I've been on a little bit of a science/sci-fi/technology jag with my diaries. Yesterday, I wrote about recent developments in commercial space travel, and news that the Chinese are planning a trip to the Moon in the next decade. Late last night, I saw an Op-Ed written in the Washington Post on 12/27/05 entitled: Why We're Going Back to the Moon. We talk about alternative energy ideas on this site, so I was sorta suprised I'd never heard of this one...
The moon's slow rotation, unclouded skies and abundant local materials make it possible to build installations specifically designed to harvest solar energy there. Solar power, collected on the moon and beamed to Earth and throughout the space between the two, can provide a clean and reliable energy source not only for space-based applications but ultimately for users on Earth as well. Lunar solar power solves the apparent "showstopper" of other space-based solar power systems -- the high cost of getting the solar arrays into space. Instead of launching arrays from the deep gravity well of Earth, we would use the local soil and make hundreds of tons of solar panels on the moon.
...To provide power for just the United States here on Earth, you would have to build a solar panel around the size of
220,000 square kilometers (300 by 300 miles). However, all the solar panels ever created would only stretch 10 square kilometers. Plus, do you think Arizona, California, and Nevada
(places where the sunlight is consistent) would like giving up that much territory? The same problem goes for wind energy too. In order to supply the U.S., it's also estimated that you would need to build
300 Square Miles of windmills. That figure doesn't count the transmission lines either.
So, why not go to the Moon?
After Googling around, the technology has been largely advocated by a scientist named David Criswell. Since "Moon Dust" has necessary elements to construct solar cells, plus a near vacuum environment...
...Criswell envisions that large fields of made-on-the-moon solar cells can energize sets of microwave transmitters. These transmitters would be in synch to deliver microwave power to receivers on Earth. In order to provide inexpensive electric energy to Earth, most of the lunar-situated hardware must be manufactured on the spot, Criswell said. Some high-technology items would be ferried to the moon from Earth, he said. Pairs of solar farms would be planted in the lunar highlands, on the east and west limbs of the moon, near the equator.
As part of the Lunar Solar Power System, beams of microwaves from the moon are directed to receiving antennas on Earth called "rectennas". They operate when they are in view of the moon. Simple reflectors or active re-transmitters in Earth orbit can redirect energy beams to ground rectennas at times when they are not in sight of the moon.
It's
"sorta" like the solar-microwave satellite power in
Sim City. According to him & others it is technologically feasible at this moment...
Criswell estimates that in 2050, a population of about 10 billion would require about 20 terawatts of power. The moon receives more than 13,000 terawatts of solar power, and harnessing just one percent could satisfy Earth's power needs, he says...
...Successful Earth-moon power beams are already in use, he points out in the current issue of The Industrial Physicist. A radio telescope operating from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico regularly uses a beam of microwaves to produce images of the moon.
"In principle it is perfectly feasible, but the problem is cost," says Paul Lowman, a geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Criswell's project will need a lot of people up there, and that will be expensive."
...And that's the rub. The startup costs of researching, planning, and sending that much men & material to the moon to get it started, would be VERY expensive. It's estimated that all of this would cost about 500 billion dollars. Since that's just the estimate, it's more likely it would cost 3/4 of a trillion dollars after cost overruns & other unforseen costs that always happen are factored in. However, it would give a very real reason for human space travel. Instead of sight seeing or just going somewhere to say that we've gone, we would be undertaking an operation to make our world better.
On the positive side, coal & nuclear power plants would become obsolete. Fossil based power systems would no longer be needed. Also, the microvave transmitters could be used for deep space exploration. "In Theory", it could be used to push a ship equipped with a Solar Sail.
However, there are risks. The microwave broadcasts from the moon would use bandwith already in use by such things as cell phones & EMS services. They would have to be moved to other frequencies. Also, the microwave transmitters on the moon could, "In Theory", be converted into a weapon. It would be sorta like what happens in "Sim City" when the satellite screws up. The U.S. military has already developed weapons based on microwaves.
For a very detailed analysis of Lunar Solar Power, go to this Link...
