Re: Space-based power makes CNN.com - comments may be entertaining

Once again the true birth to grave (all-inclusive) cost of your spaced
based energy is only off by way of ten fold under what it'll actually
cost us, and yet we'll still not have anything situated within the
moon's L1, or much less giving us any affordable access to/from our
moon. Keep up the good cloak and dagger worth of your DARPA
rusemaster work Mr. bipolar williamknowsbest (aka Willie.Moo).

Your bipolar mindset also discounts all terrestrial alternatives of
clean and renewable energy as being too spendy, by way of suggesting
such options are going to always be ten fold more spendy than is
proven otherwise. Again, all typically very DARPA bipolar of
yourself.
.. - . Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth


Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Terrestrial solar power using conventional means is not economic
today. At $4 to $7 per peak watt, and 1700 hours of insolation per
year - and a 30 year life span - you have something like $0.35 to
$0.45 per kilowatt-hour just for the generation of electricity. Now,
you've got additional balance of system costs to store, retrieve and
transmit that power.

Even at today's high prices for fuel, we can generate electricity in a
coal fired generator 8,766 hours per year in response to demand, and
generate it for less than $0.04 per kilowatt-hour.

Space solar power had certain advantages and disadvantages. The
advantage is constant sunlight. Geosynchronous orbits are in nearly
constant sunlight, so, the solar panels on orbit are generating 8,766
hours per year. This is a 5x increase in capital utilization which
is a clear improvement. Transmission costs to any point visible from
the power satellite, are constant. Those appear to be technically
solveable at very low ADDED cost. The big cost factor is the cost of
the satellite and the cost of putting the satellite on orbit.

The cost of space power is approximately $100 per peak watt - which is
more than 20x the cost of terrestrial solar power, so even with a 5x
improvement in capital utilization - cost per kilowatt-hour is in the
$1.40 to $1.80 range. Not economic at all!!

So, I understand the objetions many make to investments in space solar
and even in terrestrial solar energy.

Even so, the potential of solar is tremendous - if we can find a way
to reduce these high capital costs.

Here is what I have done;

http://www.usoal.com
http://www.mokindustries.com

Lets talk terrestrial solar first, then we'll talk space solar.

Basically I have figured out how to concentrate sunlight reliably to a
tiny point using water filled lenses, and install a high intensity
solar cell at that point that generates electricity -and then use the
electricity and heat to break down water efficiently into hydrogen and
oxygen. I then capture the hydrogen and oxygen as I refill the lens
array. I make hydrogen for less than $200 per metric ton using my
system - when built in quantity. A square kilometer of my panels
produce 10 metric tons per hour of peak insolation. Total system
costs $38.5 million per square kilometer in quantity. Longevity - 30
years. I have already arranged the leasing of over 25,000 sq km of
lands - which are abandoned or spent or to be abandoned - surface
mines in sunny regions having more than 1,700 hours of insolation per
year. I am being paid to take these lands from their current owners
and reclaim them.

To fully populate these lands with my solar panels costs $962.5
billion and produces 425 million tons of hydrogen per year.

Hydrogen is an interesting gas, it can burn under conditions that all
other fuels burn - so, it can replace those fuels with minor changes
in burner design. A metric ton of the gas contains 143 gigajoules of
energy. A barrel of oil contains 6.1 gigajoules of energy. A ton
of coal contains 23 gigajoules of energy. A ton of natural gas
contains 55.1 gigajoules of energy. Since hydrogen burns under the
same conditions all these other fuels burn, we can say that one ton of
hydrogen is equal to;

23.4 barrels of crude oil
6.2 tons of coal
2.5 tons of natural gas

At $200 per ton for hydrogen, we can see that my system provides heat
in a way current industry can use it at a competitive price with all
these fuels, and earn substantial profits doing it!

The 25,000 sq km of lands in the USA that I have already organized
when populated with my panels will produce over 425 million tons of
hydrogen per year. The USA uses 1.1 billion tons of coal per
year. 177.4 million tons of hydrogen replaces that coal. Adding
another 120 million tons of hydrogen to that coal, along with 360
million tons of oxygen, converts that coal into 7.9 billion barrels of
liquid fuels. Since the USA uses 6.8 billion barrels of liquid fuels
per year, its easy to see that this process not only meets all the
USA's need for energy, using coal, but also allows the USA to export
oil. The USA uses 400 million tons of natural gas each year. 157
million tons of hydrogen gas replaces most of this consumption.
Adding another 400 million tons of oxygen to the natural gas, produces
800 million tons of methanol. This methanol is then dehydrated to
create 4.7 billion barrels of ios-octane - premium gasoline.

Solar energy used in this way, when combined with domestic production,
allows the USA to export as much oil each year as it now imports,
while earning a huge profit for the solar hydrogen producer.

So, we can see that by approaching things appropriately we can resolve
our energy difficulties.

So, do we need space solar?

Well, do we need anything really?

A better question to ask is can we benefit using space solar?

The answer to that is - can we reduce our energy costs by developing
space solar?

The answer to that is no -not with current technology.

What must be done to make space solar competitive?

This now is a useful question.

What must be done is

1) lower the cost of space access
2) lower the mass of the space solar power satellites

The first is achieved by doing five things;

1a) increasing the size of launchers
1b) making them reusable
1c) adequate launch infrastructure
1d) adequate flight rate
1e) adequate quantity (standardized design)

I have detailed elsewhere plans for a 7,000 metric ton launcher that
places 550 metric tons into LEO - and 250 metric tons into GEO - with
recovery of ALL the elements. These are built around 7 identical
flight elements, that are similar to a stretched space shuttle
External Tank - configured for reusability and recovery. The base of
each modified ET is equipped with an annular aerospike engine - built
around 5 -RS68 pumpsets- and each has cross-feed capabilities to
operate as a 3 stage system. A fleet of 5 vehicles, each comprised
of 7 elements - a total of 35 flight elements - permit weekly flight
rates. The entire fleet, including launch center is estimated to
cost $9 billion. With 150 flights per vehicle, a total of 750
launches over a 15 year period is supported. $29 million per launch
covers this fixed cost. Another $11 million per launch covers
recurring costs. This is $40 million per launch - for a fully
reusable system.

At 250 metric tons to GEO we've reduced costs to $160,000 per metric
ton. Well below the $10,000,000 per metric ton currently.

Lower the mass of power satellites.

As originally conceived powersats used silicon panels that drive
klystron type microwave emitters that beam energy to Earth based
dipole antennae that then feed DC power to a large grid which is then
inverted and used as a baseload replacement.

There are lots of challenges with this sort of approach;

2a) microwave wavelengths are large meaning large emitters and
recievers
2b) microwave energy in nature is nil meaning power levels are
restricted
2c) conventional silicon panels are quite massive over large areas

I have approached the problem this way;

I use a large thin film concentrator to illuminate multi-junction Ge/
GaAs/InPh wafers at high intensity. These wafers are equipped with
MEMs based free-electron-lasers that operate with a conjugate mirror
based fabrey perot cell to produce a power laser beam in response to
modest pilot beams arriving at the emitter window. In response to
pilot beams power beams are delivered safely and reliably to
terrestrial solar panel arrays. These arrays - which operate in the
infrared part of the solar spectrum - are illuminated with bandgap
matched laser energy which allows them to generate 16x as much energy
per unit area as they produce from terrestrial solar sources.

So, a square kilometer of terrestrial panels that produce 17,000
metric tons of hydrogen per year produces 272,000 metric tons of
hydrogen per year by adding a square kilometer of extra-terrestrial
concentrator. Since the mass is dominated by the thin film
concentrator - similar to this prototype

http://www.algor.com/news_pub/cust_app/srs/images/prototyl.jpg

A film 20 microns thick - with 2 layers - masses 48 tons per square
kilometer. At $5 million per ton - which is typical of satellite
construction costs - $240 million per square kilometer. At $250,000
per ton - which is typical of aircraft construction costs - we have
$12 million per square kilometer. At $160,000 per ton - which is the
launch costs we calculated above - we have $7.7 million per square
kilometer launch cost. At $10 million per ton - which is typical
launch costs today using expendable rockets - we have $480 million per
square kilometer.

We were making hydrogen at less than $200 per ton at $38.5 million per
sq kilometer. We increase output by 16x, so if costs are LESS than
16x or less than $616 million per sq kilometer - then, we're ahead
economically by beaming power from space to pre-existing large scale
terrestrial solar installations.

Expendable Launchers/Conventional Construction: $720 million /sq
km in space
Maximum Price for power sat to be beneficial: $616
million /sq km in space
Reusable Launchers/Conventional Construction: $247 million/
sq km in space
Reusable Launchers/Mass Construction: $20 million /
sq km in space

Since we're building 750 satellites in 15 years - it seems reasonable
we'd set up for large scale production of these satellites. At 48
tons per sq km - and 250 tons launch capacity - each satellites covers
5.2 sq km. A disk 2.57 km in diameter. Each intercepts of 7.1 GW
of solar energy and delivers 3.5 GW of laser energy to terrestrial
collectors in response to pilot beams.

These power satellites increase the output of hydrogen, while reducing
its cost, allowing the USA to dominate energy production throughout
the world.

Today the world uses

28.3 billion barrels of crude oil products
5.5 billion tons of coal
1.1 billion tons of natural gas

ALL this is replaced by 3.34 billion tons of hydrogen gas made from
sunlight. Increasing from 0.43 billion tons sixteen times allows
6.80 billion tons of hydrogen to be made from the terrestrial sources
already installed. This allows us to double our energy footprint
while reducing our carbon footprint to zero - all while reducing the
cost of energy from $4 trillion per year currently, to $3 trillion per
year - over a 20 year period of growth.

What do we do for growth beyond this period?

Direct beaming of laser energy to end users - both mobile and
stationary.

The same conjugate optical laser systems used here was proposed for
SDI (star wars) defense and was shown to easily track missiles moving
at high speed. Such systems are useful not only for stationary
receivers, but also for mobile ones as well.

Clearly, a successful development of terrestrial power along the lines
described, provides sufficient cash to develop the infrastructure to
test these concepts without the need for any government subsidy.
Additional revenues generated by the systems themselves, provide the
means to support their expansion using internal profits.

6.8 billion tons of hydrogen per year represent 972.4 billion
gigajoules of chemical energy. That's 4,800 satellite launches.
This will require growing the launcher fleet, or growing the size of
the launchers, or both, to the eqivalent of 32 launchers, with one
flight per day.

This will dramatically change the natura of space launch - and tapping
into only 10% of this capacity - provides 3 launches to LEO of 550
metric tons each - every month - at a cost of $120 million for launch
and $80 million for payload construction - leveraging off the powersat
infrastructure - again without subsidy.

With $300 billion per month in energy revenue, it seems that $300
million per month for space R&D might be easily supported by the
system - to develop other space based resources and assets.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: We can meet all our needs through space development
    ... expectations of 13% efficiency not 40% as you appear to assume with ... against conventional energy sources without government subsidy. ... By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash ... I answer the cost questions below. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Attn: Mr. Mook
    ... Mök Energy Innovations Increasing Solar Energy Efficiency ... dramatically reducing the cost of PV materials. ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: Space-based power makes CNN.com - comments may be entertaining
    ... Terrestrial solar power using conventional means is not economic ... Space solar power had certain advantages and disadvantages. ... solveable at very low ADDED cost. ... billion and produces 425 million tons of hydrogen per year. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Low Cost Hydrogen is here to stay
    ... fact 3.34 billion tons of hydrogen would displace ALL OTHER FUELS. ... At present the lowest cost way of making hydrogen is the shift ... TW of solar panels if the panels are located in a region that hs ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: "To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook"...
    ... If you want to see the ULTIMATE in fuel weight to energy ratio check ... And they miss the cost this has to our industrial economy ... drops to $500 per microgram with my ultra-low-cost solar panels. ... A barrel of crude oil contains 6,100 GJ and costs $100.00 - that's ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
Loading