The idea of collecting solar energy in outer space and beaming it to earth is one that is well developed conceptually, and research on its feasibility has been funded by Congress.
"Ottinger and Nader are against it, so the idea can't be all bad," writes a reader. But it's not that simple. Both of these energy scholars are so unreliable that one cannot even rely on them always being wrong. They don't like two things about the solar satellite:
Unlike rooftop cells producing piddling amounts of energy at exorbitant costs, it would give thousands of megawatts indiscriminately to everybody (not just sensitive, aware and affluent suburbanites); and it would require advanced technology managed by a corporation of shareholders instead of spending taxpayers' money on wheelbarrows and treadmills.
On the other hand, many of the SPS's vehement promoters want to go into space for everything and at all costs, including the taxpayers' costs.
So let's judge the idea on its merits rather than on the company it keeps.
Unlike energy in space, which can be beamed to other space vehicles by laser beams (requiring only small reflectors), energy from space must transverse the atmosphere, which leaves only microwaves as the carrier: Laser light would not penetrate the cloud cover, and longer radio waves would require unreasonably large antennas, for any antenna (or reflector) must have a diameter several orders larger than the wavelength of the transmitted radiation if it is to concentrate it into a narrow beam.
The Luddites who found it possible to brainwash people into fearing nuclear power on objectively indefensible grounds would find it even easier to scare them with the dangers of an aircraft flying into the beam, or the beam moving off target (the receiving antenna on the ground) due to a malfunction of the transmitter antenna on the satellite. That beam would transmit a power of several thousand megawatts
¾and The Zapping of America screamed murder about this type of radiation at the microwatt level.But far more important than this incidental aspect are the technical and economic considerations. The technical advantage over solar-electric plants on earth lies ultimately only in the constant (and just slightly higher) illumination of the collectors
¾no night or cloud cover. But that is an advantage over a system that is not very good in the first place. The dilute flow of solar energy remains; in particular, the area for the collectors, though not owned by anybody, is very much harder to come by.As for economics, we are talking about tens or hundreds of square miles of collectors, to be put up at a cost of tens (hundreds?) of billions of dollars over many years, to produce the power that could be produced by tens of nuclear or coal-fired units on earth.
The cost of an installed kilowatt, claim the supporters, is close to "competitive" with nuclear or coal, and will look better as the cost of oil goes up. No, object the opponents, it comes to two or three times the cost of a conventional kilowatt. But without calling either side a liar, take a look at the oft repeated story of oil shale, synthetic fuels, and other energy sources. OPEC oil prices were to catch up with the high cost of these sources in a year or two. And by Jove, in a year or two they did catch up
¾with the cost of a year or two ago...So all things considered, we believe there are a million good reasons to go forward into space; but a vulnerable, overpriced energy source is not one of them.
[More: "Some questions and answers about the Satellite Power System," Rept. DoE/ER 0049/1, Jan. 1980, and "Comparative analysis of net energy balance of satellite power systems and other energy systems," Rept. DoE/ER 0056; $4.50 and $7.25 from NTIS, 5285 Port Royal Rd., Springfield, VA 22161; for continuing (strongly supportive) coverage see L-5 News, $20/year, 1620 N.Park Ave., Tucson, AZ 85719.]
|
|
Vol. 8, No. 10
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 8, No. 10 Date: November 23, 2004 11:51 AM Title: Defending the environment against the Sierra Club
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
|