Researchers successfully transmit electricity from space
In a test of a system to wirelessly transmit electricity from solar power stations in orbit, researchers from Caltech have succeeded in transmitting a small amount of electricity from an orbiting cubesat launched in January.
“Through the experiments we have run so far, we received confirmation that MAPLE can transmit power successfully to receivers in space,” [professor Ali] Hajimiri says. “We have also been able to program the array to direct its energy toward Earth, which we detected here at Caltech. We had, of course, tested it on Earth, but now we know that it can survive the trip to space and operate there.”
This small scale test mainly proved the technology can survive launch, operate in space, and transmit power back to Earth. Whether the rate of transmission can be profitable remains as yet unknown. Nor is it yet known the effects such energy transmissions through the atmosphere will have.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In a test of a system to wirelessly transmit electricity from solar power stations in orbit, researchers from Caltech have succeeded in transmitting a small amount of electricity from an orbiting cubesat launched in January.
“Through the experiments we have run so far, we received confirmation that MAPLE can transmit power successfully to receivers in space,” [professor Ali] Hajimiri says. “We have also been able to program the array to direct its energy toward Earth, which we detected here at Caltech. We had, of course, tested it on Earth, but now we know that it can survive the trip to space and operate there.”
This small scale test mainly proved the technology can survive launch, operate in space, and transmit power back to Earth. Whether the rate of transmission can be profitable remains as yet unknown. Nor is it yet known the effects such energy transmissions through the atmosphere will have.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Profitable? Yeah, no. Efficiency losses at each energy conversion step strip any possible advantage constant sunlight might provide when sending that energy Earthward. And the collection apparatus will be truly gigantic. Governments bent on conversion to “green” energy might think this is worth the money and effort, but no private company would make it, not even with Starship capacities in play. Seriously, just airdrop a few hundred solar panels and megapack batteries, or a traditiomal big generator running on whatever fuel, and you drop orders of magnitude off the costs involved.
That said, looking into the future of asteroid mining and the like, this may turn out to be worth doing. Despite the above comment, I am a huge proponent of moving heavy industry off Earth’s surface. Perhaps in the process of building the large scale space habitats from the tailings of stripping asteroids of their mineral wealth, we’ll discover a break even “might as well do this too” point. However, that’s a long, long ways off.
A concern about space-based power distribution that I have not heard expressed is the danger of accidental or purposeful mis-targeting.
If the “beam” is kilometers across so that it is less dangerous if off-target, it will require huge receiving fields, and it could still impact the performance of surface long-haul power transmission. If it is narrower, it could possibly incinerate people, crops, or buildings!
With all the angst that is generated around benign and controllable technologies like atomic fission generation plants, I would expect that the reaction to space-based laser beams could be truly over the top!
When it’s given thought, Ray Van Dudes comment above makes nothing but sense… We are a long way away from beaming power from space without it being a possible death ray, or massively inefficient system… Fusion will be 30 years away for decades.. Fission power is here today, modern design reactors will automatically shut down if a problem occurs, absolutely carbon neutral, admittedly expensive to build right now.. but looking at the power generating situation right now, probably very profitable in the very near future.
Modular designs are also very much on the table… Also extremely expensive, but they need an Elon Musk to figure out a mass production system ( hopefully not using the “test to failure” system) to make them viable for rural areas, and to stack together for local urban environments.
There are so many options open for carbon neutral power generation that it’s brainless to not invest in them now… Geothermal is a massive one… Drill down a bit, it gets warm… We could suck all we want from this heat load for 10,000 years and it wouldn’t change the core heat.
I’m all in on nuclear… And the rest of the sustainable power sources we have at our disposal. We have had this conversation before, and I know there are many doubters here regarding CO2, fossil fuel, climate change, etc… But moving to a cleaner way to provide the energy we need to live can’t be a bad thing..
And as I’ve said before, when you live in a fish bowl, ( which we do..) there is only so much fish poop before the water becomes toxic and the goldfish dies. I don’t want to leave that for my kids.
Ray–
you bring up great points.
Q: (haven’t followed the link yet)
What frequency are they using?
It’s my understanding you need to utilize the microwave end of the spectrum.?
Mmmmmmmm… toasted birds….
~(_8^(I)
As with all government programs the objective is not to solve problems but to reward campaign contributors, like Obama’s failed “green energy” scam:
Amount in parenthesis indicates taxpayer money Obama “invested”
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy
1.Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2.SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3.Solyndra ($535 million)*
4.Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5.Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6.SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7.First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8.Babcock and Brown ($178 million)*
9.EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10.Amonix ($5.9 million)*
11.Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12.Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13.A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14.Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15.Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16.Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17.ECOtality ($126.2 million)*
18.Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19.Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20.Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21.Olsen’s Crop Service and Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22.Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23.Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24.Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25.Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26.GreenVolts ($500,000)*
27.Vestas ($50 million)
“Should We Beam Energy Down From A Satellite?”
Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder (May, 2023)
https://youtu.be/3ZPrIE5ZMZA
15:40
James Street–
Great List!
I’m trying to figure out which of those boondoggles we had in Michigan—obama spent a fortune on a battery factory near Holland, Mi., it was constructed, and then promptly went bankrupt. Last I had heard– a Chi-com ‘business’ bought it for 10 cents on the dollar and runs it to this day.
Now, our Field Marshal Whitmer is going to blow 100’s of millions of dollars on another battery factory in the middle of our State
Wayne, from the MAPLE acronym, it appears they are using microwave frequencies, but my concerns are not frequency/specific and I sloppily used the term “laser”.
Laser technology is actually derived from an earlier technology using microwaves, known as MASER, for “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. When it was eventually applied to light, they changed the M to an L and got LASER.
The bottom line is that you are beaming some frequency of powerful electromagnetic radiation over long distances through space / air, and things other than the intended target are going to be nearby.
Lee, I’m not always a fan of your comments/perspective, but credit where it is due: You wins the Intertubes!
they need an Elon Musk to figure out a mass production system ( hopefully not using the “test to failure” system)
In the linked article they do not mention if the transmitted energy will be higher per meter than just using a solar panel on earth. Granted it can be transmitted at night but its still cheaper to just use more solar panels and a battery for storage.
And they do not seem to have thought how this can be monetized. The company needs to make money off of it or they will never launch it. If the receiver is just a simple microwave receiver then anyone who can get one can tap into it for free.
Keep in mind that all this does is prove the technological concept. It is still low on the technological readiness level chart. It does not do anything about showing benefits or disadvantages of such a system, such as realistic efficiencies or costs. It only shows us what we all thought in the first place: energy can be beamed from space.
The energy density stated in Hossenfelder’s video, linked by wayne, is 100 Watts/square meter. Sunlight at Earth is about ten times that much, so using the beam as a weapon would not burn down cities or fields of crops, but it could adversely affect equipment that is sensitive to microwaves (e.g. pacemakers).
Is it worth pursuing? If you want to move heavy industry off world, then probably yes. Power generation is a heavy industry, which is why power plants are not built inside the more prosperous communities on Earth, as office building are. Could the price per kilowatt be reduced by building the satellites off world? That was Gerard K. O’Neill’s whole point of having space colonies; they would be able to build such useful structures and products that can be useful to we earthlings.
By the way, back in the 1970s or 1980s, Senator Proxmire killed NASA’s funding for space colonies, but what do we expect from someone whose name literally meant to impede progress (pro — as in “progress,” X — as in “cross with,” and mire — as in “bog” or “quagmire”). The high cost and low launch cadence of the Space Shuttle did not help the cause of space colonies, either. Only under private space projects, not government ones, are we again discussing space colonies, but these are colonies on Mars and the Moon, not in orbit.
Is space based power generation a good idea now? Only future testing and development will determine that.
Edward: In the end, I think this power beaming capability is going to most useful to other space facilities, not the Earth. If you build a heavy industry facility off world, it might help if someone else deals with providing you the power.
In fact, it points to the eventual specialization of tasks in space, as is seen on Earth. We see this now in the satellite industry, with companies appearing whose only job is to be a satellite tug, or to remove junk, or to repair or refuel other satellites. Why not have a company in space whose only job is to provide power to other spacecraft/facilities? Under that framework, spacecraft might be built cheaper, not having to include power generation.
Robert Zimmerman,
You wrote: “[I]t points to the eventual specialization of tasks in space, as is seen on Earth. We see this now in the satellite industry, with companies appearing whose only job is to be a satellite tug, or to remove junk, or to repair or refuel other satellites. Why not have a company in space whose only job is to provide power to other spacecraft/facilities? Under that framework, spacecraft might be built cheaper, not having to include power generation.”
This is a good point. Specialization helps keep the focus on the primary business model, and it prevents a company from abandoning a product line that they cannot make profitable, perhaps due to the company’s distracted attention on other product lines.
SpaceX is a notorious deviant from this philosophy, being a vertical rather than horizontal* company, yet it does very well, because its other products are generated for in-house use, therefore they are not expendable to the company’s mission. Starlink was stated in the beginning to be a method for funding Martian exploration and colonization. It may succeed in this function, as it seems to be approaching the break-even point at almost $2 billion in sales.**
Having a space industry that caters to itself may seem unprofitable, but the end product is going to be sold to earthlings, who will appreciate it. Earth is still where the large customer base is, so it is where the end products (goods or services) must be sold.
“In the end, I think this power beaming capability is going to most useful to other space facilities, not the Earth. If you build a heavy industry facility off world, it might help if someone else deals with providing you the power.”
I see a problem with this model. The sun provides more than 1,000 watts/square meter, which is ten times the power density that Hossenfelder’s video predicted for the power beams. A smaller solar array would be needed than the power collector for a space-beamed power plant, so I expect most space-based industries to be powered by their own solar power collectors (e.g. solar panels). The space-based customers for such a space-based power plant would have to have otherwise unreliable or intermittent views of the sun. Lunar stations, for example, may find them useful for the long nights rather than build oversized solar farms and huge banks of batteries.
My prediction is that Earth receivers (or early ones, perhaps) would most likely be the ones with more barren land than ability to generate power from other sources. This does not seem to me like a large customer base. One problem with wind and solar power on Earth is the times when the wind isn’t blowing or the sky has even a wispy cloud. Germany discovered a second, less obvious, problem that solar and wind are only good for up to 20% of the nation’s power generation; beyond that the electrical grid becomes unstable.
Either way, whether your prediction comes true, mine, or some other scenario, it seems to me that the potential for space-based power plants is worth the cost of continuing the investigation, experimentation, development, and test flights.
_______________
* For readers who don’t know, a vertically integrated company produces much of the parts that are used in its end product. A horizontally integrated company buys most of its parts from other companies. Both philosophies have benefits and detriments.
It used to be difficult to gauge SpaceX’s abilities and profitability, because being vertical it was hard to compare with the large, experienced, heritage aerospace companies. SpaceX had seemed to have too many employees for the sales it generated, so some critics believed that it was doomed to failure. The seemingly excessive number of employees were making the parts that the heritage companies bought from suppliers rather than make in-house.
** I don’t have this number referenced, but the last I heard Starlink had 1.5 million subscribers worldwide. At $110 per month per subscriber, this comes to $1.2 billion per million subscribers and $1.8 billion for the 1-1/2 million subscribers.
It’s rare to read so many smart commenters. I cannot disagree with any, all have good points.
The only thing I can think of to add is energy beamed down from space will be disbursed by atmosphere and clouds resulting in low wattage unless the facility that makes the energy is overly large (which I doubt such an investment would be made and would probably need the power to run itself)
The exception is mirrors in space directed at fields to increase the growing season, or to prevent freezing. Plants are solar powered and produce energy directly from sunlight, in the form of sugar, more efficiently than solar panels.
In truth, green houses with grow lights would be far more efficient. Also generating power on earth is far cheaper than in space… Space colonies and habitats will need all the energy they can generate.
To that end, a solar collecting pipeline circling the entirety of the lunar equator would be the ultimate free energy project. Picture a waterfall that turns the generator and then the water at the bottom ends up back at the top of the waterfall again in a endless loop.
The lunar noon sun boils the water in the pipeline and the steam turns the generator above a cool expansion tank which condenses the water back into 200° liquid and circulates it back up into the pipeline where the process starts over again, following the sun around the equator.
The more water and surface area, the more power produced. It may not be high pressure like a nuclear reactor, but will last longer with low maintenance… Systems can be redundant with ease.
The pipeline could also serve for power transmission, transportation, water distribution to the science stations along the perimeter. (that means people and industry spread far apart from each other without distance isolation/supply distribution problems)
If successful, extra power can be transmitted from the moon by radio waves at frequencies that “don’t” penetrate to earth’s surface. Beamed to receivers on satellites and habitats in orbit rendering solar panels obsolete… A useful adaptation with minimal losses because of no atmosphere between. This will give satellites a longer life with the option of ion motors to adjust their own altitude. Like a built-in space tug.
Max wrote: “The only thing I can think of to add is energy beamed down from space will be disbursed by atmosphere and clouds resulting in low wattage unless the facility that makes the energy is overly large”
This is why we need the experimentation and technology development. Turning theory into practice can take quite a bit of practice and patience. Microwaves were chosen to beam power and chosen for communication satellites because they pass through clouds readily.
“The exception is mirrors in space directed at fields to increase the growing season, or to prevent freezing.”
This is a nice idea, but it has the same problems of disbursed energy, clouds, and to get the same amount of light onto a field (at night, say) as sunlight in the day, then the mirror would have to be at least as large as the field being illuminated. However, the extra light should make each field more productive.
SSP will be useful to Earth.
Beaming power for drones-airships, isolated battle zones, etc.
Here is a breakthrough:
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-06-efficiency-lightweight-solar-cells-space-based.html
That’s no boondoggle.
Now, combine it with this;
https://www.universetoday.com/161783/researchers-are-working-on-a-tractor-beam-system-for-space/
Break up rubble piles, draw out the metal flakes.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/for-the-first-time-in-decades-congress-seems-interested-space-based-solar-power/
I guess our national debt could stand a few more 100 trillion dollars increase.