Space-Based Solar Power

[greencat]

Space-Based Solar Power

For more than three decades, visionaries have imagined tapping solar power where the sun always shines in space. If we could place giant solar panels in orbit around the Earth, and beam even a fraction of the available energy back to Earth, they could deliver nonstop electricity to any place on the planet.


The technology may sound like science fiction, but it's simple: Solar panels in orbit about 22,000 miles up beam energy in the form of microwaves to earth, where it's turned into electricity and plugged into the grid. (The low-powered beams are considered safe.) A ground receiving station a mile in diameter could deliver about 1,000 megawatts -- enough to power on average about one million U.S. homes.

The cost of sending solar collectors into space is the biggest obstacle, so it's necessary to design a system lightweight enough to require only a few launches. A handful of countries and companies aim to deliver space-based power as early as a decade from now

five-technologies-that-could-change-everything: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

[SolarGuy]

That is pretty amazing, but it makes perfect sense. When I read about possibilities like this, I start to worry about the political and the business obstacles that such a project would have to overcome.

When you have greedy corporations paying off corrupt politicians while feeding BS to an ignorant uninformed voting public - it gets discouraging.