Solor satilites solve energy crisis

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Land availabilities are at a premium, in space there is more area to use.

In practice, with the relatively low broadcast power (for safety and reliability), receiving stations would occupy a lot of land.

 

[Dave-W]

Any time you add energy into a system, which you are doing with the proposed satellite array, the excess energy eventually ends up as heat. Ground based solar, wind or hydroelectric uses energy already in the system. Burning fuel, nuclear power, and this proposed solution all add to the energy already in the system. That leads invariably to the system heating up. Global warming.

Do we really want more of that?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Any time you add energy into a system, which you are doing with the proposed satellite array, the excess energy eventually ends up as heat. Ground based solar, wind or hydroelectric uses energy already in the system. Burning fuel, nuclear power, and this proposed solution all add to the energy already in the system. That leads invariably to the system heating up. Global warming.

All bar nuclear power ultimately use the energy of the sun, which is external to the system. The Earth does radiate heat away, so we need to ensure we keep within its radiative capacity and don't insulate it with greenhouse gases. Satellite power would be acceptable in place of more polluting or less efficient energy sources.

 

[eclipsenow]

Any time you add energy into a system, which you are doing with the proposed satellite array, the excess energy eventually ends up as heat. Ground based solar, wind or hydroelectric uses energy already in the system. Burning fuel, nuclear power, and this proposed solution all add to the energy already in the system. That leads invariably to the system heating up. Global warming.

Do we really want more of that?

Ultimately in a world of a trillion people heat would become the main issue. But at this stage, a world of 10,000 new GW reactors would not cook the planet, no where near it, and no where near the 4 Hiroshima bombs per second heat that climate change is adding.

 

[eclipsenow]

I'm a fan of breeder reactors that eat nuclear waste. (See my sig).
Powersats are a great idea, but will probably be for a future generation that has some industry in space already. If we get a city on the moon it can just rail-gun the Powersats into orbit around the earth!

Finally, I saw Powersats on our ABC Catalyst science show (Australia) years ago, and planes and birds could fly through the bandwidth of microwave being proposed without damage.
See Isaac Arthur.