Re: Solar powered lasers in space

On Sep 12, 2:07 pm, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 12, 6:32 am, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:





On Sep 11, 10:50 pm, Alan Anderson <arand...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Are you really William Mook with a new address that isn't yet in my
killfile, or are you merely an impostor trying to set off a flamefest?

Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
In 1996 I wrote in these newsgroups about an idea I had worked out
about using thin film reflectors inflated on orbit to concentrate
sunlight onto a solar pumped laser. That laser beam would be beamed
to receivers on the ground which would convert the power to
electricity and thermal energy for industrial use. Overall efficiency
would be 40%

I was roundly attacked by all - and so, it was with great interest
that I read the following on yahoo news service in 2007;

http://green.yahoo.com/index.php?q=node/1521

I am fully justified in my earlier statements - and all those who
mercilessly attacked me have been proved dead wrong in their negative
assessments of my ideas.

The earlier "attacks" were not casting aspersions on the technical
feasibility of space-based laser power beams.

Yes they were.

They were bringing up
legitimate concerns about the ability to send beams of high power
density through the air without risking damage to anything passing
through the beam.

(By the way, Hank Green's blog isn't a "news service".)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You've mischaracterized the active control system to make what I've
proposed seem outlandish and to force a negative conclusion.

4-wave mixing systems that use active holographic techniques to
control a powerful laser have allowed lasers to penetrate sputtering
vapor and maintain focus on a target by avoiding the sputtered
particles. The same techniques have been used to track targets.
These systems are easily adapted to controlling beams from space and
having the beams avoid unwanted targets while at the same time
illuminating desireable targets.

Furthermore, you are not clear about what constitutes a powerful beam
and what constitutes a dangerous beam. These can be distinctly
different.

Proponents of microwave systems have promoted microwave beams that
1/10th to 1/100th as powerful as sunlight. The great advantage is
that these sytems can operate 24/7 and deliver electricity as
efficiently as solar panels without the need for storing energy.

So, a powerful beam is something that's more powerful than 1/10th
solar intensity. Also, the color of the beam is an important factor.
Invisible beams can pose far less risk at a given intentisity than
visible beams for example

So, details count. The right details make a safe reliable system.
The wrong ones are easily shown to be infeasible, dangerous or
expensive. Willfully choosing the wrong details and from that arguing
that the whole idea is ludicrous - is a maddening and dispiriting
exercise - and leaves any advance open to others who are not so narrow
minded and mean.

For the record, I have proposed large central solar collector arrays
in sunny regions of low cost silicon solar panels.

A laser operating at 1 micron would be nearly perfectly converted to
electricity - since the bandgap wavelength is 1.1 micron for silicon.
1 micron is also in one of the low dispersion atmospheric 'windows'
that permit the energy to travel largely unaffected. 1 micron is
invisible.

Sunlight falls on the Earth at about 1,000 watts per sq m. Silicon is
about 18% efficient at converting sunlight to electricity. So, 180
watts per sq m ELECTRICAL is produced.

Laser light at 1 micron can fall on the Earth at any power density we
design. Looking at the solar spectra,we can see that the sun emits
about 380 watts per sq meter in the infrared portion of the spectrum.
Shining an infrared laser at this intensity causes no harm in to the
environment, since its what the environment has adapted to.

But 1 micron laser energizes silicon with about 85% efficiency after
passing through the air. so,that 380 watts IR becomes 323 watts per
sq m ELECTRICAL. Since the satellite operates 24/7 - the ground
system does too, with the exception of the occasional weather
interruption and that's minimized if the proper site is chosen.

The advantage of the satellite is easily seen.

Lets say we build a 8 million acre (32.4 billion sq m) solar collector
array 5 miles wide and 2,500 miles long along our Southern border, in
the high Sonoran desert there. This is exposed to about 1,600 hours
of sunlight per year. At 180 Watts per m2 this array produces 9.332
trillion kWh per year. Used to desalinate seawater drawn from the
oceans near the border and decompose it into hydrogen and oxygen, this
solar panel array from sunlight alone would produce 186.6 million tons
of hydrogen gas each year. This has a heat value of 1.2 billion tons
of coal. So, by piping hydrogen gas made in this way to coal fired
power plants, those plants can immediately be converted to hydrogen
gas eliminating pollution from this source. In fact,using 123 million
tons of hydrogen to displace 800 million tons of coal and then using
62.6 million tons of hydrogen to hydrogenate the stranded coal,
produces 5.6 billion barrels of liquid fuels each year (gasoline,
diesel fuel, jet fuel) - largely severing our reliance on foreign
sources of oil. In fact this amount of oil plus the oil produced in
the US, provides for ALL US needs for liquid fuels - while reducing
our carbon emissions by half.

But lets add solar powersats to the picture - as described.

We add light-weight inflatable powersats to the picture that beam
energy reliably and safely to the 8 million acre ground site. Another
323 Watts per sq meter electrical is produced by the same solar panel
array - IN ADDITION to the solar influx - and this is available 24/7
with only slight interruptions due to weather in some spots on rare
occasion. So, this 323 watts is available 8766 hours a year - so each
square meter has added to the 288 kWh/year, 2.83 MWh/year - a 10 fold
increase!!! Which is well worth the cost of the satellites, if
they're made and launched cheaply enough.

With no increase in the 32.4 billion sq m array footprint (merely
designing the entire system to operate at 3x nominal solar output)
total energy output is 101 trillion kWh per year. This is enough to
create 2.02 billion metric tons of hydrogen gas.

Now, a ton of hydrogen has the same energy value when burned as;

4.5 tons anthracite
6.0 tons bituminous
10.2 tons lignite
23.4 barrels crude
1,190.0 gallons gasoline

Humanity currently uses 30 billion barrels of crude oil each year. So
converting the heat value of this hydrogen to barrels of oil
equivalent - obtains 47.2 billion barrels equivalent.

This means that the US following this sort of program would not only
become energy independent with completion of the ground station
portion of this program, but would rise to dominate the world's energy
markets with completion of the space portion of this program - at
first by hydrogenating low rank carbon sources, and later, by selling
liquid hydrogen throughout the world.

Later still, advances in laser control could lead to direct beaming of
energy from space to users on the ground, stationary users at first,
and later mobile users. Finally, lasers could power large spacecraft
and space propulsion systems, as well as space based factories.

I proposed this more than a decade ago - and have been ignored or
ridiculed while at the same time others have developed elements of
what I proposed without seeing the larger potential. Too bad we
haven't jumped onto this more agressively. A (Japanese) sociologist
told me once at a conference that a culture in decline, will avoid any
possibility for growth - he felt the US, and Europe generally were in
decline, whilst Asia was rising. It need not be that way I replied.
But I'm not a sociologist.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Even though your research has good enough physics and perfely doable
logic, you're obviously not sufficiently Yid enough or otherwise smart
enough to realize that you're being snookered to death by the very
best of what those pesky Yids in charge of this Usenet can muster.

This is abolute rot. All such statements clearly indicate you have
ceded all control to those outside yourself who symbolize everything
you desire but don't have. Culture, class, money, prestige, power,
respect, admiration, history, love - and you blame them for your
failures. The first step toward a better life Bruth is accepting
resonsibility for everything that happens to you. Then finding a
better way.

You've heard of the supposed free press, or at least the freedom of
speach thing;

The press in the US is largely free. It is however subject to
indirect manipulation by the Feds. Among those who have mapped and
seek to manage the global information environment to control the
epistimology of everyone - where it impacts on US strategic interest.
The science of this aspect of infowar is largely unappreciated
today..

While such systems are successful in the short term, in the long term,
such disinformation campaigns undermine the very powers that seek
advantage through these tactics. WMDs in Iraq are a good case in
point. The truth is what the truth is, no matter how its spun,
obscured, or denied. And the truth needs no defense. It is what it
is. Anyone who has ever been caught in a lie knows how difficult it
is to maintain lies - for their short half-lives, and the damage lies
cause when they explode. The ability to stage manage the global
information environment using advance computing technology has
inspired an increase in the bull*** that is coming out of
Washington. This will hurt Washington in the long run, and will be
very hard for Washington to recovery from. Look at the former Soviet
Union's control over information in the old SU. At some point people
came to believe that if it were being asserted as true in Pravda, then
it MUST be false. Or if it were being denied in Pravda - it must be
true!! lol. It will some day come to this. Serious people who have
an interest in national and international affairs, rarely rely on the
daily news or CNN to form their opinions anyway. This will grow as
the popular media becomes less and less reliable - in the interim.
..
well lo and behold, this Usenet of such profound
naysayism is not any part of that silly ruse, unless you and others of
your kind keep up with their lethal gauntlet of flak (aka returning
the favor).

You decide what you want to say, you determine how you want to support
what you say, and you ultimately decide how you want to be percieved
by others. In this way you are totally responsible for what you say
do and think ... blaming others for what you think is a form of
madness.


If you give up, they win each and every time.

This too is a form of madness that makes it impossible for anyone
holding to this concept to change their mind on anything. Think about
that one for minute. Who wins if YOU decided on your own to change
YOUR mind about something? Its something you decide to do based on
your own judgement. No one wins or loses - its a personal matter
within your own head. So, the whole idea is just mad.

BTW, you apparently do not understand or otherwise appreciate that
folks here in Usenet land don't have to be Jewish in order to act
entirely Yiddish bad, and then some.

Have you ever studied the Jewish religion or Jewish culture? Do you
have any appreciation of the folks you are abusing so ruthlessly? I
bet not.

How otherwise than via his own
kind do you figure Jesus Christ got put on that stick?

The Romans did it and then washed their hands of when they let
Barrabus go. And then Jesus himself decided to go through with it.
No one made him do it. He did it because that's what he came to do.
He took responsibility for what happened to him. Why can't you?

"I proposed this more than a decade ago - and have been ignored or
ridiculed while at the same time others have developed elements of
what I proposed without seeing the larger potential"

That's actually a darn good one that I'll have to use myself,

Of course if there is a consistent level of interest by the powers
that be in what is said in these space groups - due to concerns about
missile proliferation and whatnot - arranging things so that no one
reads a targeted source is one technique that is likely used. This is
far easier to do than discrediting someone point by point. This was
done by King George against dissidents in Hyde park. The King's men
would join the audience of a dissdent and shout profanities or
otherwise engage in pointless argumentation - or rant ceaselessly
angry meaningless and discomfited drivel.

There is no way to usefully deal with such techniques. On the one
hand you can ignore the person, but their endless depth of bile and
hatred drives folks away if you do that. On the other hand you can
challenge them, but that just distracts from what was originally said
(solar powered lasers in space can indeed work just as I said 12 years
ago). Finally, you can give them a swift kick in the groin, or punch
in the gut (or have a friend do it and drag them away) - but then you
might attract the negative attention of authorities - or more likely
the King's man comes back with a court order enjoining the speaker to
leave (which was the point all along) Oftentimes these rabblerousers
were misfits that met secretly with powerful folks in fine locations
and given a little ego boost. That was all was needed to keep armies
of the insane busy in the service of the King.

In the usenet universe, you are a prefect examplar of this technique
Bruth - and are likely more in the service of those you purport to
hate than anyone else here on usenet. The only answer for you - if
you truly believe in what you spout - is to keep your damned mouth
shut. That's the only way to defeat those who use you for their
ends. But you can't - or won't - because you might not be who you
appear to be to a naive observer. .

especially that closing part of their not "seeing the larger
potential".

Who cares what others see or don't see. That doesn't change the value
of what you do. Assuming what you do HAS value.

It seems most Yids are looking for the absolute least
possible potential,

No, you need to believe this in order to avoid taking responsibility
for your life - and for derailing this otherwise modest attempt to
communicate that I was right 12 years ago and those who attacked what
I said were wrong.


as well as the most spendy and polluting as all
get out, even if they have to lie to us 9/11 and about those Muslim
WMD, to boot.

Madness Bruth - sheer madness.

The first step to clearing your mind is to accept -for the purposes of
this exercise- that everything you know is wrong. Then challenge all
your beliefs one by one to prove themselves TO YOU - that way you can
have some peace about your beliefs - and won't need to make up stories
about others who quite frankly don't give a rat's ass about you
Bruth. You'll find in the end, no matter where you come out, you'll
be a far more effective and likeable human being.

Just a word of advice.


- Brad Guth -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


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