Solar power satellite watch

Ad Astra profiles and interviews Peter Glaser, the visionary of space solar power:

At 84, Dr. Peter Glaser no longer travels the globe lecturing on the concept he first envisioned—the solar power satellite. From his home in Lexington, Massachusetts, Glaser seems perfectly at ease in knowing that others must now take his ideas forward into this century.

“I’m an old man now, and I don’t travel much,” he says. “All of my works and papers are in the collection at MIT. Besides, it’s not just about Peter Glaser any longer. People all over the world know about solar power satellites. It’s up to them to make it work for the whole world.”

He's a brilliant man, though I don't agree with this:

Ad Astra: Do you think the push to create space-based power systems should be spearheaded by the government or the private sector?
Glaser: Since it would be such a huge undertaking, I think it would be best accomplished at an international level, perhaps even managed by the United Nations.

If space solar power ever happens, it will likely result from some combination of national rivalries and private-sector competition. Having it managed by the U.N. will get us more Saddam Hussein food-for-oil palaces somewhere, this time with solar panels.

PDF of Ad Astra's space solar coverage here. Via Space Solar Power blog.

Space solar power, Navy edition

I noticed this a few days ago: "The Navy's Plan to Beam Down Energy from Orbiting Solar Panels." I've been reading and writing about space solar power for a solid 20 years now--ever since I was reporting an article for Insight magazine on commercializing space and happened to interview Peter Glaser, visionary of the idea. At first, I wasn't sure he wasn't pulling my leg or perhaps crazy as he spoke about beaming solar power down from orbit. Further research confirmed this is a serious idea, albeit a technically and economically challenging one. Here are some pieces and posts I've written involving the subject over the years. I recommend keeping an eye on space solar power--as something that might become important to the world environment and economy--and as one of the various areas in which current categories of left and right might blur or swap as advanced technologies become feasible. I could imagine a pro-solar right and anti-solar left a couple of decades from now, as this technology's military relevance and sheer bigness makes it a progressive bugaboo. Or maybe conservative talk radio will be warning that the government is building a capacity to incinerate its opponents from orbit.

Space solar power

Roy Spencer doesn't think much of the prospect of putting solar arrays in space:

And now the space-based solar power crowd has returned. These “experts” point to the increase in efficiency that could be achieved by putting solar collectors in Earth’s orbit and beaming the energy down to the ground.

And indeed you probably could get several times the amount of energy from a solar collector in space versus on the ground. Too bad it would be insanely expensive.

You might have heard of the problems NASA has had with relatively tiny solar collectors attached to the Space Station and Space Telescope. Now imagine putting a one-square mile collector in space. Even if we could get such a thing designed, built, launched, and working, it would replace only 1 of the 1,000 one-gigawatt plants I mentioned earlier that the U.S. alone needs.

Spencer is assuming a lot here. He's assuming launch costs will remain high, solar technology will be slow to improve, and that global energy demand won't bring across-the-board energy price increases that make previously uncompetitive technologies competitive.

Nobody knows today whether space solar power (which could involve arrays on the moon as well as in Earth orbit) will be economically viable decades from now. The best way to find out is to let the full range of non-carbon energy sources compete in as free a market as possible.

Space solar power update

I've been writing about space solar power for a decade and a half. In 1994, I happened to call Peter Glaser, who had done much to develop the concept in the 1960s, for an article I was doing on commercialization of space. I hadn't adequately done my homework before making the call (a journalistic occupational hazard) and even wondered if he was pulling my leg with his effusions about beaming power from space. He wasn't. It's a serious idea, but it's never been clear when it will become practical and how it will stack up against various energy alternatives economically.

Now, California utility Pacific Gas & Electric has made a deal to buy space-based solar energy from a company called Solaren as soon as 2016. Motley Fool is skeptical. I say stay tuned. Given the problems of all other energy sources (including terrestrial solar, with its limited efficiency and landscape-despoiling arrays), space solar power just might have a real future.

Space solar power in Asia

"China proposes space collaboration with India." Specifically, this involves space-based solar power, or using arrays outside Earth's atmosphere to collect energy from the sun (which can then be transmitted down to users). Is it the energy source of the future? No one can say. But if it is, one suspects it won't be the U.S. leading the way. An excellent question in the presidential debates would've been: "What is your view of space solar power's potential and what role should this technology play in NASA and Energy Department planning?"

Space solar Japan

I've found that bringing up space solar power to an American audience tends to generate ill-informed mockery. In Japan, the attitude is distinctly different:

It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan's space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves.

The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades.

Space economy ideas [updated]

I've got a piece up at The Space Review: "How to energize the space economy." It involves space solar power and space property rights, and related topics.

UPDATE 5/7: A lot of interesting comments at my post, and I got some positive feedback privately from someone experienced in moving stuff around in space. The Space Review has a readership that's very focused on space policy, a subject that doesn't get its due in the media world at large. I'll write for the site again sooner or later. Meanwhile, posting may be light here at Quicksilber in the near term.

UPDATE 5/7: Flashback to 2003: "Choices in Space." This piece is dated but still has some relevance in summarizing different viewpoints as to what to do (and not do) in space. I'm less of a Humans to Mars (anytime soon) believer than I was then, though.

UPDATE: Someone likes this in Portugal.

Space solar skepticism

Some skepticism about space-based solar power here. I find the email from Martin Hoffert particularly interesting. He's concerned that promises of near-term viability, as with the PG&E project, will damage the genuinely promising long-term prospect of beaming solar power to Earth. That strikes me as plausible. 2016 is not very far away, though a lot could happen over a longer time -- albeit not necessarily "50 years from now (or maybe never), long after the climate is destroyed," as Joe Romm puts it. Meanwhile, building more nuclear plants would be wise.

Virgin and the sun

At Wired, Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides notes how Richard Branson is thinking ahead, to "IT in Space" and space solar power:

The White Knight Two mother ship could carry a low earth orbit launcher with a 50-100 kg satellite to orbit. Might Branson have a vision for orbiting server farms getting their power directly from the sun and beaming electrons back and forth to end users sitting on the surface of the planet?

We were even speculating afterwards about sun facing polar orbits that could keep a set of solar panels in the sunlight 24/7.

If server farm power costs and the factored in costs to the environment at home get high enough maybe the IT world would be interested in space hardening and launching their servers. Maybe being an IT server technician would become a new career path into low earth orbit -- now that could be a big hit in the IT world.

Even if it is a long way off, I was glad that Branson and Hawking are thinking about it. Creativity and long range thinking are going to be keys to the next 50 years -- on this planet and off.

Somebody's got to think about this stuff, even if others somehow know in advance that it can't be done.

Space solar "death machine"

I can understand skepticism about space solar power. No one yet knows whether progress in launch technology and solar technology will make such a system feasible in the coming decades. But ranting that it's "a military research project to make a death machine" isn't much of a counterargument. There are much better, and cheaper, death machines already available.

Space solar watch

Amid recent setbacks for biofuels and "clean coal," here are a few links about space solar power, a technology that might arrive just in time in the coming decades:

A workshop from Georgia Institute of Technology's Aerospace Engineering Department. A more irreverent depiction, from Gizmodo. And a golden oldie, by Peter Glaser from my days at Space.com.

Orbital power plant

This Friday, the series Discovery Project Earth will focus on space solar power, including what's billed as a breakthrough in wireless power transmission. Should be interesting. An approach that actually generates clean power seems to me like a more desirable option than the other large-scale projects the series has been highlighting (such as covering Greenland with reflective wrap) that are aimed only at mitigating the effects while the pollution continues.

Future energy

Space solar power and algae biofuel make the list of "Five Technologies That Could Change Everything." UPDATE: More on space solar at, a bit oddly, ESPN.

Space benefits

Alan Boyle has an interesting interview with Ben Bova, who makes this valid point:

People can watch the Olympics live from Beijing, and wonder what has space ever done for us? They don’t realize they’re seeing signals relayed by satellites. I live in Florida. We watch the weather satellites very, very closely, especially this time of year, when the hurricanes are brewing. Space technology has helped to produce the computer revolution, helped to change our lives. If you’re using a GPS system, if you’re unfortunate enough to have to be in an intensive-care unit in a hospital, if you’d like to go scuba diving, you are using technology derived from space.

There's much more, including on space solar power.

Republican scientists: there could be more of them

From a new Pew Research Center survey of scientists:

Only 6 percent of the scientists surveyed were Republicans? If that's reflective of scientists overall, it's a problem for Republicans. But it's also a lost opportunity when you consider that on some issues, Republican views match scientists' preferences pretty well. Consider this table:

If Republicans talked more about nuclear power, particularly as being part of the mix needed to address the possible consequences of the Earth getting warmer, it would be a lot harder to characterize Republicans as the know-nothing party on science. Throw space solar power and algae biodiesel into the mix, and you have the beginnings of a pro-science Republican energy policy.

UPDATE 7/15: I've got a good deal more on this here.

Liveblogging the debate

Why not some real-time commentary....

9:07 PM: McCain off to a good start. A detailed answer on the crisis, including mention of longer-term reforms and debt.

9:10 PM: Obama does a me-too; Warren Buffett for Treasury. Would Buffett's huge assets go into a blind trust?

9:12 PM: McCain emphasizes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and ties them to Democrats. About time.

9:15 PM: Obama attacks McCain as a deregulator. Tell that to the Ultimate Fighting people.

9:17 PM: McCain talks directly to Obama, something he didn't like to do last time.

9:19 PM: Obama starts answer with "Well, look...." and advises woman to "remember just a little bit of history."

9:20 PM: Obama says he's for a "net spending cut." I'm highly interested in how that will be fact-checked.

9:21 PM: McCain mentions a few of the things--campaign finance reform, climate change legislation--conservatives hate about him.

9:23 PM: The CNN focus group audience loves "energy independence." I'd prefer "energy security" but subtlety is hard to do on national TV.

9:25 PM: Obama's "In 10 years time we are free of dependence on Mideast oil" is much more vague than JFK's moon speech. Most U.S. consumption not from Mideast now, but oil is fungible.

9:30 PM: I wonder how many people know what "earmarks" are.

9:32 PM: Another Obama bad opening: "You know, a lot of you remember 9/11."

9:35 PM: "Nailing jello to the wall." Focus group didn't like that.

9:37 PM: Obama wants to respond, but Brokaw won't let him.

9:39 PM: Obama repeats his "tax cut for 95 percent of Americans" nonsense. About a third of Americans don't pay income taxes as is.

9:42 PM: I wonder if the focus group that responds negatively to anything negative said is (a) telling the truth and (b) representative of anyone else.

9:45 PM: "Nuclear power" is fine. But I'd love to hear McCain say "and we have to explore more long-term possibilities like space solar power."

9:46 PM: Obama just confused "the computer" with "the Internet." He should call Al Gore for clarification.

More to come in another post, maybe.

Platforms, privileges, philistines

A few odds and ends:

-- Some dangers of living in a bubble illustrated. I've warned about this kind of thing.

-- An idea for space solar power, desalination and offshore platforms (some of my favorite topics), which I came across because of a comment at my Space Review piece this week.

-- A critique of Tal Fortgang's critics on "checking your privilege." Seems right to me.

-- Damon Linker accuses Neil deGrasse Tyson of being a philistine; his critique gets pushback (weakened by the misspelling of "Neil"). Having listened to Tyson's comments, I'm with the pushback (especially in that he goes on to discussion of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke; what philistine does that?).

Gusher of carbon confusion

This book looks likely to cause a stir: Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence, by Robert Bryce.

I'm not too impressed with the one part I have read, a boxed section on carbon taxes near the back of the book. Bryce writes:

Carbon taxes might help reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but to achieve those reductions, all of the world's countries would have to agree to (1) participate in such a program and (2) agree on a price.

That's bad writing ("agree to ... agree"). Moreover, it's wrong. We wouldn't need to harmonize our carbon tax with other nations' carbon taxes, any more than we harmonize every other tax. The assumption lurking in there is that a carbon tax would cripple a country's competitiveness, so all countries should be equally hobbled. But a carbon tax that's combined with lower taxes on work and investment is compatible with a highly competitive economy.

And over time, a nation that leads in non-carbon energy will have a distinct economic advantage. Those considerations should outweigh any concerns that other countries will free-ride on our carbon reductions. I doubt China and India will want to remain stuck in the oil-and-coal age forever while the U.S. develops everything from space solar power to algae biodiesel.

Some energy links

Rand Simberg is underwhelmed by Raji Patel's call for space solar power.

Robert Rapier is unenthused by Robert Zubrin's defense of ethanol.

Philip Klein is unforgetful of Barack Obama's ethanol pander.

Fixing the planet

This looks interesting: The Discovery Channel will be running a series on geo-engineering, Discovery Project Earth, including an episode on space solar power.

You've heard the dire warning; you've seen the detailed PowerPoint; you've even bought that light bulb with the swirls, but how about some real action?

As Gregory Benford wrote over a decade ago, the standard environmentalist response to global warming is "Sinner abstain!" Maybe that's changing.