88 replies to this topic

[Catamount]

I was kind of wondering how orbit would work too. You can't put it in a standard low-Earth orbit, because the required orbital velocity would have it flying over the surface (so you couldn't connect it to transfer energy). You can't stick it in geostationary orbit, because then it wouldn't face the sun during certain times of the day (dependent on the time of year).

I'd be interested to see how that would work, as I'm sure it's been thought of.

Seabear, on 22 March 2012 - 01:41 PM, said:

This is not "either/or" but rather more of "all of the above". There is not one energy souce that will answer all the worlds needs nor work in the many varied locations in the world. Besides, do we really want to give another group the strangle hold over energy production that the oil companies now have? Options and choice will make things cheaper and more user friendly.

If practical nuclear fusion ever really becomes a reality, there won't need to be another option, frankly (though developing certain clean alternatives is still crucial right now to avoid the "all eggs on one basket" issue). Having fusion would be such a leap in technology, that wanting anything else would be like having a computer and demanding the option for an abacus

Edited by Catamount, 22 March 2012 - 03:36 PM.

[guardiandashi]

most of the suggestions I have seen for orbital solar power basically have been running into the "NIMBY" (Not In My Back Yard) road blocks because the orbital elevator from what I have seen is actually reliant on technologies to build that are still impossible or at least impractical.

IE the carbon nanotubes might have the strength to weight to work,... as soon as we can make them in longer than microscopic lengths and in leingths that are actually useful for the project.

because of this the "best ways" of gettign the energy from the solar satellite to the ground the last time I looked were: laser, microwave, or maser (microwave laser) the problem is what if you have a beam of energy coming down from orbit to the ground that is a megajoule /sec beam and it "misses" the receiving station and wanders over a town.... or it gets moved over the town because "terrorists" told it to retarget this is one of the issues holding back the tech.

[Catamount]

A one megajoule laser is awfully destructive, and you'd need millions of them, operating all the time. It'd be hard just designing receiving stations that would survive a beam like that (we're talking something ten times the power of the Advanced Tactical Laser)

[RedHairDave]

carbon nanotubes can be made to any length, including the hundreds of km's needed for the tether to the elevator. power could be transferred down the tether via super conductor. but yes, not the most practical, neil degrasie tyson like the idea and thinks it could work. i enjoy his work and think he is right more often then wrong.

[Colonel Fubar]

WAVE POWER GENERATION!
Until That Day!

[TripleEhBeef]

Huh, cold fusion has more votes than hot fusion?

I thought most physicists considered cold fusion to be bunk. Only one group of scientists claimed to have achieved it, but nobody else has been able to replicate their results in the past twenty years.

Hot fusion is pretty much the endgame when it comes to power generation. In the meantime, I can see more development of renewable sources and possibly thorium reactors.

[RedDragon]

dal10, on 28 February 2012 - 06:58 AM, said:

pretty much we should of hit crisis mode 20 years ago. we got at absolute best 50 years for a solution.humanity in crisis mode can perform miracles. we have done it before. we can do it again. but we need to get there BEFORE it is to late. we have make a viable fuel source before we run out. or we will never be able to leave this planet without outside help. and considering that aliens may or may not exist.... that might never happen and humans will be stuck on earth til they die out or the sun goes red giant.

Pretty much this. Old thread, but it's an up to date question, especially here in Germany. After the nuclear incident in Fukushima, Germany decided to abandon nuclear energy, which in turn led to a drastic rise in renewable energy production.
As it is always the case, the government royally f*cked it up with a lot of blind actionism (subventioning wind energy production when the power grid couldn't sustain the mass of new energy for example), but in general we saw that it can work.
During may last year for one day we produced as much renewable energy as to cover 80% of the country's consumption. For a big industry nation like Germany that is quite a lot.

Naturally it depends on the location - Countries like Sweden, Austria and Finland cover huge shares of their energy consumption through hydro energy (in the case of Finland up to 90%!).

There are some really interesting concepts floating around like paving streets or parking lots with solar cells (that you can drive on). There are countless good ideas that are perfectly doable, the biggest problem is to overcome lobbyism and our lazy governments.

[Pht]

Really, the amount of energy we extract from a given unit of petroleum is laughably small.

We OUGHT to be (and I believe COULD be) extracting quite a bit more. The percentage we get from a gallon of Gasoline is sad; and until we get an actually VIABLE (as in, economically, not just functionally) capable replacement, we ought to be using what resources we have efficiently.

Regardless of your position, going off of petroleum based fuels right now = garuanteed widespread death and destruction. Don't laugh. Think about how many hospitals and heaters and air conditioners would be turned off.

It'll be interesting to see if the skunk werks can get that compact fusion working. Even if they can and do, it would still than need to be made easily reproduceable.

Edited by Pht, 25 January 2015 - 10:16 AM.

[TheDevilsIncarnate]

If you really want to get all the bang for your buck out of solar energy, we need orbital elevators to space that can connect thousands of orbital solar panels to everyone here on the ground. Our atmosphere blocks a lot of the potential energy from the sun.