Solar power satellites

 effinayright said...

<I>John henry said...

Elon Musk is already generating solar power in space and beaming it to earth to point of use. He didn't invent the technology, Telstar was doing it 60 years ago.

*****************

OK, I'll bite:

Please explain how Musk's satellites, which are very small, do that. </I>


My guess is that the satellites have solar power panels that they use to run themselves.


Raido waves are energy.


Now, an actual SPS (Solar Power Satellite) system requires satellites with much bigger panels.


More importantly, it requires targets on the ground that can take the high energy beams, and distribute them to the electric grid.


But I've been reading about the potential of those for the last 40+ years.


One of the challenges / dangers of them is that they can also be used to power orbital weapons.  Which means they could quickly become targets.  People tend not to want to build expensive targets.


Some numbers:

11 pounds to low earth orbit gets you 4 pounds to geosynchronous orbit (LEO to GEO).  Classically you want your SPS satellites in GEO

SpaceX Falcon Heavy can get 120k to 141k pounds to LEO


https://www.energy.gov/articles/space-based-solar-power

A Microwave transmitting SPS at 180 million pounds, receiver 3 - 10 km in diameter, sends gigawatts


OTOH, a Laser transmitting satellite in LEO and about 20k pounds.  1 - 10 megawatts, bean is about 2 meters in diameter so you can have much smaller receivers, and a Falcon Heavy can take up 6 or 7 of them for $150 million


So if you can get 50 megawatts out of your 6 - 7 satellites, then your launch cost is $3 per watt

The average residential electricity rate in the U.S. is 13.83 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh)

A constant 1 watt is 8.76 kwh a year, which at current prices is $1.20 a year


So in less than 3 years you've paid for the lift, now of course you have to pay for the satellite itself, ground side transmission, etc.


Why isn't Musk in this business?  Well:


https://www.electricrate.com/solar-energy/price-per-kwh/

The national average cost per watt of solar PV is currently $2.76 per watt. This is the historic minimum price. 


That works ~12 hours a day, whereas the space based is closer to 24.  And it may be that the laser satellites have gotten better.


But being able to beam power to Earth will hit a regulatory nightmare, which means at minimum Musk won't do this before there's a Republican in the White House.


But someone else could try

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