Solar Energy
What can be more useful for humanity if not unlimited power source, which we can use without any harm to the environment? Probably, nothing, but the solar power. Humanity has always tried to conquer the unlimited power of Sun – history of solar technology comes from the 7th Century B.C. to nowadays. In the beginning, we tried to concentrate the sun’s heat by using glass, mirrors or some other devices to light fires. From those times, we went far away, but still we did not conquer this magnificent source of power.
Why do we should develop solar power technologies? Because it has many pros with few, or even without any cons. Gained free, and almost unlimited solar power can solve most of humanity problems: it will help us to overcome the petroleum and log-burning era, solve environmental problems caused by non-wise usage of current power sources; solar power can save trees and greenery all over the world.
Satellites, loaded with solar energy can be directed to all places all over the world – it can be used to help people, who are stuck in some natural disasters; it’s renewable so we can’t get lack of it; it doesn’t affect our earth’s nature; it has a very high potential. The cons of this power source are few but significant: it is expensive; it occupies lots of place; technology is in developing yet, so it will be a little bit further in future.
The timeline of solar power development in history:
7th century B.C. – glass was used to concentrate sunrays to make fire.
3rd century B.C. – Greeks and Romans were using mirrors to light their torches
2nd century B.C. – Archimedes used the reflective properties of shining bronze shields to focus the sunrays and set on fire Roman Empire’s wooden ships.
1st to 4th century A.D – Roman bathhouses period (used sun to warm up bath by south facing windows.
6th Century A.D. – Sunrooms in private houses and public buildings were too common, so Justinian Code created the “Sun Rights”, to make individual access to the sunrays.
1767 – Swiss scientist Horace de Saussure build first solar collector all over the world. Sir John Herschel used it to cook food later.
1816 – On September 27, 1816, Robert Stirling applied for a patent for his economizer at the Chancery in Edinburgh. He built heat engines in his home workshop. Lord Kelvin used one of these models during his university classes.
1839 – French scientist discovered the effect of photovoltaic.
1860s – French mathematician August Mouchet proposed an idea for solar-powered steam engines. In the following two decades, he and his assistant, Abel Pifre, constructed the first solar powered engines and used them for a variety of applications. These engines became the predecessors of modern parabolic dish collectors.
1883 – Charles Fritts showed solar cells, made from selenium wafers.
1918 – There was a development by Jan Czochralski: he grew single-crystal silicon.
1921 – Nobel Prize Award of Alber Enstein for explaining the effect of photoelectric.
1954 – Photovoltaic technology was born in the U.S. Development of PV cell at Bell Labs.
1970s – Dr. Elliot Berman, designs a less costly solar cell, bringing price down from $100 a watt to $20 a watt. Solar cells began to power navigation warning indicators and honks on many offshore gas and oilrigs, lighthouse.
1976 – The NASA Lewis Research Center starts installing 83 photovoltaic power systems on every continent except Australia. These systems provide such diverse applications as vaccine refrigeration, room lighting, medical clinic lighting, telecommunications, water pumping, grain milling, and classroom television. The Center completed the project in 1995, working on it from 1976-1985 and then again from 1992-1995.
Many inventions and events in solar development from midst of 1950s to 2015.
Therefore, solar power is the renewable source of energy, which converses sunlight into electricity by directly using photovoltaic or indirectly – concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic (further – PV) – are used to power up small or medium applications, from pocket watch and calculator to solar-powered smart houses.
This source of energy is not that expensive as it was before, plus, according to Fraunhofer reports, solar power in sunny regions will be much cheaper than gas, oil or coal. In these several years the growth of solar photovoltaic was significantly raised in Thailand, South Africa, Canada, Australia and moreover the world. The solar power is most accessible, because of the sunlight’s ubiquity.
However, it is still too expensive to buy PV panels for “home use”. According to “Plugging into the Sun” material, made by George Johnsons in 2009 of September, PV are too far from being ready for ordinary people and mass production. Ray Stults says: “The technology is incredibly sophisticated. We can make it right now for $10,000 per square centimeter, but not many people are going to buy it”.
The PV are not limited to some private buildings, warehouses or something like that. As an example – The Nellis Air Force Base, which is located on the northeastern outskirts of Las Vegas gains about 25% of their energy from PV. As an example – in 2007, Sun Power Corporation used their solar photovoltaic installation to generate about 14,000 KW, making this corporation as one of the biggest in the U.S. states, but still – 25th in the world
The also known problem – there is no storage system for this purpose at all: PV capture and produce solar energy directly, but there is nothing to capture and hold in molten salt tanks. There was still an option to compress air in some underground caverns during the daytime. Alabama and Germany used this option to save and store the output of solar power plants for daytime peak usage. This cycle is revertible and it can be the opportunity to get electricity during the night by releasing the air in sake of turbine spinning.
Like many other renewable sources of power (wind, geothermal, hydroelectric) solar power is the source, which relies on specific conditions, rare in nature. The places, which exactly correspond to the requirements of receiving enough solar power, are something like unique, and located far from the populated cities, where this power is necessary. There is only one solution – the single place with all suitable conditions is Earth’s orbit. (Benduhn, 2009)
Earth orbit receives around 1.4 GWs for each square meter by solar flow. It is essential, since the solar ray loses about quarter of its value until it gets to the planet surface. A fully developed huge satellite, covered with mirrors/ any other collection surface, located in geostationary orbit about 35,000 kilometers above the equator will be perfect for solar energy collecting purpose. This satellite will do the collecting and converting roles, by converting the solar radiation into electro-magnetic beam. The supreme advantage of this will be ability to direct thousands of solar power Gig watts to any location of our planet.
Another supreme advantage is the infinity of solar power. As Johnson says, the sun has the potential to provide much more energy than our planet needs. This energy has a great future for the economic growth; it also has no any pollution effect on nature and environment. However, it is still too unstable to rely on – any mechanical or technical problems with the space satellite will cause the interruption of the power-dependent services. (Johnson, 2009)
Concept of unlimited source of solar energy is not a dream or subject of science fiction film – this idea is coming true. In past few years, this idea earned financing by government of China and Japan, and some companies from U.S. went abroad, by the means of dedications of commercialization of this concept. (Benduhn, 2009)
The official interest of U.S. was occasional. Peter Glaser, who was an American engineer, credited this concept far away in 1968; a patent for this idea granted to him within five years. This research become not that interesting until 1970. In 1970, there was first major phase of researches in this subject thanks to NASA’s energy studying feasibilities of this concept. There was a proposition about the 5GW concept, but the technology of these times could not do the task economically possible, so researches continued only during the second phase of the solar power researches.
The second phase was taking place during 1995-1997; NASA got their “fresh look” into this concept with some new technologies. Then, the third phase began – Pentagon’s NSSO publication initiated it. This report was all about the opportunities of solar power use for strategic security. The media outlets were in shock because of this concept and intimidated U.S. government interest in this research. In last few years, many Switzerland and U.S. firms took a serious look at this concept, its realization and profits. The fact, that both Pentagon and NASA got interested in this concept means that this idea has a good future, thanks to which lots of money they can save.
Japan Space Systems are researching the space solar power systems since 2000. They are have been studying space solar power systems as a future energy resource under the support of The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry since 2002. Their studies covered from basic lab testing to the practical usage of power plants. Their development plan consisted of four steps: Technology Demonstration Satellite (100KW), Prototype System (10MW), Pilot System (250MW) and Commercial System (1GW).
Global warming danger and limited amount of natural energetic sources justifies the space solar power systems. During the last 50 years, the global temperature started increasing in high rate. Furthermore, global warming affects energy, water resources; it influences on ecosystems and agriculture. The human’s health quality slowly fades, there is a higher risk to get illness or even die because of extremely high heat; insects are increasing in amounts, people from weakest groups like elderly, poor people and children are the most at risk against the climate related effects. One of the solutions for this problem is to slow down the global warming by not using the natural energy supplies, like gas, oil and wood.
If we replace gas and oil by solar power, we will help our world to stop deforestation and lubricants/combustibles usage. Usage of combustibles and lubricants increases total heat, which leads to the global warming. The solar system is not the only way to save our ecology, but it is also a way to provide cheap and safe electricity to every house. Energy firms raise the awareness of technology by showing its profits, compared to traditional energy sources. For example, The Space Energy firm gives lectures about this technology and works with Japanese and Chinese governments to help them in developing of space solar power concepts.
However, the invention of space solar system can be a threat to the current political systems of our planet. The reason of it – predominating position in the world. Everyone understands that the first country that be the first in development and utilization of clean and renewable energy will take the leading positions in space and aviation, and probably become the world leader. This argument is real, and there will be many debates about the consequences of space-based solar systems.
The solar space stations will have a dual use, like almost every item in our world. As an example GPS satellites, which can be both opportunity for traveler, and guidance system for missiles. If we do not even think about the space solar system stations as a weapon, it can lead to the great loss of the world’s infrastructures, capital investments etc. It will leave thousands of thousands of people without their workplace, since regular electricity “factories” will not be in favor after the developing renewable source of energy. It can lead to destructive consequences: people who lost their works can raise the anti-solar revolutions all over the world.
The usage of space solar power satellite system will help combatants to control and deliver energy for troops anywhere in the world by directing the satellite’s ray to some army receiver stations. This will solve all the logistical problems, connected with army’s energy supplies – there will be any need in transporting fossil fuels. It will also lead to decreasing of casualties, caused of not having enough supplies during the important moment. Still, this feature will be usable not only for some combat actions, but also for doing “good” things – it will be possible to build a stationary receiver complex anywhere – it is cheap and simple. People can use it to support rebels, who opposes the regime army; to help people, trapped in bad situations – cataclysms, natural disasters and something like that.
The satellites power systems are usable for humanitarian purposes - it will help people around the world to get the necessary help they need by directing the power beam anywhere on a short notice. It can support refugee camps and hospitals by giving free electricity; the electricity of these space solar system satellites can help with desalination of water in some far from civilization regions. It will help small nations to overcome the problems of high gas/oil/coal prices. This system can become one of the diplomacy lever – it can help in stopping aggression between non-equal enemies.
Conclusion: I think that development of solar power systems in space will be a great thing, which will solve many problems of humanity. Yes, it has many disadvantages, but still – advantages are more essentials for people then the possible problems. Moreover, well, there must be some way to solve the disadvantages of using solar power, to overcome these possible problems, since humanity should be smart enough to create this technology so there even must not be questions like these at all.
Setting space solar power satellites is the huge step for humanity in exploring space. Not conquering but exploring – since there is a belief that humanity is not the only race in our universe, so we cannot just “conquer” the unknown. This technology must be opened as soon as possible, since it opens myriads of opportunities for scientists. The space solar power itself isn’t dangerous, but it can be dangerous if it “land” in wrong hands.
REFERENCES
Wood, L. (2012). Projecting power: The security implications of space-based solar power. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68(1), pp.70-78.
Wara, M. (2014). California's energy and climate policy: A full plate, but perhaps not a model policy. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 70(5), pp.26-34.
Chu, S. and Majumdar, A. (2012). Opportunities and challenges for a sustainable energy future. Nature, 488 (7411), pp.294-303.
Benduhn, T. (2009). Solar power. Pleasantville, NY: Weekly Reader Pub.
Johnson, G. (2009). Plugging Into the Sun. [online] National Geographic Magazine. Available at: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2009/09/solar/johnson-text [Accessed 10 Apr. 2016].
