Comments on: Floating Geodesic Solar Molecules

By: George

George — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:57:57 +0000

Why not to lift the radiation concentrators in the space and receive the concentrated beam on smaller receivers on the ground level?

By: Bhanu Prakash

Bhanu Prakash — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:13:55 +0000

Dear Paul,

The assumption behind 40minutes is that the demand is not distributed across geographies / time scales. If you take in to consideration generation, transmission and distribution as commented by Mr Bojan Radak, then whole thing becomes clear. Whether it is 40 minutes or 400 minutes doesn’t matter much as the other demands with population spread all over from America to Australia.

By: Shiju Paul

Shiju Paul — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:50:03 +0000

40 minutes of solar energy enough for the population of entire earth? Is it correct? In that rate, if we could utilize it at an average of 9 hrs.(13.5×40m) for 365 days, it is obtainable from 1/5000th of earth’s surface. That is, from every 200 sq.m.(2 0r 3 roof-tops) of a sq. km.

By: Tobias Schunck

Tobias Schunck — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:39:41 +0000

OK, keep dreaming.

Put your time to better use by conserving energy and taxing hydrocarbon energy sources to include the price of pollution. We can barely make ground-based solar pay for itself WITH incentives here in the USA, forget about space-based systems. And, what happens when a person, plane or bird flies through the microwave transmission path? Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. What is the loss of energy being transmitted from space back to earth? Get real. (1) Energy Conservation (2) Large Scale Wind Trubines (3) Concentrated Solar are real, here, feasible and proven.

By: manu ganji

manu ganji — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:41:05 +0000

What if these molecules get into living systems and do some thing undesirable?

By: Bob Volk

Bob Volk — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:45:29 +0000

Very interesting research. Not ready for prime time, but seems promising. For solar to really take off, the prices have got to come down enough that it doesn’t take 20 years to break even.

By: Bojan Radak

Bojan Radak — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:21:07 +0000

It always sounds great to use solar energy, but when it comes to calculating the real net output, then the prospects fade. Obviously, no one yet took into account the amount of energy needed to produce the “solar molecules”, the PV shells, to make the mega structure, to put it up in space, to transfer the PV output into microwaves, to make the ground microwave receiver stations, to transfer the microwaves back into electricity, to transport the electricity around the world… All of this has to be covered by the energy produced. Otherwise it is useless.

Theoretical prospects for solar on a big scale are very slim because of the inherent drawback – it is energy that has already been dispersed (originating from nuclear on the Sun), and we have to use extra energy to collect it. The net result can never be impressive, and will just require more “solar molecules” or more panels or something – which will cover the Earth’s surface with shadows ever more, which in turn will reduce the vegetation, change the climate, etc…

Solar can, however, be very useful for individual usage in houses, farms, etc. Especially when the main grid is not accessible.