Japanese firm wants to transform the Moon into a giant solar power plant
The Shimizu Corporation, a Japanese construction firm, has recently proposed a plan to harness solar energy on a larger scale than almost any previously proposed concept. Their ambitious plan involves building a belt of solar cells around the Moon’s 6,800-mile (11,000-kilometer) equator, converting the electricity to powerful microwaves and lasers to be beamed at Earth, and finally converting the beams back to electricity at terrestrial power stations. The Luna Ring concept, the company says, could meet the entire world's energy needs.Someone there must be looking for free publicity. I like the first comment:
Pfffft I say Dyson Sphere or bust!
6 comments:
That's an awesome idea. I love it. What's a Dyson Sphere again?
Taking apart all of the planets and using them to build a more-or-less complete thin shell around the sun so as to maximise energy capture (and living area) in a solar system.
There's got to be a small community of environmental activists somewhere who would object to that.
I say we pick on a useless out of the way planet that nobody is interested in to take apart. Neptune, you're dead.
If we did build a giant solar plant on the moon how would we get the energy down again? Would the energy expended in that process perhaps defeat the purpose of the exercise?
Microwaves and/or lasers. Microwaves would require large antenna farms on the ground to turn them back into electricity. Allegedly, they would be weak enough not to fry birds who fly in the path.There was a fair bit of work done on this in the 70's and 80's regarding solar power satellites.
I'm not sure how laser conversion works.
That means some geeky guy in some office somewhere is going to be in charge of firing gigantic lasers at the earth. Cool.
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