It sounds too good to be true: a plan to harvest solar energy from space and beam it down to Earth using microwaves. But according to Martin Soltau, co-chairman of the Space Energy Initiative (SEI), a partnership of business and academia, it might occur as soon as 2035. This Slogging thread by Valentine Enedah, Mónica Freitas and Teri occurred in slogging's official #technology channel, and has been edited for readability. Valentine Enedah Dec 14, 2022, 4:11 PM Cassiopeia: Solar farms in space might beam electricity to Earth https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62636746 Valentine Enedah Dec 14, 2022, 4:15 PM A constellation of extremely large satellites will be launched into a high Earth orbit as part of the Cassiopeia project, which is being worked on by SEI. The satellites would capture solar energy once they were in place and send it back to Earth. Valentine Enedah Dec 14, 2022, 4:19 PM The Sun has a huge energy reserve, and there is enough space in orbit for satellites powered by solar energy. More energy is received annually in a small area of geostationary Earth orbit than is anticipated to be used by all of humanity in 2050 Says Mr. Soltau. Following an engineering study undertaken by firm Frazer-Nash that determined the technology was practicable, the UK government approved 3 million in financing for space-based solar power SBSP projects earlier this year. Valentine Enedah Dec 14, 2022, 7:47 PM A big question: Is it safe to beam energy back to earth? What do you think? Mónica Freitas Dec 15, 2022, 2:16 PM This may be revolutionary! However, from my understanding, the issue with green energies is storing them. I'm not sure how effective the transformation between solar to radio waves, and back to electricity would be. But I hope they figure it out. Valentine Enedah Dec 15, 2022, 3:53 PM Mónica Freitas, I believe it could be practical in the long run actually. I did some research on Rectennas: converting radio waves into electricity and I think you should see this. First of all, We are constantly surrounded by energy in the form of electromagnetic waves. Rectennas are receiving antennas that convert energy from electromagnetic waves into electricity. Passive RFID cards are one familiar example — when they are within range, the tags can use energy from the radio waves emitted by the reader to transmit back their identifying data. A Rectenna can convert radio, or electromagnetic, waves from the ambient environment into energy to power the sensing modules on the device, which track temperature, hydration and pulse oxygen level. Less energy is produced than other sources, but the system can generate power continuously -- a significant advantage. Radio waves are everywhere, all the time and if we don't use this energy found in the ambient environment, it is simply wasted. We can harvest this energy and rectify it into power. Various steps will involve exploring miniaturized versions of these circuits and working on developing the stretchability of the rectifier. This will be a platform where it can easily combine and apply this technology with other modules that has been created in the past. Teri Dec 18, 2022, 11:10 PM Valentine Enedah It will be astonishing to see the actualisation of this phenomenal. I can’t wait to see it happen. 💚 1 Mónica Freitas Dec 19, 2022, 11:49 AM How largely have we been able to use radio waves? What do we currently have that is only powered by radio waves? I'm not saying it can't work, but it'll be a headache to harness and store it. Unless we're continuously emitting. And even after that, that energy will have to compete price-wise with all the other existing energy sources for people to buy it. Valentine Enedah Dec 19, 2022, 4:04 PM Teri This will be a big feat in the world of Science. Valentine Enedah Dec 19, 2022, 4:11 PM Mónica Freitas Well Heinrich Hertz proved the existence of radio waves in the late 1880s. He used a spark gap attached to an induction coil and a separate spark gap on a receiving antenna. Various frequencies of radio waves are used for television and FM and AM radio broadcasts, military communications, mobile phones, ham radio, wireless computer networks, and numerous other communications applications etc. Although, converting it to electricity would be a great feat, there is still a lot of work to do to make that happen. Mónica Freitas Dec 22, 2022, 4:19 PM Valentine Enedah my point exactly. Even though we transmit information via radio waves, we still have a lot of work to do before we can actually power something through it. Fingers crossed we'll get there 💚 1 Valentine Enedah Dec 22, 2022, 9:15 PM Mónica Freitas Agreed, actually. There is actually so much prospect for Solar Energy as well. The global solar energy market was valued at $52.5 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $223.3 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 20.5% from 2019 to 2026. Mónica Freitas Dec 27, 2022, 10:18 AM Valentine Enedah the big oil exporters won't be too happy about it Valentine Enedah Dec 27, 2022, 2:12 PM Mónica Freitas Indeed! Some oil big oil are also looking at renewable energy.
