Energy policy is in the news again, with debates in Congress, statements from presidential candidates, consternation over our dependence on the Middle East for oil, and a California recall election traceable in part to energy supply problems for that state. Use of energy, whether fuel for transportation, electrical energy running the internet, or the destructive energy released in weapons, is central to our economy and security.
It is with good reason that the technical term for energy use per unit time, “power”, suggests control in the human world as well. Three actions taken now – working to reserve radio spectrum for power transmission, focusing on reductions in costs for space launch, and investing in space solar power system research – hold the promise of opening up vast new sources of power within the next 10-15 years.
Space is big – there is an awful lot of energy out there, and the crumbs we fight about here on Earth are laughably tiny in comparison. Zettawatts from the Sun pass just through the region between Earth and Moon – that’s enough energy for each man, woman and child in the US to sustainably power an entire US economy all to themselves. Even our terrestrial energy choices, fossil or renewable, fission or wind, almost all derive from the energy profligacy of our Sun and other stars before it.
Gathering power in space and transmitting it to Earth should not be a mystery to us in this 21st century. Communications satellites already do it routinely. One significant obstacle to power applications, however, is regulatory: there is no spectrum allocated to power transmission, as there is for communications.
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Looking at the major cost areas again, for the wholesale utility market space solar power is currently about a factor of 2 too expensive with regard to cost of materials and components, and at least a factor of 10 on the launch cost side. Both cost barriers have realistic chances of being overcome in the next decade.
The prospects for space-based solar power are at least as bright as for fusion power; these two options were identified as the only long-term sustainable energy sources in a report published in Science magazine last year (6). While space solar power has received essentially no government funding for two decades, fusion gets close to $1 billion/year.
The ITER fusion project scheduled for completion in 2014 will cost $5 billion for a research reactor that produces only thermal power – in contrast the 1995 “Fresh look” (7) study for space solar power found some systems with an estimated cost of $6 to $8 billion, producing 250 MW electric available for commercial sale, readily expandable to several GW and a profitable return on investment. With some further research those numbers can likely be improved upon, but the funding has been terminated rather than increased.
We already have an immense fusion reactor working for us in our solar system, ultimately responsible for almost all our energy choices. All we really need to do is make better use of it by tapping into it more directly.
Any rational energy policy for the United States must support the steps needed to make that happen: increased investment in reducing launch costs, reserving radio frequency spectrum for power transmission, and moving towards a billion dollars per year in a robust and diverse program of R&D on space solar power.
Hi Space Cadets!
Still trying to get space solar power off the ground? I think you’re going to be disappointed. In the original of his article, Arthur Smith claims “Money is not directly the problem here; profitability is.” Wrong. The problem is risk. Yes, the energy industry is enormous and invests huge chunks of money in projects – but for that very same reason is highly risk-averse. (Would you sink several billion dollars in something without a cast-iron guarantee you’ll get it back? Thought not.) Just look at the recent history of nuclear fission: despite untold billions being thrown at the technology for decades, it’s virtually at a standstill and is only being built where the government pays the bill – because energy companies won’t take the risk. As pointed out in the “heated discussions”, the US government would have to pick up the tab for the development work of space solar, but this ignores the cost of commercialisation – energy companies and banks are going to be very reluctant to sink their billions into risky space projects until several others have been running smoothly for several years, thereby proving their ability to show a safe return on investment. So, unless government(s) stump up funds for a significant programme into the several tens of billions, you’re not going to get energy firms making the jump into space. The only reason I can see governments paying that kind of money for energy is that they finally get the urgency of tackling climate change and throw money at the sector – but if that’s the case, they would throw the money at terrestrial renewables (because then we would get a significant proportion of our energy from them within 10-20 years) rather than space solar (which would give you a miniscule proportion of your energy needs in 30 years, if you’re very lucky). The paper in Science referred to in the article says that neither space solar nor fusion will give significant amounts of power until after 2050, while climate scientists tell us that carbon emissions must be reduced by 60% or more by 2050. Do the math. Governments won’t spend the money on space solar because it won’t solve the problem.
Regards,
Dr Gordon Edge
Editor, Platts Renewable Energy Report
gordon_edge@platts.com
I cheerfully admit my ignorance of the current state of space-solar projects, but will throw in my ten (well, five) cents anyway.
We’ve reached the stage where we really need to be thinking as a planet rather than as nations, making the most out of the resources space can offer ought to be on the ‘to do’ list of every government. After all, just because most of them are only elected for a few years at a time doesn’t mean we expect them to only think a few years ahead.
At the same time we need to be managing the resources we have down here more long-sightedly. Of course, we also should be feeding the starving millions of the world so that they can help us build cool space-ships.
The thing is, it’s no good saying we should put exploiting space on the back-burner because it isn’t immediately profitable in either money or resources because that way it will never be profitable. The more people there are dreaming up ways we can get out there, the more chance there is that someone will come up with something that works. Of course these people need to eat, and need snazzy computers to play Lemmings on – I mean, work upon. Which takes money, which could be used to feed starving people…
The only way to break a vicious circle is with a more vicious straight line. I suspect that, unless there is a technological/theoretical breakthrough, we won’t take space seriously until we are desperate and determined that it is our best hope for survival. Hopefully we will still have enough resources left to find a way to make the big push. In the meantime, as many people as possible should get involved in making lots of little pushes for the same reason teenagers carry condoms: you never know when you might get lucky.
What corporations care about is return to shareholders. Everything
we do holds risks, companies have to make some estimate about the
future to invest anything, and the future is constantly changing. Up
through the 1980’s, utility companies did invest heavily in nuclear
power – and they made a profit on some of it, but as the waste
question has never been clearly resolved, potential liability risks
and safety issues have eclipsed their hopes for future profits at
current energy prices, and so no new plants are being built (in the US).
In comparison, solar power from space holds few risks – as you say,
utilities will still require a demonstration; demonstration plants
in orbit should be a key part of a billion-dollar/year government
R&D project. But they don’t have to be full scale. And as far as the
technology goes, as I said in the full article, communications
satellites already prove the basic steps of gathering power in space
and beaming electromagnetic energy back down to Earth. Fusion faces
very much the same problem, and has a huge host of technology issues
to still overcome, including some of the same radioactive waste
issues that afflict fission.
On the time scale – well, it’s hard to predict the future… the
Science article assumed little change to the current political and
aerospace market climate in its time estimates, but an aggressive
program on the scale of Apollo could radically change all of those
factors. Currently we launch about 100 tons/year to orbit; adding a
huge fraction of Earth’s energy needs via the space option – say 1
TW/year – requires launching 1 million tons/year, or a factor of
10^4 increase. That can happen in 20 years at a 60% growth rate,
growth rates we have seen previously in the computer industry. Don’t
claim something is impossible when talking about the future…