Japan building 1GW, $21bn solar power station in space

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aJ529lsdk9HI

by gjm11 • 17 years ago

68 96 17 years ago

ankeshk• 17 years ago

This seems like a cool hi-tech venture. But the opportunity cost is way too high.

For Japan, I think $21 billion investment in windmills in the ocean would lead to more energy than creating a solar power station in space that sends back electricity in the form of microwaves.

drats2• 17 years ago

Yes, but the windmills don't get you a 1GW energy weapon in space.

jacquesm11• 17 years ago

I'm assuming it is geosynchronous, you could only blast down to your own country with it, any place else the angle to the atmosphere would be too oblique to have any chance of reaching the ground.

It's an ideal country sized energy suicide weapon though.

Sort of a satellite born seppuku.

skorgu2• 17 years ago

Other advantages: Windmills are vulnerable to disruption by anyone with a zodiac and some semtex, not to mention they have transmission issues of their own.

A space-based solution has a far higher cost to threaten; you basically need to have ASAT weaponry and that's (at least for now) somewhat out of the reach of non-state actors. Not to mention a space-solar satellite would have enough onboard power for some fairly aggressive countermeasures.

Edit: grammar

gtt• 17 years ago

which can be easily destroyed with cheap missle

chaosprophet• 17 years ago

The region around Japan is extremely earthquake and tsunami prone, so I doubt windmills could be stable in the seas around Japan.

patio112• 17 years ago

The Japanese space program is not employed because it is cost competitive with terrestrial options. It is a mechanism to transfer wealth from the public at large to defense contractors.

In both of these respects, it is exactly identical to NASA.

euroclydon• 17 years ago

I wonder what their Velcro and Tang will be?

ckinnan• 17 years ago

The cost is less than the U.S. government's bailout of Bear Stearns...for the cost of our bailout of AIG, America could have built 8 of these stations.

Retric3• 17 years ago

The cost of bailing out several of the big "banks" was approximately nothing because they paid back their loans with interest.

PS: AIG has already payed back 9 billion of it's 80 billion loan, and expects to make another 25 billion payment fairly soon. Granted it's selling off assets to do this, but it's profit of $1.8 billion in the second quarter gives you some idea how many assets the company has. http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/20/news/companies/aig/index.htm...

patio112• 17 years ago

If I were debating buying a laptop with a NASA advocate:

Me: Hmm, I wonder if I should spend $1,200 on a cheapish Dell or $3,000 on a Mac.

NASA: You should spend $300,000 on a NASA laptop.

Me: What kind of laptop costs $300,000?!

NASA: The kind built with space-age technology by defense contractors in redundant factories conveniently placed in every congressional district in America.

Me: But... $300,000!?

NASA: Its cheap for the price. You get a revolutionary new cooling system, suitable for working outside the atmosphere.

Me: But... I don't need to use it outside the atmosphere.

NASA: No, it has to be used in space.

Me: But all I need is a laptop.

NASA: No, a laptop -- to be used in space. Besides, once we're done with it, you can keep the cooling system.

Me: But if I needed the cooling system, I would have paid you to do R&D on a cooling system. I don't need R&D on a cooling system. If I did, I could get it a lot cheaper. What I need is a laptop.

NASA: A laptop... which can be used in space.

Me: Space is not a requirement! Space is something you add to the project because you wouldn't exist without space! Space doesn't add value! Space merely costs! Costs lots of money!

NASA: That's hurtful. Besides, the NASA laptop is cheaper than Social Security.

Me: I don't care what it is cheaper than! The frame of reference is not "other wasteful government programs"! It is "a laptop"!

NASA: A laptop, in space.

anamax4• 17 years ago

Windmills don't necessarily produce power when you want it. (In parts of the US, the "good wind" is at night.)

I don't know the timing of space-based solar power, but if it matches demand, that's a big deal, especially if it isn't as weather sensitive as ground-based solar. (I don't know if clouds and the like are more transparent to sunlight or microwaves.)

kingkongrevenge5• 17 years ago

There's a lot of rather convincing literature out there on the potential of tidal power. The energies are enormous and the technology is straightforward. It's not like photovoltaics where we're waiting on improvements in cost. It's simple turbines.

Tidal power ends up attracting a lot of conspiracy theories. Why are we bombarded with news and policies about wind and solar when on paper huge tidal generation capacity is probably viable right now? There could be something there, I don't know.

miracle• 17 years ago

Bad luck for the guy having his house under the solar panels. He will have no sunlight even if there are no clouds on the sky ;)

dagw3• 17 years ago

given how hot my apartment can get in the summer I would pay extra for that. When I want sunlight I could walk down the road to the local park.

Ardit202• 17 years ago

its called a roof.

Raphael• 17 years ago

The guy living in the middle of the ocean?

mseebach• 17 years ago

4 sq km 36.000 km out in space is a very very tiny shadow.

metaguri• 17 years ago

or for all intents and purposes none at all. i could be wrong but given the relative sizes of the sun, the solar array, and the distances involved, the amount of sunlight that is blocked by the array from any observer's point of view on earth would be negligible.

for example planes flying at 35k feet don't cast visible shadows.

jules2• 17 years ago

That's a ~4 sq km shadow (spread out because of light scattering).

three14• 17 years ago

That strikes me as similar to "bad luck to the guy having his house under the moon". Eclipses require everything to line up just right, even if the object in space is huge.

antipaganda3• 17 years ago

If the satellite is geosynchronous, the shadow is moving at over a thousand km/h.

jacquesm11• 17 years ago

On days with clouds it won't matter at all. And on days without clouds it will be a tiny cloud at that distance, one that moves relative to the sun/earth line of sight because it would have to be geostationary, so it will rotate with the earth.

Which means the time of 'transit' would be the time the image of the sun takes to move a single solar diameter across the sky, and only for those people who are in the line-of-sight, so it would be a different group of people almost every time this happens, at most twice every year.

No such 'guy' would exist.

Tarks• 17 years ago

Am I the only one that immediately thought "This is what happens when a nation's raised watching gundam ^_^ " when I read this?

jacquesm11• 17 years ago

I seriously doubt this will ever be completed, but I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of interesting technology developed and independently successful as spin-offs of this project.

It is extremely ambitious, the article puts a possible date of operation around 2030, which is about 5-7 years after ITER should come on line.

If you can make a 1GW (1000 MW) energy plant for about 1.5 billion terristrially then to pay a 14 fold premium to put the same thing in space (but renewable) as well as a whole bunch of very serious problems to overcome (microwave radiation can be 'tight' beamed but that 'tight' is not as sharply delineated as you'd want to for an application like this, there are serious technical issues there) is a pretty brave thing to do.

I hope they will succeed with this, and that if they do not that we will gain lots of useful knowledge.

tc5• 17 years ago

If you can make a 1GW energy plant for about 1.5 billion terristrially then to pay a 14 fold premium to put the same thing in space... is a pretty brave thing to do.

If Richard Branson (to pick a random spacefaring billionaire) was fronting a few billion dollars of his own money, that might be brave. Spending other people's money on boondoggles that are wildly unlikely to produce a positive return is not brave.

jacquesm11• 17 years ago

If we'd follow that to its conclusion space shuttles wouldn't fly, the moon visit would have never happened, the computer you are writing on would not be connected to the internet, highways wouldn't exist and so on.

Plenty of infrastructure projects have started either as military or pure research projects. Eventually we all benefit, even the countries where the spending did not take place.

bcl• 17 years ago

This is new ground. It always takes more to develop the technology initially than it does in production. Once the technologies have been developed and refined the costs of space solar should come down considerably. Not to mention the added benefits that always come from advanced R&D efforts.

tc5• 17 years ago

This is akin to companies that claim you should judge them by their EBITDA on an ongoing basis, as if capital expenses aren't real expenses.

To justify the capital cost, it isn't enough to show that you'll make something cheaper than it is now. The capital investment needs to produce technology that is so much cheaper that it can outcompete other options and still provide a return on the capital that exceeds the opportunity cost of tying up the resources. If you can't expect this, then the endeavor is a net misuse of resources.

btn• 17 years ago

Was SimCity 2000 never translated into Japanese or something?

andreyf3• 17 years ago

Refernce to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_2000#Scenarios_Vol._I:_...

Silicon Valley: The high-tech society of the 2010 Silicon valley is hit hard when its futuristic power source goes awry - microwave beams transferring solar energy from an orbital satellite miss their intended receiver and instead incinerate many businesses and people in the area.

pingswept3• 17 years ago

Residential solar has a total installed cost around $8/W in the US right now. Prices are probably slightly higher in Japan, maybe $10/W. With the silicon supply problems of the last two years easing and a glut of modules in the last 9 months, prices are dropping faster now than at any time since 2005.

This is proposing a $21/W solution-- not a good idea. By the time it's built, terrestrial solar will likely be 5-10 times cheaper, i.e. around $2-4/W.

dagw3• 17 years ago

You're assuming that this is only about supplying electricity at as low a price as possible, which is a very narrow way to look at it. Consider instead the larger picture. This sort of project is going to require a lot of R&D which will both create jobs and lead to additional discoveries. The experience gained can used in future related projects and sold to other countries. If the project is a success then Japan will be the world leader in this sort of technology. So don't just look at the $/W look at the net effect of this investment on Japan's GDP over the next 20 years. From that point of view this is probably a lot better investment than simply buying third party solar panels.

gnaritas• 17 years ago

Finally, someone who sees the benefits beyond the almighty dollar. An up-vote for you!

kingkongrevenge5• 17 years ago

> require a lot of R&D which will both create jobs and lead to additional discoveries

If it's government funded/subsidized it's more likely to divert capital from more productive R&D and uses in the economy.

CWuestefeld3• 17 years ago

Providing jobs as such isn't a benefit to society. Otherwise, we'd all be better off if we stopped using computers and formed up an army of slide rule calculators.

The benefit from additional discoveries is already factored into the cost of conventional solar. The companies building it have business plans that recognize the development work they're doing, and charge prices accordingly. And that's part of why it's cheap (relative to this proposal) and getting cheaper.

pingswept3• 17 years ago

Suppose I widen my view as you suggest, which seems reasonable-- I think you're right that the price of electricity isn't the only concern.

Then I think that Japan, currently the world's #2 solar market (Germany is #1), should be investing in thin film solar R&D for the reasons you listed.

In thin film, Japan (in the form of Sharp's second generation amorphous silicon panels) is getting its ass kicked by First Solar's CdTe panels. I think that investing in, for example, CIGS or CdTe technology would be a better investment.

mrtron• 17 years ago

Japan also strikes me as the type of place where residential solar couldn't come close to providing enough power.

Their population is very dense, especially in urban areas.

andreyf3• 17 years ago

This is proposing a $21/W solution

How did you get this number?

I'm thinking $21 billion / (30 years * 1GW) is a little less than $80/MWh [1], which between two and three times the market price [2].

The way to look at this is that the electricity produced is expected to refund one third to half of the investment. I'd imagine the IP created will be worth a lot more.

1. http://www06.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2421+billion+%2F+%28...

2. http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/energyprices.ht...

pingswept3• 17 years ago

To make my calculation clear:

21 * 10^9 dollars / 1 * 10^9 W = 21 $/W

Those are just watts at peak power, which are probably roughly 10x average power produced by panels, at least on the earth.

But perhaps I was too hasty in that the major hit against solar panel production is the earth obscuring the sun at night. On the other hand, I would expect cells in space to heat up substantially, given that they have no air to conduct away the heat.

If I could, I'd edit my comment to clarify that my comparison was not fair-- I was comparing two systems with different capacity factors as if they were the same.

tlrobinson• 17 years ago

Wouldn't any gained efficiency be wiped out by having to transmit the power via microwaves? And couldn't you build a vastly larger solar panel array on earth for the same price?

What happens when a plane flies underneath the beam?

jacquesm11• 17 years ago

The plane would be in the beam path for only a short time: 900 Km/hour is 250 meters / second, if the beam were to be sent down very tightly the effect would be stronger but the duration would be correspondingly shorter.

A 100 meter diameter beam would take 0.4 seconds to cross, the energy density would be 12.75 W / square centimeter.

The kind of effect would also be quite dependant on the wavelength used, longer wavelengths would be harder to 'tight beam' than shorter ones.

A typical microwave oven 'beams' 1KW or so across an area about 15 cm radius, that's roughly 1.3 W / square centimeter.

How tight the beam is really is the crucial question to answer here, 35000 km up the beam will be very tight right under the point of emission, near the surface of the planet (an airliner flying 10 Km up) it would be much more dispersed.

rhysho• 17 years ago

For powering up an army of Evangelions in defense of Tokyo-3 against the attack of Angels? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelion_(mecha)

barredo• 17 years ago

Nobody would say nothing about the Dyson Sphere? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

It's like the first step. Right?

natch• 17 years ago

"beaming the electricity from space through the ionosphere"

What could possibly go wrong?

ggrot4• 17 years ago

For a moment, ignore the commercial viability of this. Of course, in a free global market, this isn't viable. Think about this strategically.

Japan has roughly 40M barrels of proven oil reserved. They consume 5M barrels of oil a DAY. Without imports, assuming they could even get at all of their oil, they would run out in 8 days. They are the world's 3rd largest consumer of oil, and the world's second largest importer.

Half of their energy consumption is oil, another 15% natural gas (which comes from extracting oil). Coal and Nuclear make up the majority of the rest. Japan's mining is well beyond peak-coal. The vast majority of their oil comes from the middle east. Japan is an island, they are entirely dependent on energy imports. This means that if their trade routes were cut off they'd be hosed. Since the US dominates the world's oceans, that means that Japan has to keep the US happy. Sucks strategically and politically.

Space based power is useful strategically. You can beam it to an island. It is very difficult to cut off, regardless of the size of your foes' navy. You can beam it directly to a fleet in the middle of the pacific. You could use it as a weapon.

Semiapies2• 17 years ago

"Since the US dominates the world's oceans, that means that Japan has to keep the US happy. Sucks strategically and politically."

It just means Japan can't get saber-rattly in the US's direction. There isn't a huge impetus for them to do so, so...

andreyf3• 17 years ago

Considering where our cars and gadgets come from, I don't think Japan or the US would benefit much from cutting off oil shipments to Japan ;)

ggrot4• 17 years ago

Agreed, however my only point is that this makes more sense strategically than just commercially. It may not make sense either way, but it could. There are other interests that could cut off Japan if the US didn't choose to step in. This includes China and OPEC.

bajsejohannes• 17 years ago

Is the oil used for electricity? If not, this will not (directly) replace it. Also, you only need one nuclear reactor (of which a powerplant has many) to make up for the energy produced by this thing.

That said, I totally support this way of bringing science fiction a little closer!

> It is very difficult to cut off, regardless of the size of your foes' navy

Would it be that to hit it with a rocket? (Or a stone thrown really hard?) I assume it's quite vulnerable.

ggrot4• 17 years ago

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Japan/Electricity.html - About 60% of Japan's electricity use comes from burning stuff: oil, natural gas, coal, being the big ones. All of this is imported.

Outside transportation, Oil is also used for heating homes.

Nuclear is definitely an option for Japan. They also have to import the uranium, having virtually none on the island, but that is still much easier to import and stock up than other resources. That said, it's probably easier to shoot your proverbial rocket or stone at their nuclear plants than it is to shoot it into space.

electronslave• 17 years ago

I'd like to chip in my own "this is silly" perspective. You see, Japan has a history with futuristic flops:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer

teeja2• 17 years ago

I hope they remember what (almost) happened to the Ringworld.

Japan building 1GW, $21bn solar power station in space

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