NEWS

A recently concluded study undertaken by the Pentagon’s National Security Space Office (NSSO) has suggested that space-based solar power stations are technologically feasible, provide clean energy and avert potential energy security conflicts in the wake of dwindling fossil fuel resources. The study got underway on April 20, 2007 at the direction of the NSSO Director, Major General Jim Armor, who designated his Chief of Future Concepts, Lt Colonel M.V. Coyote Smith, the director of the study. The US Defense Department is putting more of its resources into developing alternative energy sources and its latest proposal involves outer space. The report has recommended that a pilot solar power station be sent into orbit to test whether energy collected from the Sun can be beamed down to Earth as electricity.

VIEWS

As the quest for alternative energy intensifies, space is fast becoming the new frontier for energy security. The concept of a Solar Power Satellite (SPS) or Powersat is not new. Mooted as far back as 1968, the idea was initially dismissed as impractical due to the absence of a method to transmit power down to the Earth’s surface. The hurdle was crossed in 1973 by Peter Glaser. The US scientist found a method of transmitting power from an SPS to the Earth’s surface using microwaves from a, say, sq km antenna on the satellite to a much larger one on the ground, known as a Rectenna. But the concept remained dormant due to technological limitations and exorbitant costs.

Solar power has been tried out terrestrially but it suffers from certain drawbacks such as the reduced ability of photocells to collect energy during cloud cover or at night. As Dr Charley Lineweaver from the Planetary Science Unit at the Australian National University in Canberra observes, The disadvantage we have on Earth is that solar panels work best in very dry places where there’s not much water, in deserts, and that’s not where the people are—the people are where the water is and the water is where there have been clouds. Advantages of placing the solar collectors in space include the unobstructed view of the Sun, unaffected by the day/night cycle, weather or seasons and the fact that in space these are more than twice as effective in collecting energy as when deployed on the Earth. It is also a renewable energy source with zero emission. However, earlier it was felt that the concept would succeed only if: