Suppose I told you that we
could build an energy source that:
- unlike
oil, does not generate profits used to support Al Qaeda and dictatorial
regimes.
- unlike
nuclear, does not provide cover for rogue nations to hide development of
nuclear weapons.
- unlike
terrestrial solar and wind, is available 24/7 in huge quantities.
- unlike
oil, gas, ethanol and coal, does not emit greenhouse gasses, warming our
planet and causing severe problems.
- unlike
nuclear, does not provide tremendous opportunities for terrorists.
- unlike
coal and nuclear, does not require ripping up the Earth.
- unlike
oil, does not lead us to send hundreds of thousands of our finest men and
women to war and spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on a
military presence in the Persian Gulf.
The basic
idea: build huge
satellites in Earth orbit to gather sunlight, convert it to electricity,
and beam
the energy to Earth using microwaves. We know we can do it, most satellites
are powered by solar energy today and microwave beaming of energy has been
demonstrated with very high efficiency. We're talking about SSP - solar
satellite power.
SSP is environmentally
friendly in the extreme. The microwave beams will heat the atmosphere slightly
and the frequency must be chosen to avoid cooking birds, but SSP has no
emissions of any kind, and that's not all. Even terrestrial solar and wind
require mining all their materials on Earth, not so SSP. The satellites can be
built from lunar materials so only the materials for the receiving antennas
(rectennas) need be mined on Earth. SSP is probably the most environmentally
benign possible large-scale energy source for Earth, there is far more than
enough for everyone, and the sun's energy will last for billions of years.
While help is always nice,
the U.S. can build and operate SSP alone, and SSP is nearly useless to
terrorists. The satellites themselves are too far away to attack, the rectennas
are simple, solid metal structures, and there is no radioactive or explosive
fuel of any kind. Access to SSP energy cannot be cut by foreign governments, so
America will have no need to maintain an expensive military presence in
oil-rich regions.
The catch is cost. Compared
to ground based energy, SSP requires enormous up-front expense, although after
development of a largely-automated system to build solar power satellites from
lunar materials SSP should be quite inexpensive. To get there, however, will
cost hundreds of billions of dollars in R&D and infrastructure development
- just what America is good at. And you know something, we're spending that
kind of money, not to mention blood, on America's Persian Gulf military
presence today, and gas went over $3/gallon anyway. In addition, we may end up
spending even more to deal with global warming, at least in the worst-case
scenarios. Expensive as it is, SSP may be the best bargain we've ever had.
What should we do? Besides
having NASA do interesting and inspiring things, direct and fund NASA to do
something vital: end U.S. dependence on foreign oil by developing SSP. Redirect
the lunar base to do the mining, and develop the launch vehicles, inter-orbit
transfer, and space manufacturing capacity to end oil's energy dominance
completely and forever. It will be expensive, but it's a better, cheaper, safer
strategy than military control of oil in far flung lands.
Oh, by the way, SSP will
develop lunar mining, launch vehicles, and large satellite construction - most
of what we need to build
space settlements!
Al Globus serves on the
National Space Society Board of Directors and is a senior research associate
for Human Factors Research and Technology at San Jose State University at NASA
Ames Research Center.
NOTE: The views of this
article are the author's and do not reflect the policies of the National Space
Society.
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