Space Solar Power - Harnessing Solar Power in Space

By: EconomyWatch   Date: 30 April 2010

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US and Japan is Solar Power Space Race?

When American scientist Peter Glaser shared his idea of harnessing space solar power way back in 1968, it attracted more criticism than praise. However, in recent years, this concept has been the focus of interest for NASA and the Pentagon.

A 2007 report by Pentagon’s National Security Space Office clearly indicated that the development of space power systems is critical to solar energy conservation in the US. It was Lt. Col. Michael Hornitschek who fleshed out the concept of space solar power in the report. The development of a space solar system would not only involve developing large solar energy collectors around the earth’s orbit, but it will also require panels to collect more energy than used by current terrestrial systems. The solar energy that is collected would be beamed back to earth using wireless radio transmission, so that the collected solar energy can be transmitted as electric power.

These findings were path breaking, as it meant that space-based solar power could transmit sunlight in space to earth as well as mark a significant improvement over terrestrial solar collection devices.

While the current terrestrial solar power stations function well, these are unable to collect solar energy during the night. Another noteworthy fact is that the sunlight collected by terrestrial solar power stations is eight times lower in intensity by the time it reaches the earth’s surface vis-à-vis its geostationary orbit. These missing gaps will be augmented with the implementation of the proposed space-based solar power prototype.

Further, the high capability that will enable a space-based system to collect and transmit the sun’s energy back to earth will be safe for people and nearby satellites. A broad debate is currently brewing as to whether the concept of space-based solar energy should be so seriously pursued, considering that the initial investment alone will have to be of billions of dollars and the high payoff still remains hypothetical. Back in the 1970s, the NASA estimate for total investment costs topped $1 million. Talks are on to share costs of developing the proposed prototype with other countries.

In July 2008, the Baltimore Sun reported that Japan has already begun its planning phase for the development of a space-based solar prototype to be completed by 2020.


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