SPS = Solar Power Satellite

Neil,

Remember me when you pick your Nobel.

Seriously, finding an inexpensive, plentiful non-polluting source of electrical energy should be one of our top priorities. I've been hopefully waiting for decades to see fusion or superconductivity begin to come on the line. Though we have made some marvelous progress, neither technology looks as if it will begin really paying off for another 25-50 years. I don't think we have that long before the energy problem becomes painfully acute. Some would already say that the problem is intolerable right now. Industrialized societies need vast electrical power, but the sources of that power are limited and fought with limitations. I like hydroelectric, but it does require manipulation of water resources that sometimes don't exist or that require large engineering projects with their own negative impacts. Photo-electric cells are too expensive to provide significant power, and are limited to sunny days. wind-power is promising, but only if you have steady winds of the right speed. Atomic power has all those messy by-products, and it takes forever to bring the risky beasts on-line. That leaves us with fuel burning. hydrogen appears not to be cost-effective. Coal is a major polluter. Natural gas is perhaps the best we have now, but it is finite and difficult to transport to distant sites. Petroleum is going to become more expensive in the future, it is needed for many other purposes, and it too is polluting and being depleted at a rapid pace. We have to get out of that box, find a new paradyme ... and soon.

Perhaps the greatest problem confronting us is the size and growth rate of the human population. Birth rates are highest in the most backward, imporvished areas where the carrying capacity of the land is limited. Many of those same areas are already resource poor (water, metallic ores, petroleum, rich productive soil, etc.) Birth rates need to be reduced soon, or the world's most devastating famine is likely to occur ... probably in Asia or in Africa. Mother Nature will redress the imbalance, if we do not control our rate of reproduction. I think our best bet is to improve the economic well-being in those areas with the highest birth rates. When it becomes more valuable to have smaller families, the birth rate will drop if the pattern we've seen in developed countries continues. How can we best improve the economic life in the focus areas that are already lacking in so much that is needed to become economically better off? One of the answers is: we need to find a way to provide inexpensive, plentiful non-polluting energy.

Of course, improving our ability to find an alternate energy source will not fix all of the problems that are foreseeable in the next 50-100 years, but it is a very good start.

I sincerely hope that you can interest more people in the effort, and that some of those will be able to begin the actual work of implementing a solution.

~Some more pasted from www.abuzz.com~

Neil: It is the Seebeck effect and yes it is the opposite of the
Peltier effect which you are referencing. NASA quotes: The
geosynchronous orbit is in eclipse during two 45 day periods
centered on the equinoxes, a total of 90 days per year. Eclipse
duration is maximum at the equinox, when it reaches 69 minutes,
about 5 percent of the orbit [3].
http://powerweb.grc.nasa.gov/pvsee/publications/lasers/IAF92_0600
.html

This is a problem though even if it is for short periods as the
energy supply is disrupted and in general high power systems do
not respond well to this kind of disruption. While a small
satellite can use its batteries to keep operating, something
generating significant amounts of power for transmission will go
through thermal cycles which are problematic. It is generally
more reasonable to equip houses and other buildings with solar
water heaters, solar electric generating grids, and maybe
thermoelectric devices if they can be designed for 20% or so
efficiencies at lower temperatures. I believe the current ones
only reach those efficiencies at very high temperatures, around
500 Celsius. CBS

Neil; my purpose is to acquaint you with a manufacturer who has
been working at the cutting edge of the PV Cell manufacturing:
true, they make space application PV cells, and the ones which do
not meet the space application criteria they sell them
commercially.

Yet, if you delve into their advance products category you'd see
they have PV cells which convert 30 % of the sunlight into
electric energy. Now that is a progress, as compared to 8-10
percent just a few years ago.

Have you heard of PV sheets which cover a large area, and all you
need to do simply lay it out?

Pretty soon, when the conversion rate is higher, the Government
invest a few-tens-billions dollars to perfect the manufacturing
technologies for them, and the development of the base
technologies suitable for low voltage efficient operations, such
as lights and household appliances, solar panels on roof tops
will meet great portion of our needs. The rest may come from
Hydrogen, other renevables, and newer technologies: such as surf,
ocean temperature differentials, etc., etc.

What is NOT FEASIBLE ANYMORE is the old American way of thinking:
a Mega-Corporation will solve our energy problems. Reminiscent of
the fights between Edison and Westinghouse. Or, a great technical
innovation will bring us to hog-heaven to waste all the energy we
want for fun and profit to Haliburton!

What you have proposed above is far more dangerous than any
existing well-designed nuclear power plant; with the nuclear
power plant, in the future, we can reprocess the radiactive
material; with a massive Microwave oven directed to the Globe, as
drifts occur, which it will, a certain segment of population will
be well done!

How desperate for the stupid energy! I rather go back to Horse
and Buggy days!

Hi CB: Thank you for the NASA/GEO eclipse information. Can I
assume the 90 days and the 69 minutes includes the partial
eclipse minutes? Perhaps the numbers I vaguely recalled were
total eclipse time? It is almost irrelevant for the proto type,
but if GEO SPS supply 1% of our planet's energy needs, thousands
of gas turbines will be started, most days close to the Equinox
to make up for even small reductions in the microwave beam
intensity, and the temperature cycling will shorten the life of
nearly every part of the system. Can anyone suggest even a
partial solution? There will also be an occasional eclipse caused
by the moon instead of the Earth. Neil


The CB suggestion that we move to L5 looks more attractive. I
assume only barely noticeable partial eclipses occur at L5,
perhaps more properly called a transit. How far is L5 from Earth?
Is L5 sometimes over high latitudes instead of over Earth's
Equator? If Earth has 3 retennas of about 100 square miles, each,
I suppose one of them would be a viable place to send the beam
about half of the time, and it might be useful elsewhere in the
solar system most of the other half. I think the beam can be
defocused during panning, but cutting the power to 100 gigawatts
dc of klystrons even briefly is asking for a very impressive, but
destructive arc even in high vacuum. A double bounce would only
put about 1% of the mirror energy on the grid IMHO. Neil

Hi timber: I missed following up on some of your excellent comments. My guess is 1/1000 of human energy needs is within grasp if we can get house holds to separate suitable biomass like they do cans, bottles and paper. Perhaps that much more can be grown to make energy. We could think of it as soil bank that will likely be more urgently needed to produce food in the next decade. I'm hoping we will find a practical way to share our abundance with the billion humans who are under nourished each day. At present energy from biomass costs more than from fossil fuel, even if the biomass is free, but the technology is improving. IMHO we need to pursue every semi-promising means as it appears few of them are good for much more than 1% of human energy needs. Neil

Hi timber: I agree, most people would want more than one kilowatt, but the electric power utility will be quite up set if you covertly put your 15 kw alternator on line. I understand perhaps a million illegal co-generators are occasionally on line. I was assuming that the first cold fusion co-generators would produce perhaps 10 watts, doubling annually. So the early units would hold down the average below 1000 watts for perhaps a decade. Co-generator headaches multiply quite rapidly as the surge rating increases.
Your alternator can deliver 80 amps (at 240 volts) for a few minutes. If your farm has a 80 amp main breaker, then your alternator can put the entire 80 amps on the grid, without tripping your main breaker, or your load can reach 160 amps without tripping the main circuit breaker. In effect you doubled your service without rewiring. Some of your wires will be hotter than code design, but you probably won't start a fire as the code has a safety factor.
Now let's assume your load is 2 amps and you are putting 62 amps on the grid and the utility dis-connects from your neighborhood due to a lightening strike, or what ever. If your neighbors are drawing a combined 62 amps; no body notices the utility is disconnected as your alternator is supplying the entire neighborhood. When the the thermostat on someone's central heat pump turns on, the surge will shut down your alternator in one second, and everyone will be in the dark until you open your main circuit breaker and push the reset button. That's assuming you disabled the automatic stuff to get your alternator on line. If you also disabled, your alternator overload shut down your propane motor might stall as it can not supply enough torque for 64 amps plus the starting surge of a typical central heat pump. What do you think? I'm mostly guessing. Neil

You're sorta on the right track there, theory-wise, but in the real world here-and-now, my generator has no connection to the grid; when the generator is providing my electric, I am off the grid, whether the generator kicked on due to a power abberation (failure, over or under voltage, whatever) or due to a remote command from the electric utility itself. The generator will remain on and powering things untill either the grid power has returned and stabilized at a level between 110 and 122 volts for at least 15 minutes, or untill the electric utility issues the remote switchback command, as applicable, at which point the control panel switches me back back onto the grid. And actually, all of my wiring is well above code, ground-fault, surge protected, and I have twin 400 amp, 3-phase service here, but that's irellevant. The generator is backup, not primary power, and its capable of keeping the house comfortable, convenient and entertaining, while keeping the outbuildings at least minimally functional. I don't much care if the critters can't watch television, use the coffee maker, or warm something up in the microwave. Actually, they don't care either. I can't use my welder while I'm on generator power, but I've got all the necessary pumps and fans and condensers going, there's light if I need it out there, and plenty of power for portable tools. Oh, yeah, the big air compressor, the haylift, and the chainfall aren't on backup power, either.

Anyway, back to the point, I can't see a future for decentralized power generation, near or nid-term ... well into the latter years of this century at the very earliest, if even then ... perhaps supplemental, incidental power, but no significant, if any, contribution to "The Grid" ... I just don't see the economics of the concept.

In theory the utility is required to co-operate if you want to be a small co-generator. As you said, it typically costs twice as much and the small advantages are not worth that much money in most scenarios. I suppose we may do very little until the situation reduces us to a third world country, then few people will have enough money for even low cost innovations. In the mean time, thinking how it might be done is good mental exercise. Neil