China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
engadget.com
China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
1–10 of 62 posts
Re: China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
#2Finally, somebody decided to make solar collectors in space. Been waiting for it since it was discussed in Isaac Arthur.
I bet spaceX might do something similar in the future. When they are not as encumbered with star link and the BFR.
Re: China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
#3How do they plan to beam energy back to Earth?
Re: China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
#4How do they plan to beam energy back to Earth?
Lasers? Microwaves? I'm just speculating but I don't see another way.
Re: China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
#5How do they plan to beam energy back to Earth?
Presumably lasers.
A small part of me wants to see this turn into China deploying a solar powered death laser under the guise of a green energy initiative.
Re: China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
#6How do they plan to beam energy back to Earth?
They'll recharge batteries that they'll then return to earth on a cheap BFR-like reusable launcher. /joke
Internet points to anyone who computes:
- how expensive that makes the marginal kWh returned to earth likes this.
- how low launch and return-to-earth costs must go for this to become competitive with current kWh costs.
Re: China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
#7How do they plan to beam energy back to Earth?
Its in the article
>China's proposal, meanwhile, appears to suggest converting solar energy into electric energy in space, before beaming back to Earth using a microwave or laser and feeding into the grid via a ground receiving system.
Re: China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
#8How do they plan to beam energy back to Earth?
Its in the article >China's proposal, meanwhile, appears to suggest converting solar energy into electric energy in space, before beaming back to Earth using a microwave or laser and feeding into the grid via a ground receiving system.
Short version: they can fry a target in any country in about a day.
Re: China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
#9How do they plan to beam energy back to Earth?
Do they need to? I wonder how feasible it would be to put large computational centers in space and have space solar farms powering these computational centers. So if we want to test complex or long-running programs/models/algos, we can just beam it to the computational centers orbiting earth and wait for the results when it's finished.
Re: China wants to put a solar farm in space by 2025
#10Finally, somebody decided to make solar collectors in space. Been waiting for it since it was discussed in Isaac Arthur. I bet spaceX might do something similar in the future. When they are not as encumbered with star link and the BFR.
1) It is not much more efficient due to transmission losses. (Compared to high voltage DC.)
2) The costs, on top of super expensive solar panels, make this totally pointless economically. Solar panels are hard enough to maintain on Earth.
3) It's a multi gigawatt level microwave gun in space. Want to blast some lightning onto someone? Sure, now you can. Or fry it.