I vividly remember meeting Isaac Asimov when I was a teenager. My father had managed to get him as a speaker at the college he was teaching, where as part of a Festival on The Future, the Science Fiction writer was being asked to give a lecture on his advice for the future. Besides his impressive mutton-chop sideburns and lively demeanor, I also remember what he spoke about.
One of the main points of his talk was that he found himself greatly influenced by an early piece of Science Fiction himself. It was a novel called “The Man Who Awoke”, written in 1933 by Lawrence Manning. Despite some silly dialog and flat characters, I actually had read the book and really liked it. It was about a rich hermit named Norman Winters, who found a way to put himself into suspended animation in a subterranean chamber he’d constructed, for thousands of years at a time, making him a sort of one-way time traveler. When he first wakes up in the year 5000AD, all of the world’s fossil fuels have been used up, and the people alive at that point use alcohol refined from wood pulp as a fuel, and referred to the past centuries as the Great Age of Waste. The book is a compendium of popular Science Fiction plots: in later chapters, in the times that Winters awakes centuries later, the Earth is run by a tyrannical central computer (see any number of Star Trek and other Sci-Fi series plots), then he tries to intervene with a city of sleepers who can program their own dreams (see The Matrix), he then finds a world dominated by anarchists in enormous walking robots who perform Genetic Experiments, and finally, he reaches the age where Man discovers Immortality (and just in time for him, too).
It was that first episode, however, that struck Asimov as downright plausible; as we know very well today, there are only finite reserves of fossil fuels, and we now know that burning them at the rate we’ve been doing for power and transportation has led to catastrophic climate changes. After years of study and thought, Asimov (back in the 1970’s, when he gave this lecture) suggested a scheme where we launched satellites into geostationary orbit, much the way weather satellites are today. These satellites, however, would use arrays of solar cells to collect the sun’s energy and convert it into electricity. To get that power back to the earth, Asimov suggested a microwave beam, that like a tower between the earth and the satellite, would never move, and allow us to continuously harvest power, without any interruptions of clouds or storms.
Much of Asimov’s proposal was dismissed in the 1970’s, mostly because it was too expensive, particularly when you factored in all of the rockets that you would need to launch and manpower you’d need to support in space to build such a structure. A lot of people were still in denial that mankind would ever really run out of oil, despite the Energy Crisis of 1973 being a clear warning shot off the US’s bow.
Today, with Manning’s 1933 prophecy coming true, and the even more serious problem of global warming from the Greenhouse Effect, Asimov’s proposal is starting to look far more attractive. In fact, if you factor in the savings we get by using robots to build the solar arrays (another Asimov creation, but oddly enough, he never discussed using them to help build his orbital constructions), improvements in photovoltaic efficiency, newer, lighter materials, and the idea starts to gain credibility.
I found that last bit out in an article on the web site for New Scientist, where the US Pentagon has suggested Space-Based Solar Power Facilities as a potential solution to our energy problems:
A report released yesterday by the National Security Space Office (NSSO) recommends that the US government sponsor projects to demonstrate solar-power-generating satellites and provide financial incentives for further private development of the technology.
Space-based solar power would use kilometer-sized solar panel arrays to gather sunlight in orbit. It would then beam power down to Earth in the form of microwaves or a laser, which would be collected in antennas on the ground and then converted to electricity. Unlike solar panels based on the ground, solar power satellites placed in geostationary orbit above the Earth could operate at night and during cloudy conditions.
“We think we can be a catalyst to make this technology advance,” said US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel Paul Damphousse of the NSSO at a press conference yesterday in Washington, DC, US.
The NSSO report recommends that the US government spend $10 billion over the next 10 years to build a test satellite capable of beaming 10 megawatts of electric power down to Earth.
My favourite part of the article comes right at the end:
…the NSSO and its supporters say that no fundamental scientific breakthroughs are necessary to proceed with the idea and that space-based solar power will be practical in the next few decades.
“There are no technology hurdles that are show stoppers right now,” said Damphousse.
So, nothing new to invent, and we could have much of the problems of the end of cheap oil and Greenhouse gas buildup fixed within, say, 15 years. That might just save the human race from extinction (even if we do lose the Polar Bear).
I am aware of the dangers of a fixed and continuous microwave beam, and we have no idea what it would do the atmosphere. I certainly wouldn’t want to be a bird (or plane) that wandered too close to the beam itself. Nevertheless, I can’t help thinking that if we’d only listened to Asimov, when I met him back in the 1970s, we’d be in much better shape now, but maybe it’s not too late to heed his advice 30 years later.
Sorry David, but the numbers just don’t add up at all:
The fact that no “fundamental scientific breakthroughs are necessary” just means that the project is possible using today’s technology (just like wind power, wave power, etc. etc.), but you also saw the numbers, right? “10 billion dollars over a ten year period to build a test satellite capable of beaming 10 megawatts of electric power down to earth”.
In the year 2000, the combined capacity of U.S. electric power plants was 604,514 megawatts [Official energy statistics from the U.S. government]
When I was a kid in the 70’s I kept hearing on the news that there was 20 years of oil left. Now, 30 years later, the number is 40 or 50 years, I think. They keep finding more of the stuff. Oil is still way too cheap, and the resulting pollution is still mostly free (i.e. it’s not the ones who pollute who pay). That needs to change before anything else will change.
I don’t buy into the 15 year horizon on fixing the problems.
Jan — You’re right that 10 megawatts certainly doesn’t even begin to take a bite out of 604+ megawatts. I guess I’m probably too optimistic (and the thought that a nerdy Sci Fi Author of the ’70s had ‘the answer’ all along is probably not a realistic thought, either, but it surely would be the best Revenge of the Nerds of all time!)
I’m also now wondering what would happen to the electricity after it reached the earth in that towering microwave beam; how would it get sent around? How would it get stored? How would we continue to build the machines that we’d need in order to turn that electricity into motion, heat, and other work? There are so many holes in the scenario, that I now begin to wonder how New Scientist could make so many leaps of faith in the story.
I guess there are no easy answers, and worst of all, you’re absolutely right about the inertia that has infected the developed world with respect to changing our habits, lifestyles and appetites when it comes to the gulping of natural resources and generating of pollution. Even if some cataclysmic Natural Disaster (and one worse than Katrina, and centered upon an affluent White suburb) hits the US, they won’t be able to put 2 and 2 together and change. I’ve no confidence in the American public or politicians, but I guess I haven’t quite given up on hi-tech companies. Maybe I should.
I almost hate to do it, but the current US consumption is not 604 megawatts, it’s 604 thousand megawatt = 604 gigawatt.
ddrucker — ” I’m also now wondering what would happen to the electricity after it reached the earth in that towering microwave beam; how would it get sent around? How would it get stored? How would we continue to build the machines that we’d need in order to turn that electricity into motion, heat, and other work? There are so many holes in the scenario, that I now begin to wonder how New Scientist could make so many leaps of faith in the story. ”
How do you think it gets sent around now? How do you think it gets stored now? your comment on how would we build the machines to use the electricity is simply dumb.
The project is possible and 99% of the solutions are here now it is just a question of willpower and necessity to build it. It is NOT a pipe dream and does not require any ‘leap of faith’.
Geez, I’m getting it coming and going.
Milander, I’m not sure what you think is dumb about the fact that there are currently no electric-powered dump-trucks, helicopters or even factories to make these machines. I also think that saying that 99% of the solutions are here strikes me as an even greater stretch than the article suggested.
As for the project being a question of willpower and necessity to build it, I agree, but it, like any other massive energy project in which some of the elements are not fully defined (like the conversion of the energy to and from microwaves, the environmental impact of a massive microwave beam, how to best keep the beam steady and avoiding any chance of things going horribly wrong and the beam blasting across the countryside, and other ‘minor’ details) is indeed a ‘leap of faith’ in the designers and engineers, at the very least. Has anybody ever converted Microwave energy to electricity at the scale they’re talking about? I don’t think so. What happens to the efficiency of conversion at that level of transfer? What do you shield workers at the receiving station from microwave leakage with? And just how do you design the receiving station, not to mention the satellite itself? The largest solar array currently in orbit is probably the International Space Station, and just yesterday astronauts had to perform what sounded like a hazardous spacewalk in order to repair a ‘tear’ in the array. To simply say that this is only a lack of will is overstating the case. I’m with you on that, but calling any questioning of missing details (and there were plenty of them) ‘dumb’ is doing a disservice to your argument.
Don’t see why this should be such an impossible task, considering the alternatives. A billion dollars a year to try out what could mean an unlimited energy resource is peanuts, please do compare this sum of money to the cost of — pardon the cliché — the Gulf War. Or, for that matter the cost of drilling, refining, transporting and distributing petroleum world wide.
Naturally, it’s to be expected that an initial test run would produce a minute amount of energy. How much petroleum was refined and used as fuel a hundred years ago? How extensive a a tool was the internet fifteen years ago? Obviously, every new technology initially only generates a loss of investment, that’s just how invention funding works.
With a few test facilities improving and popularizing solar power, we could hope for virtually free energy within our life time. Imagine the consequences of that situation — with the Middle East no longer being of imperative strategic importance, maybe there’d be a chance for peace in that war-torn region. All the resources we put into energy production today could be redirected into whatever we choose. Such as free health care, education and fresh drinking water for everyone on the planet, perhaps. Wanna be nerdy about it? We could also spend all those trillions of dollars annually wasted on petroleum products that poison the planet on colonizing space. Or anything else you fancy.
Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, or at the very least a possibility worth exploring, as our current way of life has warped our surroundings to the point where we consider climate change a banality.
All visions attract naysayers. Accepting the challenge of something which might not work is vastly preferable to inaction.
Structures in orbit will always be nice targets for space junk. Large solar panells would be destroyed rather quickly.
NO! This is exactly what destroyed the planet Krypton!!!
While huge arrays of solar panels beaming “free” energy back to us on Earth are certainly attention grabbing, I can’t help but feel there are far more practical solutions to the renewable energy problem available without needing to take the risk of launch into orbit, or foot the enormous bill.
Geothermal “hot-rock” generation — where holes are drilled down to a large body of hot, porous rock and water pumped down, heated as it goes through the rock and then pumped back up to drive turbines are being investigated. Sounds outlandish, but is apparently feasible.
In Australia a new wave generation design is being developed (see http://ceto.com.au/home.php ) that is completely submerged (ship and storm safe), and has costs per unit of energy comparable to wind generation but is suitable for base load (ie 24/7) — the wave energy is always there to be extracted, unlike wind or solar.
Also, earth based solar farms where mirrors focus sunlight onto heating pipes to heat a working fluid (which can be stored for use during the night) seem to be developing quite well.
Getting to my point — I think there will be other, easier energy sources exploited well before orbiting solar farms appear.
Finally, what would the carbon footprint of building and launching a solar satellite system be? How long would it need to produce for to offset that, and how would that compare to its service lifetime? Don’t wanna be a grinch, but I just don’t see orbit being christmas. Yet.
one point twenty-one gigawatts!
To address Jan’s comments about the increasing size of oil reserves, there’s an easy explanation as to why reserves are increasing.
Reserve numbers are directly related to the price of oil. The exact meaning of the term is how much oil is recoverable at the given price of oil…Essentially, oil that is unprofitable to get is not counted as reserves. The price is going up today and so are reserves.
Canada’s oil sands (a LOT of oil) got added around $50 Bbl, I believe. There’s also the matter of turning Coal into Oil, which becomes profitable at around $65 Bbl, and coal reserves are at around 200–250 years.
Also worth noting is that OPEC changed some of its rules in the 80’s so that reserves affected how much a nation could sell…and the “official” reserves of the OPEC countries suddenly doubled without any change in price or any new exploration. So some of the reserves don’t even exist.
In any case, it’s the end of cheap oil, just not the end of oil. Not yet, anyway.
Weird, I noticed that “Milander” left a negative comment here. I thought the name looked familiar, then I remembered that he’d left a negative comment here: http://www.ecojoes.com/using-a-cloth-bag-instead-of-paper-or-plastic/
It’s the second comment. I guess he/she is just a “Negative Nancy”.
I’m not sure negative comments are at all called for or of use in this case as they are not constructive in nature, and they only give an opinion instead of stating fact. “That is dumb” is an opinion, not a fact. If it were a fact, it would be supported with evidence or at least a valid argument (which, now that I think of it, would contain evidence).
Seriously, how much change can this article affect? In turn, take into consideration how much change the comment will make on an article that makes practically no change whatsoever. All the article is doing is relaying information already reported somewhere else, and adding the bit about it being Issac Asimov’s idea originally.
The idea in the article is an interesting one. The best feature I could suggest about orbiting solar panels is the ability to point the energy wherever you need it. Setting up a military base in the middle of the jungle or a sandy expanse nowhere near a power station? Just create a portable receiver and have the beam (maybe even just a portion of the beam) redirected to your current position. The same could be said for orbiting space stations that might slip into shadow, or for boosting the power on some futuristic moon settlement.
Sure, a huge solar “sail” would probably get torn by the occasional space debris, but would it really be that expensive of an obstacle that it would out-weigh the advantages gained from its implementation?
My biggest fear would be that the beam would be used as a weapon. Imagine a 10 megawatt microwave beam able to hit any point on an entire hemisphere. Once the AI advances beyond human control, we’ll have spy satellites coupled to solar-powered microwave cannons and each time we disobey the tyrannical, mechanical gods we’ll get an unfriendly taze from the skies.
Then again, I’m not all that concerned about global warming and the rate of energy consumption as I’m sure we’ll nuke ourselves into oblivion long before we run out of fossil fuels. If we don’t, I’m of the mind that we’ll nuke each other fighting for the last few drops of oil, and any survivors will live in a hell unimaginable to you or I and will probably kill themselves to end their suffering.
Can this comment get any longer? Why, of course!
I’d finally like to say to the nay-sayers: just because obstacles exist does not mean we should give up thinking of solutions.
It’ll make a great weapon.
50 years ago people said that people walking in space was IMPOSSIBLE. No one with half a brain can deny that the ice caps are melting, we have a hole in our atmosphere and temperatures are rising faster then gas prices. Why do people reject any idea there pea sized brain can not understand. We must do something. This sounds as good as not doing nothing.
Would you like to live next to a gigawatt beam that could cook you in a second if the aim of the sender was off by the merest fraction of a degree? Even if there were guarantees against use as as weapon (which I would not trust) I wouldn’t trust my life to such technology.