STEWARDSHIP:
Environment & Energy | February 18, 2004
SOLAR
POWER
SATELLITES:
A
DOWN-TO-EARTH
INVESTMENT
A
Sample Column for Review
Science
fact not fiction, solar power satellites are the only practical
means of our species' continued existence, let alone progress.
Milestones
in the technological and consequent social advancement of
civilization have been marked by the development of new and
efficient sources of power. Making and controlling fire gave Homo
erectus an evolutionary advantage over all other species.
Harnessing beasts of burden allowed hunters and gatherers to
settle into Neolithic villages. The backs of slaves bore the
growth of ancient civilizations. The invention of waterwheels
and windmills helped turn Medieval Europe out of the Dark Ages.
Steam powered the Industrial Revolution. Petroleum fuels the
Automobile Age, and electricity energizes the Information Age.
To
maintain, let alone increase, our prosperity, we cannot quit
developing new sources of energy. Fossil fuels are dinosaurs,
sooner rather than later doomed to extinction; they are the
biggest contributors to the Greenhouse Effect running amok and
local air becoming a muck; and they are the ultimate source of
war and terror in and from the Middle East. Nuclear fission and
fusion have proven too expensive, complex, and dangerous to be
practical, even in a world without terrorists. Wind-, tidal-,
geothermal-, and ground-based solar-power are too limited by
geography and technology to contribute significantly to
existing, let alone, future energy needs.
The
only dependable source of power for the advancement of
civilization is space-based solar power. For decades, scientists
and engineers -- supported by both Democratic and Republican
administrations at home and by other governments abroad -- have
developed the architecture of such a system. According to these
plans, astronauts and astrorobots would construct massive
satellites in high orbit around the Earth, where the sun shines
continuously and intensely. The materials required -- metals,
silicon, and oxygen -- are the most plentiful elements in the
crust of the Moon, where they would be mined and, again using
proven technologies, catapulted from the surface, far more
efficiently and less expensively than if launched from the
Earth, with over twenty times the gravity to overcome. Each
satellite would bear fifty square kilometers of photovoltaic
surfaces -- the "leaves" for the "photosynthesis" of
our green planet -- safely and cleanly producing as much power
as ten nuclear power plants. The enormous quantities of energy
generated would be sent down to Earth in the form of
high-density radio waves, captured by antennas in secure areas,
and converted into electricity fed into our power grids.
Of
course, a project this ambitious would require an investment in
capital, labor, and leadership as great as the mobilization for
a world war. Cooperation between nations, in both the public and
private sectors, as successfully employed in the Intelsat and
Inmarsat satellite consortia, would be an essential component --
as well as a welcome benefit -- of this project, enhancing not
only prosperity here on Earth but also security in this ultimate
"high ground". Even petroleum-exporting countries could
benefit from significantly increased supplies of energy, as
could be used to affordably desalinate seawater and make deserts
bloom; petrochemicals would continue to serve as valuable
sources of carbon for plastics and other manufacture.
The
only thing to dwarf this initial investment would be its
ultimate profit: The sun sends our planet some 20,000 times as
much power as the entire industrial world consumes; harvesting
even a fraction of this supply would yield trillions of
dollars' worth of energy (in today's dollars) every year, in
perpetuity. Such a profitable program based in space could also
represent the first step on a manned mission to Mars and beyond,
only then technically and economically feasible.
And
who can foretell what secondary benefits might arise?
Our manned missions to the Moon produced profound
advances, including computer technology that eventually
transformed every aspect of modern life. Each dollar that has
been invested in the space program has returned at least three
dollars to the economy as a whole -- a "multiplier effect"
on par with education spending and twice as great as military
spending.
The
alternative -- not meeting our world's ever growing
needs for energy, or attempting to do so by means that would
destroy the very environment in which we must live -- comes at
a cost in terms of lives, liberty, and property that cannot be
calculated or borne.
Ironically,
there is no issue more down-to-earth than the development of
space-based solar power. With it, the economy and humanity of
the world will flourish in ways we dare only imagine; without
it, the economy and humanity of the world will perish in ways we
dare not imagine.
The
future is inevitable and largely in our hands.
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