Scientists look to space for power needs
Print Edition
The battle to dispel smog, cut greenhouse gases and solve the energy crisis is moving to space.
Chinese scientists are mulling the construction of a solar power station 36,000 kilometers above ground.
If realized, it will surpass the scale of the Apollo project and the International Space Station, and be the largest-ever space project.
The power station would be a super spacecraft on a geosynchronous orbit equipped with huge solar panels. The electricity generated would be converted to microwaves or lasers and transmitted to a collector on Earth.
In 1941, US science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published the short story “Reason,” in which a space station transmits energy collected from the sun to various planets using microwave beams.
Wang Xiji, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, says Asimov’s fiction has a scientific basis.
US scientist Peter Glaser published an article in the journal Science in 1968, claiming a feasible design for the space solar power system.
After devoting more than half a century to space technology research, Wang, 93, is an advocate for the station: “An economically viable space power station would be really huge, with the total area of the solar panels reaching 5 to 6 square kilometers.”
That’s equivalent to 12 of Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square, the largest public square in the world, or nearly two New York Central Parks.
“Maybe people on Earth could see it in the sky at night, like a star,” says Wang.
Researchers in many countries have drawn dozens of designs, with square, round and bowl-shaped stations.
But why build a power station in space? Wang says the electricity generated from the ground-based solar plants fluctuates with night and day and the weather, while a space-based generator can collect energy 99 percent of the time.
Space-based solar panels can generate ten times as much electricity as ground-based panels per unit area, says Duan Baoyan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).
“If we have space solar power technology, hopefully we could solve the energy crisis on Earth,” Duan says.
The world has recognized the need to replace fossil fuels with clean energies. However, the ground-based solar, wind, water and other renewable energy sources are too limited in volume and unstable.
“The world will panic when the fossil fuels can no longer sustain human development. We must acquire space solar power technology before then,” Wang says.
“Construction of a space solar power station will be a milestone for human utilization of space resources. And it will promote technological progress in the fields of energy, electricity, materials and aerospace,” says Wang.
Members of the CAS and CAE wrote a report in 2010, suggesting that China should build an experimental space solar power station by 2030, and construct a commercially viable space power station by 2050.
However, many huge hurdles lie ahead.
For instance, a commercially viable space power station would weigh more than 10,000 tons. But few rockets can carry a payload of more than 100 tons to low Earth orbit.
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