Is Space-Based Solar a Good Idea?

[@DrBenMiles]

Thanks to Sam and the Space Solar team for talking to me this week about their work 🚀

[@AnthemUnanthemed]

You should probably do more research than talking to CEOs this is a dramatic and expensive waste of time, there would still be night times in orbit, infact there may be more when u think of the way an orbit works with all the objects rotating, or stick it in a lagrange point where it needs to shoot through the parts of earth that shield it from much more radiation than having it in low orbit making it non viable with a still spinning planet. We dont need a breakthrough we just need better management and coordination, we literally have access to everything we need to make the solar farms for fractions of the cost of this, just tax the top 4 or 5 companies an extra 1% and we could probably pay for it all like that.

[@Spielername]

​@@AnthemUnanthemedThis is not the only thing. Maybe I understood it wrong but did he really say that one of these things will have the same output as a nuclear plant?!? I can't imagine that it is somehow worth (or good for the planet) to launch 60 Rockets to build a Megastructure that can barely generate as much electricity as a nuclear reactor... Just build a sustainable energy grid and use the returnables we can use from here (earth). This would generate a lot of jobs, an economy around returnables and it would be a lot cheaper. And you could repair it without needing a space mission. This whole project sounds like a toy for the rich and we need solutions that would help developing countries and the 3rd world could and would profit from as well. If we're concentrating on projects like this we would do more harm than good. Poorer countries would like to have a living standard like we have and if we don't provide solutions to help them to reach this goal they'll burn Cole and oil and we can forget to reach the 4C° target... we can't probably even reach it now but there is no reason to make it worse.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

Good GOD, Ben. DO NOT believe SpaceX's ASPIRATIONAL LIES. Do I really need to teach you about history and how EVERY company with a psychopathically corrupt hypocritical massively greedy CEO fails spectacularly? You just gobbled up SpaceX's ASPIRATIONAL claims as if they were past tense. No. You really need to watch all of Common Sense Skeptic (CSS) and Thunderf00t's videos to learn not to be so gullible. And on top of all that, at 13:04, you say "it's better to look at trends than projections". Uh... yeah, Ben Miles. Yeah. Duh. Watch all of CSS's and Thunderf00t's videos to see the decades of TRENDS of SpaceX's CEO repeatedly lying, making ludicrous projections, outright lies ("we can do this technology TODAY.... we have full self driving NOW")

[@herzogsbuick]

when i was around 7, i was building my first crystal radio set. it blew my mind to realize the radiowaves themselves carried energy. so i pulled out my invention book and drew a satellite in the sky, beaming down AM radio waves to a big ol' dish on the ground. years later, when i learned that i wasn't the one who actually invented the concept, i decided to become a bass player.

[@yestermonth]

💀

[@creepystory2490]

​😂😂😂

[@kebman]

This is going to hurt a bit, but... There are two kinds of losers in this world: Those who say "We can't possibly do that, it's never been done before!" And then there are those who say "Wtf we can't do that, it's been done before!"

[@herzogsbuick]

@@kebman lol i'm confused as to why you think that would hurt, but otherwise agreed, i, i think??

[@blackjakas3595]

I had somewhat of the same experience when I was a teenager. I always loved sci-fi and sciency things without going full nerd on it. Since I loved reading and sleeping i learnt to lucid dream, yes it's a thing and i can't believe peoples actually dream and don't believe they can control those, anyway I loved making civilisations and simulating their developpement with my imagination. One night I grew bored of one such simulation and decided to get rid of it, so I thought 'Wouldn't it be cool if they went to another dimension or something?' and as such immediatly began reviewing any way to do so with my sci-fi pseudo science knowledge. I began reviewing my knowledge on blackholes and theorised that if there truly were different dimensions, then there were no better place than the single most fd-up spacetime entity present in our universe to cross em. I theorised that the unprecedented pressure of a blackhole wouldn't just make a sort of weird sun that ate light and matter, no it would compress and compress matter, space and time in such a small area it could theorically break the 'rules' of physics and reality and could theorically be exploited to change from one reality to another if done right. I also theorised that such advancement wouldn't happen quickly and as such could only be done at the death of the universe. I tought that blackholes don't disapear, they just grow, as such theorically at the end, there would only be one enormous blackhole. So I hand waved it away for the civilisation to use spaceships to go trought such a blackhole and go away. Anyway, a few years later I watched a video about a scientist that had the same ideas and choose to publish something about it. I don't remember at all the name of the guy nor the video but if any of y'all knows anything about it, i'd appreciate knowing it.

[@jjamespacbell]

I have no issue with the technology involved but I have a hard time believing space-based solar would have a lower total cost of electricity than a land-based solar farm with 10 times the solar panels and batteries to offset the night and weather issues. Also having high-voltage DC lines between utilities would IMHO be far more cost-effective the space-based solar for pseudo base load.

[@MattyP3789]

You have about the same probability of success of ever reaching appreciable energy stores from wind and solar as Elon Musk does terraforming fn’ Mars. They are both wild fantasies that that only serve to hinder real progress in researching and developing new technologies to assist us in confronting problems we will face in the future. It’s a grift.

[@AnthemUnanthemed]

yea like 80s in and apparently this was off of the idea of "we need drastically new solutions", which is actually not true we mostly need cooperation and policy changes to continue moving towards greener options for infrastructure and thinking about long term disposal of things, several top american companies can individually pay to cover whats needed to end hunger and power the world and still grow. Issue 2, relying on elon musk. Also I dont see how they can have an orbit of earth that isnt in a lagrange point (which would DRASTICALLY lower energy transfer capabilities) that wouldnt also have a night time unless they do a network of satellites, and we are already potentially putting too much particulate matter being held up in the atmosphere which is potentially muting the magnetosphere and we probably dont want that either, companies should have never been let in space. Also the earth could very easily fit enough power generation for people if there was a proper grid system potentially making every building generate some power whenever possible.

[@macrumpton]

The big advantage of this scheme would be that the solar panels in space would produce power 24 hours day, assuming you chose the orbit correctly. Batteries would be unnecessary as well as tracking hardware. I have wondered if it might not be easier to have the solar panels on earth, but use giant space mirrors to focus sunlight on the panels. This would allow double the output during the day, and regular output at night.

[@UnexpectedBooks]

Microwaves will be blocked by clouds, right? So you need to direct to receivers that are under clear skies.

[@MattyP3789]

Microwaves actually have a pretty good pass through rate which is why we use them for satellite communication.

[@yaksher]

"We don't really have any solution to power demands doubling" yeah. We do. It's called nuclear power.

[@dogsbodyish8403]

Over a period of a hundred years, say, worldwide dependence on nuclear isn't totally without its own problems...

[@yaksher]

@@dogsbodyish8403 Sure. Some problems. Unlike this, which is made entirely of problems. This plan is comically stupid because it relies on the argument that "land area is expensive" and "this is scalable" while only delivering 1/4th midday sun power density. Even if it's continuous and harvested more efficiently, it's the same scale and has the comical disadvantage over, say, solar towers (which also provide continuous power with thermal buffering), of requiring sending enormous amounts of mass into space, where it then cannot be maintained. The speaker also claims with no basis that ground-based solar is 1% efficient while space-based solar is somehow 40% efficient even though they're the same solar panels and the atmosphere (clouds aside) is mostly transparent to the wavelengths absorbed by solar panels. Is there some universe where this becomes viable? Sure. Not at 1/4th midday sun power density of the transmitted beam and likely not while we're still using chemical rockets to launch things into space.

[@dogsbodyish8403]

@@yaksher As I think the presenter hints, the main advantages over land-based may be in the ability to maintain supply during night-time or cloudy conditions (like in the UK), and to be able to easily switch the destination of the energy to where it's most needed at any given time. And the efficiency thing may be all about land area usage (as opposed to overall efficiency). Which is again relevant to the UK, for example, as agricultural land is in short supply - for food production.

[@Hansulf]

​@@dogsbodyish8403What problem? Resource cuantity? Nope, nuclear is virtually infinite (sea water extraction). Nuclear waste? Fast nuclear reactors turn waste into fuel. Safety? Is the most secure source of energy together with wind and solar.

[@dogsbodyish8403]

@@Hansulf Waste is ultimately problematic - some of the most toxic products aren't capable of being recycled - and, despite techniques like vitrification, still require safe stowage. I'd have thought widespread use of nuclear worldwide would eventually pose problems. Still, fusion will be coming along soon...

[@123FireSnake]

Powerbeaming has always just been a matter of time. But good to hear they're actual projects in progress not just ideation. Personally i can't wait to sacrifice Mercury to the dyson!

[@CSlush]

To be fair if you're just building solar satellites like this let alone simpler light focusing sats which are little more than massive sheets of thin aluminum foil you almost certainly don't even need to sacrifice Mercury to build a complete Dyson sphere at a distance about the same as Mercury's orbit. The numbers more closely resemble an amount of mass along the lines of a moderate sized asteroid or two.

[@yorkyone2143]

Surely micro meteorite showers would pepper any solar array of significant size ?

[@stevechance150]

Like they shower the space station and its solar panels?

[@Iowa599]

most shit doesn't reach Earth surface because air...

[@chadoftoons]

I think maintainence concern is real but i doubt even a 2 kilometer structure has any size significance when there is a much better gravitational thing to hit. I mean i doubt it will be constantly hit and will probably exist for quite a few years before there are issues

[@yorkyone2143]

@@stevechance150 The larger the array the more chance it could be hit, plus panels on the space station are more easily replaced.

[@Wulfnstein]

@@yorkyone2143 And the larger it gets they probably also have to worry about solar wind. Which, although probably negligible, still add an extra cost to the maintenance and/or a loss to the energy produced.

[@RyanF470]

Aiming a 2.45GHz Microwave beam at the ocean, could cause excessive water heating and evaporation. H20 is also one of the most intensive greenhouse effect when in atmosphere. Probably a better idea to aim these at Deserts where there are low quantities of liquid already.

[@thulyblu5486]

Or you can just build a regular solar park in the desert and save the cost of the freakin space launch...

[@thulyblu5486]

You'd also grill every bird and insect that flies through the beam and they can't ever learn to avoid it unlike avoiding wind turbines since they're visible. Also airplanes might need to avoid this area...

[@ricardodelzealandia6290]

As someone working in the phased array industry, I think I'd safely bet on this never happening.

[@iancash3559]

I'd appreciate your insights on why. Technically the HARRIER experiment has proven (world first) that a helical phased array can form and steer a coherent microwave beam through 360 degrees. Just as-well; I'm the inventor named in the CASSIOPeiA patents (Ian Cash).

[@victorlowe]

Sick dunk ​@@iancash3559

[@Pier-zl7gm]

Totally agreed. For once, I agree with Elon: it’s the stupidest idea ever

[@hokiedevil]

I did research on this in the 70s. Excited to see that it is on the cusp of happening finally. I do worry about "space junk" and solar wind issues still

[@yogibear6363]

If by "cusp" you mean never.

[@tnekkc]

When I was designing and building a solar home in 1982, panels cost $100/Watt, when in Seattle electricity cost 1.5 cents/kWh

[@sebsunda]

So... Based on the efficiency numbers given... For every useful units of energy the sun give to the system, we will get ~0.25 units as electricity on Earth. Which is similar to high quality PV solar under ideal conditions. That mean we want to do this for 3 majors reasons: 1) Reliability: Since we can't control the weather on Earth, this will provide energy 100% of the time. 2) Flexibility: Since you can steer the beam, you can provide energy to a wide area of the globe the system is facing. 3) Telecom: You can leverage the system to also increase the bandwidth for geo-stat communication. (Basically making a huge relay station) Bonus: You get to incentivize the space economy, promote innovations & efficiency gain which will help us develop the Earth-Moon orbital Economic zone. So I'm for it.

[@dfgdfg_]

Sim City 2000 taught me this was a bad idea 😊

[@optiskeptic4746]

I question whether the videographic at 17:21 is at all accurate - 22,000 miles sounds like geosynchronous orbit, which means it would hang over one spot on earth - basically essentially stationary (hence the name)... the graphic shows the opposite. I believe a more accurate representation would show a stationary Earth-powerstation pairing, with the day/night terminator 'shadow' moving across the surface. The powerstation itself is never in shadow since it's so far above the Earth, and it was mentioned the solar array receives power from the Sun omnidirectionally so there would always be continuous power. If I've got any part of that wrong, please correct me!

[@azizghalib495]

8:30 So we use more energy to not waste energy? This sounds weird, but I'm not a physicist so I guess it's OK?

[@MattNolanCustom]

We need a lot more information about the cost, feasibility, environmental impact, weather resilience, and maintenance issues of these 60 sq km receiver arrays out at sea. Details notably absent. Elephant in the room, methinks.

[@inotoff]

don't bother. It will never be built. Every ingeneering project basing its numbers on starship's launching cost is doom from the start.

[@MattNolanCustom]

@@inotoff cost of mass to orbit is coming down eventually, one way or another

[@inotoff]

@@MattNolanCustom Depends which orbit you're talking about. LEO? Maybe. Further ? I wouldn't be that sure.

[@-_James_-]

Clearly there's a huge market potential for space based energy production. I think I might have to try and develop my idea for a wind farm in space.

[@kreynolds1123]

Great idea! Maybe you might look into Dyson Harrop satellites. 😊 Unfortunately, the biggest problem with beaming power to earth with dyson-harrop satellites is the beam spread over the much greater distances involved outside planetary magnetosphere. But solar winds power may one day be a real thing in the distant future. Maybe to power space craft with lasers? 😊

[@Hansulf]

Try using asteroids to turn those blades!

[@dmitryshusterman9494]

I'm a space farmer is a great pickup line. Go for it

[@Spielername]

​@@dmitryshusterman9494I'm a space farmer myself. The biggest problem is that I can't earn shyte outside of the seasons.😉

[@gemerat]

Beware of solar storms that could shatter the blades ! We can although sell you an extended warranty for your turbines.

[@Paulobrrs]

At 9:00 about interference beans, the energy consumption will be reduced ou the same? You produce the wave, but the interference will create a narrow bean. The result is different, but the necessary energy is the same, right?

[@buckrogers3727]

Given the effect of a house hold microwave (2.4ghz) on your home wifi. I would wonder how much effect this will have on the environment?

[@jsalsman]

What's the half power beam width? The angular width of a two square kilometer disk from geostationary orbit is about 0.0025 degrees. The half power beam width of the Deep Space Network's 70-meter K-band (22 GHz) dish antennas, the narrowest beams ever engineered, is 0.012 degrees. Such a beam would cast an area of at least 44 square kilometers from GEO, about the size of Bermuda.

[@MattNolanCustom]

They gave the receiver station area as about 70 square kilometres to receive a total power of 2GW, peak intensity 250W/m^2 at the centre, fading towards the edges in the manner of an Airy Disk

[@kaiying74]

I'm filing this under "Never going to happen". Nice PR for the company and nice low-effort video for Ben though.

[@larryscott3982]

Yeah. Right up there with hotel space stations.

[@thulyblu5486]

This video is so uncritical about this ludicrous fiction that it made me unsubscribe

[@mark32768]

I would like to see a detailed diagram of the sidelobes of the main beam. Will there be enough power in these to interfere with WiFi at various locations around the receiving antenna?

[@EliasMheart]

Yes! Finally

[@amadexi]

If you can beam targetted EM waves at a power output equivalent to a nuclear plant and reduce the area (which will happen as technology progresses), this definitely has military application. At the right frequency it can be used to either disable communication/radar, and definitely has the power output necessary to burn a lot of things down.

[@FelixNielsen]

Thanks you for the "bad software engineer" comment. It is rare to hear anyone actually saying it aloud and as fact, even though quite clearly it is.

[@Tagraff]

I think they need to redesign differently other than assemblying the plate. What's wrong with the "square plate" that is attached grid flexibly and rolled into a "tape"? Then you can just unroll it while in space and attach it to the frame.

[@chrisc62]

I like the idea where it can supply energy where the sun isn't shing and the wind blowing to anywhere on earth it was needed. So night-time solar energy at a cost equivalent to terrestial solar.

[@RagaarAshnod]

Do you include your sources some where, I'm curious about the graphic you used to show solar as being more affordable.

[@RagaarAshnod]

I was really uncomfortable to see you did not cite your source in the video

[@iancash3559]

Search for Frazer Nash Consultancy techno-economic study reports on space based solar power, for both UK gov and ESA.

[@BerndSchnabl]

wouldn't a Dyson sphere heat up the Earth and fry it? Same with converting Solar energy in space to micro waves and sending it down to Earth also MUST warm up the Earth. Right?

[@incognitotorpedo42]

If it's only 2 GW, that's a fraction of a drop in the bucket compared to the heat that rains down on Earth constantly from the sun.

[@BerndSchnabl]

@@incognitotorpedo42 granted, but then it is also not much of a solution

[@Skyler827]

The Earth receives 174 petawatts (PW) of incoming solar radiation (insolation) at the upper atmosphere.[6] Approximately 30% is reflected back to space while the rest, 122 PW, is absorbed by clouds, oceans and land masses. (From wikipedia). If you add 21 Terawatts of extra solar energy from nearby orbital space, which is the current total worldwide electricity supply, you increase the earth's net energy budget by 0.01%

[@fiiral5870]

A full dyson swarm, yes. 2GW is basically nothing though.

[@BillTrowbridge]

Yes. Doing an experiment is negligible. But at industrial scale, this would directly heath the Earth. It would be even more direct than the problems fossil fuels are causing.

[@SolarSi]

Soo, quick back of the envelope calculation: A 400Wp solar panel is about 2m2, accounting for 1m row spacing that means you get about 100Wp/m2. The 6km radio antenna is about 28mln m2. Meaning that a floating solar farm of this size would have a capacity of 2.8GWp... Am I missing something here or does this seem like a really elaborate way to put up 2GW of solar power? Not to mention the maintenance and production costs... And what about the critical raw materials needed for PV modules with 40% efficiency?

[@inotoff]

This is only PR. The goal is to lure investors who don't think further than CGI and wow factor. Then they sell the startup and let the project die. There are countless examples of these bullshit projects.

[@kreynolds1123]

I like the idea of PWM phased beaming between locations on earth to balance power between locations based on need. It might work well with terrestrial solar intermittency to match local demand and reduce the need for fosil fuel peaker plants. Receiving PWM beamed power might create a need for very short term power storage to smooth out the average power recieved over a second or two. I suspect capacitors would ideally fill this role with their high power capacity and long maintenence free life span.

[@belamezos3226]

Correct me if I am wrong. The interference canceled parts of the beams should be a total energy loss, isn't it so? Okay, usable energy goes in the needed direction, but all the other directions should be the loss of a spherical radiator. As i said I am maybe wrong. I do not want to be pessimistic, but I guess this kind of solar energy harvesting will be only economical, when we will be able to bring the energy down to earth in a much more.dense form, and/or with very low loss. At the moment there is no way for it. If the space elevators will ever be made, that could bring down wired power from solar powerplants built on them.

[@shanent5793]

If the waves have interfered and cancelled each other then there's no EM field in that direction to do any work

[@andrewhaslam8785]

But it still requires energy to send them in that direction in the first place, even if they cancel out

[@grogery1570]

It sounds really cool but will it ever be price competitive with ground based solar with a storage system?

[@cyrilio]

What effect does harvesting solar energy in space have on the warming of the planet?

[@Skyler827]

The Earth receives 174 petawatts (PW) of incoming solar radiation (insolation) at the upper atmosphere.[6] Approximately 30% is reflected back to space while the rest, 122 PW, is absorbed by clouds, oceans and land masses. (From wikipedia). If you add 10 Gigawatts, it would increase the energy budget of the earth by 0.000008%.

[@MrKirby365]

So we haven't touched on this.Does this mean that there is a possibility that we will no longer need to charge cell phones cars eventually by plugging them in?Will we be beaming power within our homes?

[@BryonElliott]

Being such a large object in orbit, there will be collisions with micrometeoroids and small bits of our space junk. How do they plan on handling this issue?

[@Kevin_Street]

Thank you for this fascinating new video!

[@amzarnacht6710]

So, how much can it collect... and how much of that is lost during translation into a transmittable form and attenuated during its travel through the atmosphere. What happens when something else passes through such a concentrated high power beam of energy?

[@MattNolanCustom]

I guess you missed the bit about the peak beam intensity being equivalent 1/4 of the midday Sun (at the Equator, which was the bit they didn't actually mention)

[@jkcrews09]

Or should this be a collection system where it then gets transported back-and-forth?

[@kenjohnson6101]

I watched the first 30 sec of this video. Does it mention LCOE?

[@smk4224]

Well. I'm not convinced yet! Sounds like the inverse square law doesn't apply to this consept due to the fcused beam, right? Will efficency really be that good? Anyway, I reccomend everyone to stay far away from the receiving area 🙂

[@scriptles]

I wonder if maybe putting datacenters in outer space would be a good idea too. You can have solar power it, so that solves the energy demand. It's also -450 F in space, so you likely can cool very efficiently. That solves the heat problem. I wonder what latency would be like then. Has anyone covered anything like this before?

[@allocater2]

12:06 10 kW sent or 10 kW received?

[@bokunochannel84207]

is it possible to convert fisible light or heat into microwave without electronic? so basically, it uses 0 energy while idle.

[@jasonlow6943]

Staggering.... I think you are right about the inevitability of space based power generation and in the value of doing a huge project like this... The experience of constructing things in space potentially is more valuable than the energy it would produce.... The first of things also tend to be the worst of things... The wright brothers built the world's worst plane but their pioneering paved the way for craft to evolve into what it is today 🤔 excellent videos.

[@RandomToon1]

Wouldn't something this big be a solar sail? How do you keep it in place physically?

[@derekwood8184]

I've always been suspicious about solar satellites beaming energy to earth, largely due to lack of efficiency in the downlink. I design radio electronics, so I've taken a quick look at some of the figures... and maybe, just maybe this is comming together. I note an IEEE paper pointing at a 90% efficient ~45dBm PA (class F of course), operating in the same band (Design and Investigation of Broadband High-Efficiency Continuous Inverse Class - F Power Amplifier) .. a 5% loss for filtering and you get the 85% DC-RF figure.. I haven't begun to think about the receiver side.. but it's not going to be a traditional architecture. the 2% atmospheric loss... hmmm.. quick check of the atmospheric absorbtion charts.. yes, good there too.. so far so good. The antenna side looks fairly good.. but it's going to look like a solar farm rather than a wind farm.. you'll need to completely cover a substantial area of landscape, any area not filled will be a loss (holes bigger than about half a wavelength that is.. or 12cm).. the weather sealing of the receive antenna will be a concern.. but again, that's engineering concerns, not outright physics problems. Additionally the satellites are going to relatively affordable to make as they'll each use many identical parts so the high manufacture volume will control costs. Thanks for sharing this.

[@AnthemUnanthemed]

"not outright physics problems", the orbits, the materials, the cost to benefit analysis of the potential to do it on earth and understanding that the only reason to go to space with it is so u can have something cool to say when someone asks you what your job is

[@CSlush]

​@@AnthemUnanthemedLuddite.

[@AnthemUnanthemed]

@@CSlush please google what a luddite actually was, they weren't just anti industrial revolution, they were saying we were killing the environment, and polluting ecology, and were afraid we wouldn't stop until its too late. So now while there are plans to launch rockets into space for solar stuff (because we polluted so much due to the industrial revolution that now we need a green transition as quick as posible) maybe the actual effects of doing these things should be investigated before it becomes a problem living on this planet

[@wadewilson524]

I would imagine that there would be enough “leakage” that a smart enterprising person could pirate a significant amount of energy.

[@YouNameItGaming]

That's probably the reason why collectors are planned to be offshore, as opposed to safety concerns as the energy density on the ground is 1/4th of that of direct sunlight, and not in a harmful wavelength to begin with.

[@wagnerrp]

To be clear, it wouldn't be theft. Compare to stealing "leakage" from overhead powerlines, you're close enough that an inductive receiver actually produces a load on those powerlines. Here, anything not captured by the primary collectors is waste. You would be recovering their waste, that they dumped on your land. You're "taking" from them in terms of lost revenue, but that's not illegal in most jurisdictions. You would have to make a new law about it, like the BBC's receiver license.

[@wagnerrp]

@@YouNameItGaming They're planned to be offshore because they're using the unlicensed 2.4GHz band, blasting away at far above permitted power levels, likely high enough to destroy any of the variety of hardware already operating in that band.

[@Peoples_Republic_of_Cotati]

Can these effectively service electric Airplanes?

[@mullergyula4174]

I cannot see this happening. We'd need thousands of these to power the planet. It is still amazing that it looks somewhat feasible.

[@BillTrowbridge]

Exactly. And with thousands, it would heat the planet worse than our current global warming.

[@Pier-zl7gm]

My amazement is actually that people still fall for this sort of daydreaming proposals. By the way, there was recently an IEEE Spectrum article by a real space power systems expert that debunked the proposal

[@michaeljames5936]

If you put 6 x 13 kms of solar PV in the sea, where the collector is going, even using conservative efficiencies and assuming only 8 hours full production a day, we get 5.2GW, and nothing has to be sent to space at all.

[@CSlush]

Considering the space based solar array would only need to be about 2 km x 5 km to produce the same amount of power you just stated and likely can be assembled from sheets thin enough you could just unroll them on to an extremely minimal frame (no gravity or ocean turbulence to counteract) I think launching it into space would actually already be cheaper... Also have you considered the massive dead zone this would create in the ocean life below it if you actually built what you just proposed? I guess you could build beyond the continental shelf but then you have to transmit back to land which likely require you to set up a power beaming array to get it back to shore efficiently anyway in which case you could have used that exact same array to receive power from space so...

[@paulmcfeeters5554]

What if we accidently pointed the beam at Maui? What's the worst that could happen?

[@fritzeder1847]

We, HELIOFLOAT - Austria, do the off shore floating MW receiver

[@DanielEarlester]

Good job

[@ronvandereerden4714]

Curious how long the GHG payback is after 68 rocket launches.

[@2MeterLP]

Wait, if the energy density of the beam is only a quarter of the midday sun at ground level, whats even the point? Cant you just put the solar panels on the ground at that point? Because the midday sun has the full intensity of the midday sun at ground level, so four times as strong!

[@joshuanawrocki2994]

So just curious, since we will be transmitting gigawatts of power through microwaves, will this be safe for mortals? That seems like ALOT of power to send through someone with radiation.

[@MattNolanCustom]

Less than 250W per square metre at the beam peak. That's the heat output of two and a half people at rest, spread over about 2/3 of an average doorway.

[@titaniumtac6277]

How can I trust those batteries when they use the Fahrenheit to measure heat

[@pewterhacker]

@13:08 Complete misinformation chart. Papers have even been published on why this chart is incorrect.

[@saysimonsaid1576]

Just curious, Elon Musk was asked about this awhile back (before taking over Twitter) and said that it wasn't feasible due to the loss of energy in the conversion from AC to DC (or vice-versa) in order to transmit the energy to the ground based grid.

[@mikehapgood]

Sorry Ben, but the safety argument you present around 15:09 was debunked last year. I'm surprised to see it repeated here. It's been recognised that the SBSP radio flux discussed in the Fraser-Nash report is more than an order of magnitude above the internationally-adopted safety limits for human exposure to microwaves. The underlying point is that microwaves, being much longer wavelength than light, will penetrate and dump heat in the body. Earlier work on SBSP (e.g. by the International Union for Radio Science, URSI) has shown the need to protect humans from fluxes in the central areas of ground receivers for SBSP.

[@LIOTBs]

The Navy and a couple of other companies already had planned on doing this back in 2009. I did a report on it for my master's degree. There was even US government funding. Very similar to everything talked about here.

[@christopherbarth5172]

Yes, I don't remember the efficiency though? Wireless power transfer only makes sense in very specific situations. It would not, and most likely never, make sense for something like transferring power between terrestrial sources. The loss is so large it is more cost effective to run wire. This application might be different because of the higher efficiency of capturing the Sun's energy from space.

[@THEScottCampbell]

Solar power from Venus orbit could power airships and factories 38 miles above Venus and possibly powering ships traveling between Earth and Venus. It's a lot more possible than it first sounds.

[@jessstuart7495]

But is it cost effective?

[@AnthemUnanthemed]

ofcourse it isnt, humans can already pay for solutions that exist on the planet, the top companies in the world could lose literally single digit %s in profit and end all the pain in the world, and still grow unsustainable, willing this to exist in space is just ignoring what could be real lasting peace causing solutions of powering nations through better management and cooperation

[@soundscape5650]

As someone with a physics background I see some potential red flags that weren't really addressed in the video. The idea is to take sunlight that would not otherwise fall incident on the surface of the earth, and redirect that energy so that it does (albeit captured and re-transmitted as RF). Are there not concerns that we're ADDING energy to a largely closed system in an era where climate change is the number one concern? What about the surface directly below the beam? Are the microwaves not heating the water molecules that happen to find themselves in the path of the beam? This will be exacerbated by placing the collection antenna on the ocean, but even on land, the water in the atmosphere will be heated by the beam. Even if the heating is small, its heat that wouldn't have ever been part of the sun-earth system before, and will have a net heating effect. Am I missing something? This just seems like a HORRIBLE idea for combating climate change, existing only to drum up investment cash and line people's pockets.

[@MattyP3789]

You’re absolutely right. The entire concept is a flight of fancy with practically no consideration for the disastrous down stream effects it could have. This is always the issue, and it gets really tiresome. People with more money than sense that manage to wow our fellow physicists or scientists with dollar signs and convince them they’ll one day be a Einstein World Award winner. Inevitably, the tax payers almost always end up paying the tab for these debacles that had very little chance of success from the beginning. Ironically enough, you don’t have to look any further than the current state of wind and solar projects around the globe. Considered by most to be abject failures, we continue to throw good money after bad. And we certainly can’t forget about the promise of a brave new world with only electric cars and trucks 🙄 It’s never ending madness. I apologize for being so cynical, but history is littered with the corpses of these Pollyannsish ideas that just end up biting everyone in the butt. Someone else mentioned it first in the comments, and they were dead on. Nuclear power is the only practical option we have right now to alter the energy equation we are currently faced with. It saddens me to consider just how advanced our reactors could be today with 50+ years of legitimate research and development under our belt. Maybe we’ll come to our senses and for once head in the right direction.

[@iancash3559]

This is addressed by a downloadable FAQ on the website. Consider these three cases: * Productive solar farms in dry desert regions darken Earth’s albedo, leading to more sunlight being thermalised rather than reflected back into space. Future 30% efficient PV would release 2.3 GWh of heat for every 1 GWh of electricity produced. * The most efficient combined cycle plants achieve approximately 60% thermal efficiency (these are not the 30% efficient gas peaker plants used to back-up intermittent renewables). For every gigawatt hour of electrical energy produced, over 650 MWh of waste heat is released into the environment. * The type of rectenna used in the 1975 Goldstone power beaming experiment achieved over 91% RF:DC conversion efficiency. In the worst case, such a rectenna (at 85% efficiency, 84% beam intercept during heavy rain) would release 430 MWh of heat for every 1 GWh of electricity, i.e. far less than terrestrial PV panels, nuclear or fossil plants. Global warming is actually due to the build-up of CO2 and other GHGs since the industrial era began. it is estimated that the current imbalance in Earth's system is 400 TW. Of the 19 TW-year consumed annually by humanity, 16 TW are fossil fuels, so every GW of electricity produced by fossil fuels is responsible for at-least 2.3 GW of direct heat, plus 25 GW via GHGs. Ian Cash - Inventor of CASSIOPeiA

[@Spielername]

​@@iancash3559IMO the source is the problem. Maybe back it up with a source that's not so closely tied to the project... Or I got it wrong and the information is totally reliable. But what do I know, I'm not a physician or climate scientist (will say, I'm not an expert in any of these fields).

[@Etheoma]

Like I have my own problems with space based solar, the issue here is scale the sun provides 4.4 * 10 ^16 watts of energy this is 44,000,000,000,000,000 watts we do not even consume 1/10,000th of that hence why we don't talk about the direct heating by burning fossil fuels because it's such a tiny amount of heating it doesn't matter. Like we we are talking 1000s of years down the line and because of abundant energy and other factors that enable us to 10x our population and we 10x the energy consumption per person, it would still be a relatively small issue.

[@DenDodde]

The guy proposed datacenters in space, i don't think we have to worry about him having bright ideas.

[@chadoftoons]

Issue i have with this is that many countries are not even willing to improve the lines between their own territories that they have held for many years so this tech would just make electricity cheaper for people already on powerful grids, the reason this is bad is that even in first world countries there are sections with poor conectivity to the central grid and so modernising people there will still not have enough power for cars, homes and such from this expensive complicated near-megaproject object in space. I remember distinctly a place in the UK shown by tom scott who already had green energy and they had a surplus but the connection back into the grid was too poor to accept the surplus which has always been an issue with Home Solar in every country on the world. China build massive power lines to a desert just for a bit better solar bringing the solar to yourself is great but the grids issues still persist

[@necrosx1872]

My only real concern for this is the "construction phase" that will be the real issue if, or when, this technology comes to fruition--past the planning and investment phase.

[@AdrianBoyko]

4:04 I thought that the longest man-made object is the Dingo Fence in Australia.

[@Hansulf]

Well, that's one way to increase the greenhouse effect (the effect of which may be negligible)

[@BillTrowbridge]

For an experiment, negligible. At industrial stale, it would be a disaster.

[@lady_draguliana784]

"A diagram so hard on the eyes only a physicist could have made it" 🤣 no truer words! 🤣

[@pinguin00o73]

7:17 there called using waves as in photon waves as in microwaves as in a device that produces microwaves to transfer energy from the microwave into something else like how radio waves transfer information microwaves will transfer energy strong but week wave that won't cause to much damage radio waves aren't sufficient for energy transfer as in charging but microwaves are they are week but not too week nor too strong to cause to much damage to humans.

[@pinguin00o73]

I'm to lazy to make my writing makes sense so good luck.

[@timb350]

I keep hearing this...that solar power is SOOOOOO cheap now. But...what about the NECESSARY energy storage? How much does THAT add to the cost? Gas, coal, and oil store the energy in the material itself. That is the difference.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

Batteries, pumped hydro, and heat batteries are not that expensive. Fossil fuels inherently contain energy, but we have to keep digging them up and burning them forever, wrecking the biosphere in the process, so I don't think they are the answer.

[@douglasengle2704]

1:56 This chart make no sense unless it is showing the cost of new built facilities. Looking at this chart it shows nuclear power becoming more expensive after 2016 when there have been no new nuclear power plants except in China and one possibly coming on line in the USA shortly. The cost of nuclear power with the plants having greatly been paid for should be very low. Solar electric without battery storage or similar type of storage is bad for the public power grid because it is erratic. The base load dispatchable power unless hydropower has to be at such high availability it is burning a lot of fuel just for being ready. New wind turbines generators are typically made economically feasible by cheap to build natural gas combined cycle plants being the dispatchable power they can supplement when available. That means in low wind most of the electric power is coming from expensive to fuel natural gas plants.

[@Gengh13]

68 launches to build it doesn't sound as crazy as I thought it would be, but I'm not entirely convinced this is viable, and it is a lot of power to focus on some place on earth.

[@AnthemUnanthemed]

according to wikipedia, thats 28 more than it took to build the ISS, and is expected to launch from a rocket platform that currently might not exist, that the industry may turn on soon, that actually might be advertising rocketry capabilities (specifically with amount of cargo they are able to carry) that may not be in line with the laws of physics. But since its taken well over 20 years to build the ISS when it had full government support, extrapolating this kind of timeline out for the rnd and everything else, we might be off everything else by the year 2050, but by that point it would have to be land based solar to space based solar, because if we havent transitioned off carbon by then, we likely wont be able to use that energy for as long as we wanted to (extinction risks)

[@ShadowWolf2508plays]

It might also help power things on the moon, considering there are plans to go back there

[@seanhewitt603]

Why is there the claim 20% efficiency is the maximum achievable?.

[@No_Free_Lunch_Today]

Sounds good. I don't like the idea of directing energy that was missing earth be then be added.

[@markedis5902]

2.45Ghz is roughly what microwave ovens work on. I worked on microwave transmission systems and even though that was a different frequency (1.8Ghz) the health implications of exposure were pretty extreme. I worked with people who had burn scars on their hands and forearms.

[@davidhand9721]

Yeah, it's a death ray, but if that's what we have to do to get AI to create memes for us, what can we do?

[@MattNolanCustom]

Those people who received burns were subjected to far more power density than 250W/m^2 though.

[@sperzieb00n]

eyy, hearing the start of the video, now i get where the creators of deliver the moon got their inspiration from

[@jonathandevries2828]

subscribed, commented, liked

[@charlietaylor6227]

Wait... what am I missing? All the way back with Asimov I thought this idea was realizable and I was a strong proponent... then Deh..deh..deH... it hit me. Earth-based solar takes energy already coming to Earth and cleverly puts that into a form we can use to do things. All that energy eventually becomes heat but we are not adding heat because it was already coming here! Not true for space-based solar. Once we start beaming all of that new energy down to earth, it will eventually become heat also... how does that help the global warming problem?

[@kaseyboles30]

The costs in money as well as the energy loss in conversion makes this highly impractical compared to ground based solar. Unless they came up with a solar cell that was produced many times the energy in orbit as it, or any other solar cell, did on the ground this won't really happen. I could understand it as an orbit to orbit type thing where some company could subscribe to having power beamed to their satellites.

[@egghead55425]

What is the name of the Asimov book?

[@-_James_-]

It's one of his short stories called Reason.

[@RAWIRON7015]

I know it's 'geek speak', but you never mention the calculated LCOE (levelized cost of energy) of this hypothetical 2 GW system. I'm sure Space Solar has a calculation. That's why they chose 2 GW - it's probably only at this scale that LCOE over 25 years theoretically competes with nuclear. Also the 'falling costs of solar' DO NOT automatically translate into 'falling costs of solar panels made for space', which are much more complex devices. I'm more of a fan of massive deployment of land based solar and all forms of electrical energy storage. This stuff might be cool for delivering energy to isolated places where traditional renewables or grids are just not feasible.

[@MrGunderfly]

an obvious question not addressed here, maybe the most important; with the advent of space-based power infrastructure, and the inevitable development of terrestrial dependency on it, combined with the nature of global public-private partnerships and competing political philosophies, how will such technology change the dynamics of the peaceful use of outer space? space is the ultimate high ground. for example, the inverse of this becomes possible; selectively block the sun. also; with a reliance on space-based energy, and the power dynamics we now witness on earth, what will that mean for national sovereignties, personal freedoms, the ability to fight political hegemonies? i say democratize energy, don't centralize it.

[@happyambush1]

16:37 LMAO, that got a good chuckle out of me

[@rsmorex]

there's speakers that use this same beamforming too

[@victorlowe]

The phase array radio is the same way starlink communication works

[@timobatana6705]

Make no mistake, this is a weapon.

[@CarbonPhysics]

So... ignoring that the same size array on the ground would cost 99% less, if beaming energy is the key invention here, why not use that technology to solve the grid connectivity problem down here? Just because we *can* do this in space doesn't mean it makes any sense to do so.

[@Skyler827]

Because storing massive quantities of energy for the amount of time you need for a stable energy supply is much more expensive than the solar panels to supply that energy.

[@CarbonPhysics]

@@Skyler827 wrong. The Edwards Sanborn field has proven this wrong, producing a continuous 24/7 baseload of 875 megawatts, and it's just a prototype. And they don't have to fly in a rocket to repair it.

[@Skyler827]

@@CarbonPhysics Wrong, It absolutely does not prove this, in fact it proves my original point, which is that the energy storage cost is definitely more than the underlying solar power cost. What the Edwards Sanborn field proves is that you can store energy for 4 hours at a large scale in California, and it is impressive. But that energy storage requires scarce lithium and California has some of the highest income in the world, and none of the sources I could find have any figure for the cost of the energy storage. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that a 4 hour grid-scale energy system currently costs about $480/kWhr. If The Edwards Sanborn field is similar, it's about $1.5 billion dollars. Suffice to say, storing energy for longer periods of time would cost more. A recent MarketWatch estimate says that new grid scale solar projects are about $1 per watt, which would put the solar component of the Edwards Sanborn field at 1.1 Billion dollars. Considering that this number is lower and also considering that 4 hours of energy storage is insufficient to totally replace a totally dispatchable energy supply like fossil fuels or space based solar power, and also considering that the cost of storage is likely to go up if the market for lithium significantly expands, I rest my case.

[@BrendanBurwood]

@@CarbonPhysics 864MW is the amount of solar installed, NOT the 24/7 baseload capability! Not even close!

[@CarbonPhysics]

@@BrendanBurwood So spend the money putting them in SPACE. Yeah, that's some logic for you.

[@larry-om9tg]

It looks like a solar sail which could mean it might act like one throwing off its position.

[@pfifo_fast]

SolarFrickinSpacestations!!

[@h.i.sentertainments8580]

If the power intensity is 1/4 the midday sun, why not just build a regular old solar farm instead to get roughly the same peak performance? It won't work during the night, but it won't need expensive infrastructure in space. I think we should focus more on the HVDC interconnects that send the energy from lit part of the earth to the unlit parts. If we had solar farms at Sahara desert, Gobi desert, and somewhere in the US lets say Nevada, we're pretty much covered the entire 24 hours.

[@jaylayman2429]

Why space solar and not just send electricity from geothermal hot spots?

[@shanent5793]

Why is conflating price and cost such a common mistake, especially among KZbin PhDs?

[@davidsingh6944]

Sounds like an extremely effective weapon. 😂😂😂

[@coreytaylor5386]

it would actually make for a really shitty weapon, similar to trying to make a nuke out of a nuclear power plant it would be nearly impossible and just be easier to straight up make an actual weapon from scratch. the best use would be to just re-direct the energy to a weapons factory or to your own power grid

[@peteseed5383]

That is where the funding is coming from. A very shitty but effective weapon . The USA is pushing to put weapons of mass destruction in space at the moment. But it is being blocked by Russia .

[@Skyler827]

It could easily enable/power an effective weapon, but the power transmitter would be designed to send energy at a constant rate, basically an extra sun or two within the beam. That warms you up but won't kill you. A weapon wants to discharge as much energy in as short a time as possible to maximize damage.

[@dyto2287]

@@coreytaylor5386 nuclear power plant is more dangerous since it's more like a radiation weapon killing life for hundreds of years.

[@bokunochannel84207]

they literally microwaving the earth

[@LeeChesnalavage]

Every world government: “how can we weaponise this giant beam of concentrated heat?”

[@hizzilitis]

4:20 Nice. Uh... is nobody gonna point out the giant death beam they wanna build in space? That power station in space might be weaponizable. Just saying.

[@Khantia]

Sabine Hossenfelder made a video about this recently. According to a NASA report, it wouldn't really be feasible :P

[@EfficientEnergyTransformations]

The statement "Solar is cheaper then coal and natural gas" is quite misleading, it is like saying "Water costs nothing for it comes from the sky". There are collection costs, storage costs, maintenance cost, infrastructure refreshment costs, land coasts (are are tons of cost associated generally with electrical energy for it is very easy to tax as finally it goes to a common network), also not to forget the huge amount of technology based subsidies that also play role in that. Considering that over 70% of energy used on the planet, in one form or another, is for heating ( something ) and only about 10% is used in electrical (flux) form, one tend to think that these companies are just exploring some bubble/government subsidized project instead of focusing on the rear problems. In addition, assuming that this was fantastically true, what do you think will happen with the so called global warming, if the humanity somehow manages to intersect additional solar energy, that has never hit the Earth before (for4.5, or so, billion years), and inject it in the Earth atmosphere !!!! I guess, all these people forget that somehow, inconvenient truth, and also that all energy used, by humanity, end up as a residual heat inside the atmosphere ( the first law of the thermodynamic ).

[@GregoryRamsey]

That could never be weaponized…….

[@coreytaylor5386]

and thats true actually, it would make for a very poor weapon

[@lucidmoses]

@@coreytaylor5386 Well that, or a super extreme one. Putting mirrors behind the solar panels increases it's efficiency and reduces heating. Both good options for space. I don't know the type of panels they want to use but mirrored ones seem like a good choice. Now a solar cooker of about 1 meter across can concentrate light and reach 400 C and turn a chicken into burnt carbon mess. What would a 1 km across version do? But no worries. It can't be a weapon because they absolutely pinky promise they would never point the reflection towards the earth no matter what the military says. Just the relatively harmless power beam. Right?

[@fiiral5870]

@@lucidmoseswell the issue with that is something called atmospheric refraction, DEWs absolutely suck because Earth‘s atmosphere is too thick

[@lucidmoses]

@@fiiral5870 Your orders of magnitude off on that. We are not talking about laser that needs to stay in a tight beam. Look up at the ISS. Notice that you can actually see it. Sure it's a bit blurry but the light is making it down pretty ok. Ok to within the size of your eye. With a 1k mirror around the ISS height you wouldn't need to hit something small as your eye.

[@coreytaylor5386]

@@lucidmoses you're confusing sunlight with microwaves

[@erk7064]

Could this be used to burn space junk out of orbit?

[@tomheeks2830]

Ion Cannon ready!