{"id":100681,"date":"2024-01-27T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-27T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/?post_type=ftm_article&p=100681"},"modified":"2024-04-24T17:55:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T21:55:33","slug":"space-based-solar-power-solar-energy","status":"publish","type":"ftm_article","link":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/energy\/space-based-solar-power-solar-energy","title":{"rendered":"NASA lays out the path to space-based solar power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article is an installment of Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by <\/em>subscribing here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new NASA report found that space-based solar power \u2014 a futuristic concept pulled from the pages of science fiction<\/a> \u2014 is likely too expensive to work, but it also lays out exactly what would need to change to make it a viable source of clean energy in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge:<\/strong> Solar power<\/a> is a revolutionary weapon in the battle against climate change. Every hour, enough solar energy hits Earth to power the entire world<\/a> for a year, and the cost of harnessing this energy with solar panels has fallen exponentially in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that solar energy isn\u2019t consistent or evenly distributed. Solar panels can\u2019t generate electricity at night, of course, but sunlight also varies greatly across the seasons of the year. Researchers are still trying to figure out the most cost-effective way to store excess solar power<\/a> for later use. Batteries are still expensive and can only store a few hours or days of energy at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some places can\u2019t rely on solar power because they simply don\u2019t receive enough sunlight year-round, and it\u2019s surprisingly hard to build long-distance transmission lines to move electricity from sunnier places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At a high enough orbit, space-based solar power stations would never experience \u201cnight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Space-based solar power:<\/strong> Instead of collecting the sun\u2019s energy on the ground, it may be possible to harvest it in space<\/em> using satellites. We could then send this solar energy to terrestrial receivers in the form of concentrated microwaves or laser beams for conversion into electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solar energy is 10 times more intense<\/a>, on average, above Earth\u2019s atmosphere than within it, so these satellites would be exposed to far more sunlight than terrestrial solar farms, and at a high enough orbit, they\u2019d never experience \u201cnight,\u201d either, eliminating solar\u2019s intermittency problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weather wouldn\u2019t be an issue, as microwaves can travel right through clouds, and space-based solar power stations in high enough orbits could beam solar energy to essentially any location on the planet 24\/7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Caltech<\/figcaption>
Caltech’s space-based solar power experiment being prepared for launch. \n<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Scientists have been contemplating the idea of space-based solar power for decades, and in 2015, JAXA scientists<\/a> proved that it is possible to wirelessly and accurately transmit energy as microwaves across a significant distance and then convert it into electricity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the distance was only 170 feet and the experiment took place on Earth, this was a win for proponents of space-based solar power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An even bigger win followed in March 2023, when Caltech scientists\u2019 Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1) became the first spacecraft to wirelessly transmit solar energy<\/a> harvested in space to Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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