital cost, it isn't enough to show that you'll make something cheaper than it is now. The capital investment needs to produce technology that is so much cheaper that it can outcompete other options and still provide a return on the capital that exceeds the opportunity cost of tying up the resources. If you can't expect this, then the endeavor is a net misuse of resources.
- ankeshk 17y agoThis seems like a cool hi-tech venture. But the opportunity cost is way too high. For Japan, I think $21 billion investment in windmills in the ocean would lead to more energy than creating a solar power station in space that sends back electricity in the form of microwaves.
- drats 17y agoYes, but the windmills don't get you a 1GW energy weapon in space.
- jacquesm 17y agoI'm assuming it is geosynchronous, you could only blast down to your own country with it, any place else the angle to the atmosphere would be too oblique to have any chance of reaching the ground. It's an ideal country sized energy suicide weapon though. Sort of a satellite born seppuku.
- Tuna-Fish 17y agoWell, you could also target your immediate neighbors. I bet most of the richest and most industrialized eastern china would be right inside the viable target area. Also, think anti-ballistic missile defences -- no need for adaptive optics and all that jazz when you can swat the missiles with lasers from their most vulnerable position, right at the top of their trajectory.
- jacquesm 17y agoOne gigawatt is a tremendous amount of energy, but what microwave radiation would do against an incoming ICBM is an open question. It's all about how concentrated the beam will be and how fast you can direct it (ICBMs move pretty fast and even at the top of their trajectory they are hard to pinpoint because they do not exactly carry homing beacons). Also, in all of the following keep in mind that we're talking about a re-entry vehicle here which has extensive heat shielding anyway just to survive its inevitable contact with the atmosphere. It is more about energy density if this could be used as a weapon against an ICBM or not, the receiver of the energy would presumably be a fairly large patch of ground with a 'safe zone' around it in case of minor misalignment. If you'd want your gigawatt to be concentrated in an area of 100x100 m under 'normal 'conditions you will not be able to quickly reconfigure to something on the order of a hotspot as produced by a battle laser (this is not a laser!). In normal operating conditions and assuming they can beam as tight as 1,000,000,000 Watts per 100x100m patch (which remains to be seen) you'd have about 100KW / square meter, or about 10 W / square centimeter assuming absolutely perfect (so lossless) transmission and 0 reflection. Microwave absorption of the ICBM would then be the deciding factor if anything happened to it or not, 10W / square centimeter seems a lot but it really isn't, the question is how long the beam could be focused on the incoming ICBM and how steady it could be held. With lasers this appears to be possible, see this http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=817 http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=817 but it was an aircraft at subsonic speeds vs a stationary ground target. Shooting stuff down that moves very fast is not that easy, especially not if your normal mode of operation is for energy transmission instead of destruction.
- miracle 17y agoBad luck for the guy having his house under the solar panels. He will have no sunlight even if there are no clouds on the sky ;)
- dagw 17y agogiven how hot my apartment can get in the summer I would pay extra for that. When I want sunlight I could walk down the road to the local park.
- Raphael 17y agoThe guy living in the middle of the ocean?
- mseebach 17y ago4 sq km 36.000 km out in space is a very very tiny shadow.
- metaguri 17y agoor for all intents and purposes none at all. i could be wrong but given the relative sizes of the sun, the solar array, and the distances involved, the amount of sunlight that is blocked by the array from any observer's point of view on earth would be negligible. for example planes flying at 35k feet don't cast visible shadows.
- zandorg 17y agoI've seen helicopters in films with shadows (due to the helicopter with the camera inside). But yes, that's not at 35k feet, but more like 200 feet.
- Tarks 17y agoAm I the only one that immediately thought "This is what happens when a nation's raised watching gundam ^_^ " when I read this?
- btn 17y agoWas SimCity 2000 never translated into Japanese or something?
- andreyf 17y agoRefernce to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_2000#Scenarios_Vol._I:_Great_Disasters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_2000#Scenarios_Vol._I:_... Silicon Valley: The high-tech society of the 2010 Silicon valley is hit hard when its futuristic power source goes awry - microwave beams transferring solar energy from an orbital satellite miss their intended receiver and instead incinerate many businesses and people in the area.
- pingswept 17y agoResidential solar has a total installed cost around $8/W in the US right now. Prices are probably slightly higher in Japan, maybe $10/W. With the silicon supply problems of the last two years easing and a glut of modules in the last 9 months, prices are dropping faster now than at any time since 2005. This is proposing a $21/W solution-- not a good idea. By the time it's built, terrestrial solar will likely be 5-10 times cheaper, i.e. around $2-4/W.
- dagw 17y agoYou're assuming that this is only about supplying electricity at as low a price as possible, which is a very narrow way to look at it. Consider instead the larger picture. This sort of project is going to require a lot of R&D which will both create jobs and lead to additional discoveries. The experience gained can used in future related projects and sold to other countries. If the project is a success then Japan will be the world leader in this sort of technology. So don't just look at the $/W look at the net effect of this investment on Japan's GDP over the next 20 years. From that point of view this is probably a lot better investment than simply buying third party solar panels.
- gnaritas 17y agoFinally, someone who sees the benefits beyond the almighty dollar. An up-vote for you!
- mediaman 17y agoDollars are just a means to quantify value. To say one believes in benefits beyond a dollar value is to say one believes in benefits that cannot be quantified - which is usually a dangerous ways to approach government spending.
- scotty79 17y ago... also often you don't know or even can't estimate how much dollars something can bring in in long term. If you are starting new unique venture you can't really estimate potential gains. But from history of man kind seems that investing in new things and even exotic research is in the long run extraordinarily beneficial. Gains from gathering resources and building ITER (or GPS, or orbital power plant) earlier not later can give humanity much greater benefit than it would gain from instantiating 5 mln startups with 1/5mlnth of the used resources. I'd even say that no value can be created by human activity (by means other than resource exploitation) if it does not involve inventing or applying new technology.
- tlrobinson 17y agoWouldn't any gained efficiency be wiped out by having to transmit the power via microwaves? And couldn't you build a vastly larger solar panel array on earth for the same price? What happens when a plane flies underneath the beam?
- jacquesm 17y agoThe plane would be in the beam path for only a short time: 900 Km/hour is 250 meters / second, if the beam were to be sent down very tightly the effect would be stronger but the duration would be correspondingly shorter. A 100 meter diameter beam would take 0.4 seconds to cross, the energy density would be 12.75 W / square centimeter. The kind of effect would also be quite dependant on the wavelength used, longer wavelengths would be harder to 'tight beam' than shorter ones. A typical microwave oven 'beams' 1KW or so across an area about 15 cm radius, that's roughly 1.3 W / square centimeter. How tight the beam is really is the crucial question to answer here, 35000 km up the beam will be very tight right under the point of emission, near the surface of the planet (an airliner flying 10 Km up) it would be much more dispersed.
- rhysho 17y agoFor powering up an army of Evangelions in defense of Tokyo-3 against the attack of Angels? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelion_(mecha) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelion_(mecha)
- barredo 17y agoNobody would say nothing about the Dyson Sphere? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere It's like the first step. Right?
- natch 17y ago"beaming the electricity from space through the ionosphere" What could possibly go wrong?
- ggrot 17y agoFor a moment, ignore the commercial viability of this. Of course, in a free global market, this isn't viable. Think about this strategically. Japan has roughly 40M barrels of proven oil reserved. They consume 5M barrels of oil a DAY. Without imports, assuming they could even get at all of their oil, they would run out in 8 days. They are the world's 3rd largest consumer of oil, and the world's second largest importer. Half of their energy consumption is oil, another 15% natural gas (which comes from extracting oil). Coal and Nuclear make up the majority of the rest. Japan's mining is well beyond peak-coal. The vast majority of their oil comes from the middle east. Japan is an island, they are entirely dependent on energy imports. This means that if their trade routes were cut off they'd be hosed. Since the US dominates the world's oceans, that means that Japan has to keep the US happy. Sucks strategically and politically. Space based power is useful strategically. You can beam it to an island. It is very difficult to cut off, regardless of the size of your foes' navy. You can beam it directly to a fleet in the middle of the pacific. You could use it as a weapon.
- Semiapies 17y ago"Since the US dominates the world's oceans, that means that Japan has to keep the US happy. Sucks strategically and politically." It just means Japan can't get saber-rattly in the US's direction. There isn't a huge impetus for them to do so, so...
- electronslave 17y agoI'd like to chip in my own "this is silly" perspective. You see, Japan has a history with futuristic flops: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer
- teeja 17y agoI hope they remember what (almost) happened to the Ringworld.