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Nuclear fusion reaction releases almost twice the energy put in
(www.newscientist.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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We'll probably be able to harvest solar power from space then beam it to Earth in a practical way first, than nuclear fusion becomes practical.
There is a very efficient way to beam solar power from space. It is called light.
It's not efficient, a huge amount of it gets diffused or absorbed
It doesn't need to be efficient. Capture all the light that hits earth for 5 minutes and that's the world energy demand for a year.
How would you store it though?
solar george
Solar Robert
Usually In plants and algae.
Black hole
The amount that's left over though is more than enough, especially with today panels which only convert a very small percentage of that remaining energy.
As the panels improve even more they'll be a very large energy surplus, even with how much solar light actually gets through the atmosphere.
The nice thing about space is that there isn't any weather up there to make the solar panels dirty etc. There's also a lot of space, which solar panels need a lot of.
How would you move the power down to earth?
Microwave transmission is what's usually said, then someone says anything in the beam's path will get zapped, then it's pointed out the energy density isn't that high. Just wanted to shortcut that for ya
But what if I want to zap anything in the beam's path?
Then a meddlesome British agent will interfere.
Well at least I still have my cat.
And my moon laser
Long cable
We need to make sure we knot it at the joins so it doesn’t get accidentally disconnected.
Or just charge up car batteries and drop them.
Isn't there already a tesla up there?
Checkmate, Elon haters
Last time I read up on it it was via converting the energy into microwaves and beaming it down.
I think masers (microwave lasers) are the new theory for achieving this, previously it was beaming microwave down much like your microwave oven beams your food.
It’s not that new. Sim City 2000 included a power plant that was just a receiving dish for a maser
Funny thing is, no matter how you arrange to do that it becomes a de-facto death ray. Stick a terawatt of solar panels in space, use the power to shine a laser/maser down to earth, then build a station to turn the laser power back to electricity? Great, until some hacker figures out how to control where the laser is pointed. Then you get Dr. Evil holding the world for ransom.
Nah it's not really bad at all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power?wprov=sfla1
Lasers
There's a lot of junk though can that can damage those panels.
Space Lane cleaner was going to become a thing at some point anyway...
Not at the legrange point! Yet, anyway
Actually, that's not true. The latest telescope we sent up there has been getting damaged from the junk at that point.
And we can position a bunch over the poles to help stave off climate change.
The poles aren’t really the place that need that the most.
You wouldn't think so but them staying super cold helps stabilize a large chunk of our climate. Also throwing shade on arable land isn't great for food production.
We dont need to collect it in space, just direct more of it to certain ground based collectors?
Increasing solar incidence will increase the planet’s temperature.
So will any other space collection of power.
what if we burn the co2 away
We might be able to burn this atmosphere away yet!
no stop
I’m not sure what comment to reply to, but I feel obligated to remind people that the sun is a fusion reaction.
~~solar power~~ gravity confinement fusion
Wait... Beam solar energy from space? That's what the sun does?
What?
Basically, the idea is to build orbital solar farms (where is always sunny), then beam the energy produced back to the ground with microwave transmitters and ground recievers. It's technically feasible, unlike fusion we have all the technology needed to do it right now. However, it's cost and resource prohibitive. The US government studied building such a system in the 1970-80's after the energy crisis. We could do it, but building it would take a generation to get running and about double the US's current military annual budget. Launch costs are coming down since then, but the industrialization of space and the moon will take generations and would need to be an international effort to have any chance of success.
You know, for a bunch of people who crave power, politicians sure don't seem too keen on harnessing it.
You mean solar panels?