Robin Hanbury-Tenison is inspired by a radical idea to generate cheap power in space
The technology now exists to create power stations in space by sending up lightweight PV panels that open up, collect solar energy, and transmit it wirelessly to wherever it’s needed on Earth. These panels would be eight times more efficient than those on the ground. This is because there’s no day and night, no clouds, dust or pollution. They have the potential to produce more energy than all terrestrial sources combined.
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Most of the electricity generated would, of course, go to urban areas, where the demand is greatest, but by being able to direct the flow with great accuracy, power could also be sent to disaster zones, refugee camps and remote islands where no other power source is available. At a stroke, this could eliminate much of the need for power stations and internal combustion engines, the main man-made causes of climate change.
There are risks, of course. It will be expensive. However, NASA’s budget for missions to Mars last year was US$27 billion. Both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are contributing many more billions to such research.
The Chinese are already launching small solar satellites into the stratosphere and plan to generate a megawatt of energy by 2030. With the new lightweight panels now being developed, this could be expanded exponentially. Both the USA and Japan are researching this new technology. The US military is testing a high- altitude aircraft powered by solar energy. China has a vast terrestrial plant earmarked for receiving energy beamed down from space. Imagine what a huge injection of cash could achieve, such as that which would be released by abandoning the various Mars programmes.
Currently, more than 80 per cent of global energy is generated by oil, coal and gas – finite resources that will eventually run out – and energy consumption is predicted to grow by 50 per cent by 2050.
This isn’t a new idea. Isaac Asimov first proposed it in a short story, Reason, published in 1941. In this story, a space station, controlled by robots, supplies energy via microwave beams to other planets. Asimov wasn’t alone in suggesting sci-fi inventions that became reality. Perhaps the most famous is Jules Verne’s novel From the Earth to the Moon: A Direct Route in 97 Hours, 20 Minutes, published in 1865, in which his three participants are fired from a huge ‘space gun’.
Although this method of getting people to the Moon proved impractical, some of Verne’s calculations were remarkably accurate and led to the first Moon landing 104 years later. We can’t afford to wait that long for the idea of sending PV panels into space to come about.
Elon Musk has dismissed the idea as ‘the stupidest thing ever’, but he’s obsessed with Mars. He’s also missing a trick, as his reusable rockets would be essential to making it all economical. Others, notably the Chinese, are taking it much more seriously and will have a prototype ready this year. Recent British research indicates that it’s technically possible and should, in time, cost a mere 4p per kilowatt hour – about half the current cost of solar.
If all the money spent on dreams of making a brave new world on Mars were to be redirected to powering this world without polluting it, we could solve many of the problems confronting us. It would remove many of the causes of climate change, eliminating the pollution caused by power stations, cars, buses, trucks, trains and shipping. All would be electric – even aeroplanes are now moving towards being battery- powered. EasyJet is developing an all-electric, 186-seat passenger jet with an 1,300-kilometre range that’s set to enter service by 2030.
Much of the grinding poverty in parts of the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere – caused by, and often the cause of, wars – would be alleviated by access to free energy. Also, I firmly believe that prosperity is the only effective contraceptive. It’s now recognised that increased income is associated with a lower birth rate. What better way of bringing about population reduction than allowing everyone in the world an equal and fair start in life through cheap power?
And what a wonderful legacy for the billionaires! It’s within their grasp to create a real, brave new world. All it needs is for them to take their eyes off Mars and the sterile space beyond, and devote a lesser sum to supplying this planet with free power. Utopian, but far more doable than creating a sustainable human settlement on desolate Mars, with its scant atmosphere providing little to no protection from cosmic radiation and solar winds.
If you want to be inspired by technological solutions to our Earth- bound problems, google Caltech professor Ali Hajimiri’s TED Talk, entitled How Wireless Energy From Space Could Power Everything.
