I'm pressing X to doubt really hard right now. The article seems to lean really hard into trying to refute the headline. In fact, the only actual news here is in the first sentence: The rest of...
I'm pressing X to doubt really hard right now. The article seems to lean really hard into trying to refute the headline. In fact, the only actual news here is in the first sentence:
UK startup Space Solar has signed an agreement with Reykjavik Energy that could see Iceland become the first country to receive power beamed from a space-based solar power plant. The 30-MW demonstrator is scheduled to go online by 2030.
The rest of the article seems to be saying how impossible this all is, conceding that:
Such challenges have not prevented the likes of Caltech from experimenting with beaming power from orbit and Space Solar seems to be confident enough to try for a demonstration plant as part of a commercial venture with Icelandic private climate initiative Transition Labs.
So, what about all those challenges mentioned? How about the unmentioned challenge that, if successful, you have a THIRTY MEGAWATT beam of microwave energy just fuckin chilling there, nuking anything that flies into its path!?!? How can you not mention that?!?
The danger depends at least in part on how dense the energy is. Just some quick and dirty maths to get a sense for things for my own sake if nothing else: Looking for any indication of acceptable...
The danger depends at least in part on how dense the energy is. Just some quick and dirty maths to get a sense for things for my own sake if nothing else:
Looking for any indication of acceptable levels of microwave exposure, the first thing I found was that UC Berkeley lists "f/1500" mW/cm² (300 MHz to 30 GHz) or 5 mW/cm² (30 GHz to 300GHz) for non-occupational exposure.
I'm not sure how to interpret the f/1500. If it's the frequency in Hz then it would be 200 000 mW/cm² or more, which seems like a huge difference? So I'll just use the 5 mW/cm² figure.
That means a 30 MW beam would need to be spread out across at least 600 000 m² (0.6 km², 0.232 square miles) to be able to fall below these guidelines. That's a square with side length of about 775 meters or 850 yards.
I sincerely doubt that they intend to make such a large receiver for 30 MW of power. My not-at-all-to-be-blindly-trusted gut instinct says probably more like one to three orders of magnitude smaller, so one to three orders of magnitude higher density in the power.
Three orders of magnitude also seems to line up with the statement that if all electricity were to be supplied this way the receiver would be the size of Manhattan island. At the "safe" level, the 30 MW receiver is roughly about 1% of the size of Manhattan. At three orders of magnitude more dense, that would be 100 000 receivers of 30 MW each, for a total of 3 TW. Run that for a year and it's roughly 26 000 TWh. Google indicates yearly worldwide electricity generation was 28 548 TWh in 2021. A bit off, but in the same ballpark.
The UC Berkeley guideline indicates the exposure should be averaged over half an hour. At 1000 times the continuous level, you could spend a grand total of 1.8 seconds per half hour within this area.
Would the orbiting collectors be a contiguous region? If so, would it be visible with the naked eye during the day? I’m imagining a big sheet of solar panels casting a tiny shadow
Such orbiting collectors would need to be many square miles in area and the receiving antenna back on Earth would cover the same area as Manhattan Island.
Would the orbiting collectors be a contiguous region? If so, would it be visible with the naked eye during the day? I’m imagining a big sheet of solar panels casting a tiny shadow
I'm pressing X to doubt really hard right now. The article seems to lean really hard into trying to refute the headline. In fact, the only actual news here is in the first sentence:
The rest of the article seems to be saying how impossible this all is, conceding that:
So, what about all those challenges mentioned? How about the unmentioned challenge that, if successful, you have a THIRTY MEGAWATT beam of microwave energy just fuckin chilling there, nuking anything that flies into its path!?!? How can you not mention that?!?
The danger depends at least in part on how dense the energy is. Just some quick and dirty maths to get a sense for things for my own sake if nothing else:
Looking for any indication of acceptable levels of microwave exposure, the first thing I found was that UC Berkeley lists "f/1500" mW/cm² (300 MHz to 30 GHz) or 5 mW/cm² (30 GHz to 300GHz) for non-occupational exposure.
I'm not sure how to interpret the f/1500. If it's the frequency in Hz then it would be 200 000 mW/cm² or more, which seems like a huge difference? So I'll just use the 5 mW/cm² figure.
That means a 30 MW beam would need to be spread out across at least 600 000 m² (0.6 km², 0.232 square miles) to be able to fall below these guidelines. That's a square with side length of about 775 meters or 850 yards.
I sincerely doubt that they intend to make such a large receiver for 30 MW of power. My not-at-all-to-be-blindly-trusted gut instinct says probably more like one to three orders of magnitude smaller, so one to three orders of magnitude higher density in the power.
Three orders of magnitude also seems to line up with the statement that if all electricity were to be supplied this way the receiver would be the size of Manhattan island. At the "safe" level, the 30 MW receiver is roughly about 1% of the size of Manhattan. At three orders of magnitude more dense, that would be 100 000 receivers of 30 MW each, for a total of 3 TW. Run that for a year and it's roughly 26 000 TWh. Google indicates yearly worldwide electricity generation was 28 548 TWh in 2021. A bit off, but in the same ballpark.
The UC Berkeley guideline indicates the exposure should be averaged over half an hour. At 1000 times the continuous level, you could spend a grand total of 1.8 seconds per half hour within this area.
So for this to be a normal sized receiver site we're talking about death ray technology, yes?
From my cursory glance that's an affirmative. Or at least a "major health concerns" ray.
Previous discussions can be found here.
Would the orbiting collectors be a contiguous region? If so, would it be visible with the naked eye during the day? I’m imagining a big sheet of solar panels casting a tiny shadow