FYI,

"'Drilling Up' into Space for Energy"
Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071223/ap_on_sc/space_power_2;_ylt=AsN7wY
e0cQzqnueDoMIxKMcE1vAI

: While great nations fretted over coal, oil and global warming,
: one of the smallest at the U.N. climate conference was looking
: toward the heavens for its energy.

: The annual meeting's corridors can be a sounding board for
: unlikely "solutions" to climate change — from filling the skies
: with soot to block the sun, to cultivating oceans of seaweed to
: absorb the atmosphere's heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

: Unlike other ideas, however, one this year had an influential
: backer, the Pentagon, which is investigating whether
: space-based solar power — beaming energy down from satellites
: — will provide "affordable, clean, safe, reliable, sustainable
: and expandable energy for mankind."

: Tommy Remengesau Jr. is interested, too. "We'd like to look at
: it," said the president of the tiny western Pacific nation of
: Palau.

: The Defense Department this October quietly issued a 75-page
: study conducted for its National Security Space Office
: concluding that space power — collection of energy by vast
: arrays of solar panels aboard mammoth satellites — offers a
: potential energy source for global U.S. military operations.

: It could be done with today's technology, experts say. But
: the prohibitive cost of lifting thousands of tons of equipment
: into space makes it uneconomical.

: That's where Palau, a scattering of islands and
: 20,000 islanders, comes in.

: In September, American entrepreneur Kevin Reed proposed at the
: 58th International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad, India,
: that Palau's uninhabited Helen Island would be an ideal spot
: for a small demonstration project, a 260-foot-diameter
: "rectifying antenna," or rectenna, to take in 1 megawatt of
: power transmitted earthward by a satellite orbiting 300 miles
: above Earth.

: That's enough electricity to power 1,000 homes, but on that
: empty island the project would "be intended to show its safety
: for everywhere else," Reed said in a telephone interview from
: California.

: Reed said he expects his U.S.-Swiss-German consortium to begin
: manufacturing the necessary ultralight solar panels within two
: years, and to attract financial support from manufacturers
: wanting to show how their technology — launch vehicles,
: satellites, transmission technology — could make such a system
: work. He estimates project costs at $800 million and completion
: as early as 2012.

: At the U.N. climate conference here this month, a Reed partner
: discussed the idea with the Palauans, who Reed said could
: benefit from beamed-down energy if the project is expanded to
: populated areas.

: "We are keen on alternative energy," Palau's Remengesau said. "And
: if this is something that can benefit Palau, I'm sure we'd like to
: look at it."

: Space power has been explored since the 1960s by NASA and the
: Japanese and European space agencies, based on the fundamental fact
: that solar energy is eight times more powerful in outer space than
: it is after passing through Earth's atmosphere.

: The energy captured by space-based photovoltaic arrays would be
: converted into microwaves for transmission to Earth, where it would
: be transformed into direct-current electricity.

: Low-orbiting satellites, as proposed for Palau, would pass over
: once every 90 minutes or so, transmitting power to a rectenna for
: perhaps five minutes, requiring long-term battery storage or
: immediate use — for example, in recharging electric automobiles via
: built-in rectennas.

: Most studies have focused instead on geostationary satellites,
: those whose orbit 22,300 miles above the Earth keeps them over a
: single location, to which they would transmit a continuous flow of
: power.

: The scale of that vision is enormous: One NASA study visualized
: solar-panel arrays 3 by 6 miles in size, transmitting power to
: similarly sized rectennas on Earth.

: Each such mega-orbiter might produce 5 gigawatts of power, more
: than twice the output of a Hoover Dam.

: But how safe would those beams be?

: Patrick Collins of Japan's Azabu University, who participated in
: Japanese government studies of space power, said a lower-power
: beam, because of its breadth, might be no more powerful than the
: energy emanating from a microwave oven's door. The beams from giant
: satellites would likely require precautionary no-go zones for
: aircraft and people on the ground, he said.

: Rising oil costs and fears of global warming will lead more people
: to look seriously at space power, boosters believe.

: "The climate change implications are pretty clear. You can get
: basically unlimited carbon-free power from this," said Mark
: Hopkins, senior vice president of the National Space Society in
: Washington.

: "You just have to find a way to make it cost-effective."

: Advocates say the U.S. and other governments must invest in
: developing lower-cost space-launch vehicles. "It is imperative that
: this work for `drilling up' vs. drilling down for energy security
: begins immediately," concludes October's Pentagon report.

: Some seem to hear the call. The European Space Agency has scheduled
: a conference on space-based solar power for next Feb. 29. Space
: Island Group, another entrepreneurial U.S. endeavor, reports "very
: positive" discussions with a European utility and the Indian
: government about buying future power from satellite systems.

: To Robert N. Schock, an expert on future energy with the U.N.'s
: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, space power doesn't look
: like science fiction.

: The panel's 2007 reports didn't address space power's potential,
: Schock explained, because his team's time horizon didn't extend
: beyond 2030. But, he said, "I wouldn't be surprised at the
: beginning of the next century to see significant power utilized on
: Earth from space — and maybe sooner."

Mark Reiff