Last edited Sun Mar 17, 2019, 04:21 PM - Edit history (6)
In the worst case, by increasing the absorption area of the solar flux and focusing it on the planet, it will further fry the atmosphere.
The satellites would convert the solar into microwaves and beam those to earth. Is it any more energy entering the planet than what is released when fossil fuel and uranium releases its energy to make electricity -- both which incidentally throw away 2/3 of the energy as waste heat in converting it to electricity?
And from what I understand, the energy released by fossil fuels and uranium in producing electricity is trivial compared to the heat energy trapped by greenhouse gas increases -- in other words the former is a nothing-burger in creating the global warming problem compared to the latter.
Also, how much of the sun's energy would reach the earth anyway? If the satellite is on the daylight side of earth, that energy would reach the earth anyway if the satellite wasn't there. I would assume that's its on the daylight side of earth most of the time... Not much solar to capture on the nighttime side, so I read. --
On edit, never mind this paragraph, because if these things are in geosynchronous orbit (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power says 36,000 miles) -- 36,000 miles is about 4.5 earth's diameters, i.e. far far out from earth and so would be eclipsed by the earth's shadow only a small fraction of the time. And similarly, it would be capturing sunlight that would hit the earth anyway only a small fraction of the time. I was thinking they were in lower earth orbit).
From the article:
The swarming satellites would be covered with the photovoltaic panels needed to convert sunlight into electricity, which would be converted into microwaves and beamed wirelessly to ground-based receivers — giant wire nets measuring up to four miles across.
In the best case, it will foreclose the use of orbital space by making it full of junk - already a problem, but sure to be bigger.
That I do worry a lot about.
Later Edit: By the way, I'm not a fan or proponent of solar satellites, seems way way expensive, even if the solar panels were free.
stupid electric car fantasies.
Not sure what this has to do with any of this. I can live without an electric car just fine. I can't live without electricity (or more accurately it would be a much more difficult and shorter life). We need electricity for a lot of things other than stupid electric cars (so instead we can have stupid 15-20% efficient gasoline IC cars instead -- gasoline being a dangerous fossil fuel with its own set of environmental and human rights abuses. And the other 80-85% of course is mostly waste heat).
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