Big Sky Debate Page


SPS CAN ASSUME A GREATER SHARE OF GLOBAL POWER DEMAND, AVERTING CLIMATE DISASTERS AND WARS OVER ENERGY-Schubert ‘10



Download 1.79 Mb.
Page26/32
Date18.10.2016
Size1.79 Mb.
#2940
1   ...   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   ...   32

SPS CAN ASSUME A GREATER SHARE OF GLOBAL POWER DEMAND, AVERTING CLIMATE DISASTERS AND WARS OVER ENERGY-Schubert ‘10

[Peter; Ph.D; Packer Engineering; Costs, Organization and Roadmap for SSP; Online Journal of Space Communication; Winter 2010 ;http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue16/schubert.html; retrieved 24 Jun 2011]


Should such a miracle come to pass, the cost, organization, and roadmap to commercial scale SSP has been identified herein. The Organization for Space Energy Research (OSER) will be a not-for-profit entity formed at a Midwestern engineering university directing a 230 million USD per year applied research budget. Its charter will be to identify an optimal SSP architecture and develop key enabling technologies. Started with federal fiscal year 2012 funding, OSER can demonstrate SSP viability in 6 years, and guide the first 5 GW installation to completion in 12 more years. In this way, SSP can take over an ever-increasing share of global power demand such that energy wars, climate disasters, or economic collapse can be averted or ameliorated.
MEETING ENERGY NEEDS THROUGH SBSP WILL ALLOW A SUSTAINABLE LIFE FOR ALL HUMAN CIVILIZATION-Medin ‘10

[Kristin; Chief Industrial Designer, NewSpace DesignLabs; Disruptive Technology: A Space-Based Solar Power Industry Forecast; The Next Generation Of COMSATS; Online Journal of Space Communication; Winter 2010; http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue16/medin.html; retrieved 24 Jun 2011]


Modern civilization has come to depend on energy to support quality of life, maintain global scale economies and sustain research. In the context of compromised fossil fuel reserves and increased demand for renewable resources, we can look to space to meet, hopefully to exceed, our energy demands of the future. With the implementation of SBSP, other industries will find a home in space, delivering a new generation of goods and services that benefit humanity. At the same time, new job and new careers will emerge to support these burgeoning businesses. As we solve our energy needs through SBSP, we can think more confidently about ensuring the sustainability of civilization. We can focus on addressing the important issues of tomorrow with increased global cooperation.
ONLY SBSP CAN PROVIDE THE AMOUNT OF ENERGY NEEDED. WE WILL RUN OUT OF ENERGY WELL BEFORE 2010-Nansen ‘10

[Ralph; 31 year space engineer @ Boeing; Low Cost Access to Space is Key to Solar Power Satellite Deployment; Online Journal of Space Communication; Winter 2010;http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue16/nansen.html; retrieved 24 Jun 2011]


Today we face the compounding problems of a world recession, passing the peak of world oil production, global warming due to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, and the threat of wars over Middle East oil.

The search is on for the new sources of energy required to support future economic and social development. Those sources must now pass a more strict set of criteria. They are expected to not only replace oil and coal to stop global warming, they must meet the growing global demand for energy that can be expected to rise each decade. Developing sources of renewable energy will meet some of the demand, but only Solar Power Satellites will be able to deliver the quantities envisioned. The United States currently consumes 25 percent of the world's oil usage, with only 5 percent of the population.[1] That ratio is about to dramatically change. James Michael Snead, President of the Spacefaring Institute LLC, writes that "…even if we use every source of clean energy --- terrestrial solar, wind, and geothermal --- and every source of dirty energy --- coal, oil, and nuclear --- we will run out of energy well before 2100."[2]



SOLAR POWER SATELLITES WILL ALLOW THE WORLD TO AVERT A GLOBAL ENERGY CATASTROPHE COMING THIS GENERATION-Mardon ‘06

[A.A.; Professor, Penza State Pedagogical University; THE POTENTIAL PUSH AND PULL OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION OF SOLAR POWER SATELLITES TO EARTH ORBIT COLONIZATION AND INNER SOLAR SYSTEM COLONIZATION: ASTEROIDS AS A SOURCE OF CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL; Spacecraft Reconnaissance of Asteroid and Comet Interiors; 2006; retrieved 21 July 2011]

Currently the majority of our world’s civilization is based on both solid carbon and hydrocarbon sources of energy. It is obvious to even an elementary student that this situation of what our world’s energy supply is based on will not last forever it might not even last for more than at the most another generation. The United States and the West is fighting its second ‘oil’ war in half a generation. If the economic resources that were devoted to prop up our carbon based energy civilization was instead used to develop alternative energy supplies especially Solar Power Satellites then it might be possible to avert a global energy catastrophe by the end of this generation. Solar Power Satellites are a viable technically possible technology that with cooperation and integration of the world’s various space capable nations could start to produce energy being beamed back to Earth within ten years.
FAILURE TO HAVE AN ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF ENERGY BEFORE PEAK OIL SHORTAGES WILL LEAD TO FAILED STATES ACROSS THE GLOBE-National Security Space Office ‘07

[Space Based Solar Power as an Opportunity for Strategic Security; National Security Space Office; 10 Oct 2007; http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/nsso.htm; retrieved 12 Jul 2011]

If traditional fossil fuel production of peaks sometime this century as the Department of Energy’s own Energy Information Agency has predicted, a first order effect would be some type of energy scarcity. If alternatives do not come on]line fast enough, then prices and resource tensions will increase with a negative effect on the global economy, possibly even pricing some nations out of the competition for minimum requirements. This could increase the potential for failed states, particularly among the less developed and poor nations. It could also increase the chances for great power conflict. To the extent SBSP is successful in tapping an energy source with tremendous growth potential, it offers an ”alternative in the third dimension” to lessen the chance of such conflicts.
US MUST ADOPT ALTERNATIVE FUELS OR FACE ECONOMIC CHAOS--Stanford '07

[Jeff; “Biofuel boom or fossil doom?;” Canadian Business; 13-27 August 2007; Wilson Database]


U.S. President Harry Truman created the National Petroleum Council (NPC) in 1946 out of the remnants of the Petroleum Industry War Council, a group brought together to co-ordinate government and industry action during the Second World War. Today the NPC--chaired by former Exxon Mobil CEO Lee R. Raymond--continues its mission as a federal advisory committee made up of 175 industry members tasked with providing the U.S. energy secretary with information about the nation's oil and gas industry. When current secretary Samuel Bodman wrote a letter to the council in 2005 requesting an analysis of the stability of U.S. energy supply, the NPC got to work on a reply.

The verdict was finally announced on July 18: There are "accumulating risks to continuing expansion of oil and natural gas production," but the use of alternative energies like biofuels will help the United States avoid economic chaos.



ADVANTAGE 5: SBSP CRITICAL FOR MILITARY POWER PROJECTION
SBSP WILL NOT ONLY ALLOW AMERICAN FORCES TO PROJECT POWER, IT WILL REDUCE CONFLICT OVER ENERGY-Rouge, et al ‘07

[Joseph; Acting Director, National Security Space Office; Space‐Based Solar Power



As an Opportunity for Strategic Security; 10 2007; retrieved 24 Jun 2011; http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf]
For the DoD specifically, beamed energy from space in quantities greater than 5 MWe has the potential to be a disruptive game changer on the battlefield. SBSP and its enabling wireless power transmission technology could facilitate extremely flexible “energy on demand” for combat units and installations across an entire theater, while significantly reducing dependence on vulnerable over‐land fuel deliveries. SBSP could also enable entirely new force structures and capabilities such as ultra long‐endurance airborne or terrestrial surveillance or combat systems to include the individual soldier himself. More routinely, SBSP could provide the ability to deliver rapid and sustainable humanitarian energy to a disaster area or to a local population undergoing nation‐building activities. SBSP could also facilitate base “islanding” such that each installation has the ability to operate independent of vulnerable ground‐based energy delivery infrastructures. In addition to helping American and allied defense establishments remain relevant over the entire 21st Century through more secure supply lines, perhaps the greatest military benefit of SBSP is to lessen the chances of conflict due to energy scarcity by providing access to a strategically secure energy supply.
THE MILITARY COULD USE SBSP TO ENSURE THAT THE US NOT GET INVOLVED IN A NIGHTMARE WAR OVER RESOURCES AND ENERGY-Foust ‘07

[Jeff; editor; A Renaissance for Space Solar Power; The Space Review; 13 aug 2007;



http://www.thespacereview.com/article/931/1; retrieved 17 Jun 2011]
In recent months, however, a new potential champion for space solar power has emerged, and from a somewhat unlikely quarter. Over the last several months the National Security Space Office (NSSO) has been conducting a study about the feasibility of space solar power, with an eye towards military applications but also in broader terms of economic and national security.

Air Force Lt. Col. Michael “Coyote” Smith, leading the NSSO study, said during a session about space solar power at the NewSpace 2007 conference in Arlington, Virginia last month that the project had its origins in a study last year that identified energy, and the competition for it, as the pathway to “the worst nightmare war we could face in the 21st century.” If the United States is able to secure energy independence in the form of alternative, clean energy sources, he said, “that will buy us a form of security that would be phenomenal.”



SBSP COULD PROVIDE HIGHLY MOBILE ENERGY FOR FORWARD AREAS IN MILITARY-Foust ‘07

[Jeff; editor; A Renaissance for Space Solar Power; The Space Review; 13 aug 2007;



http://www.thespacereview.com/article/931/1; retrieved 17 Jun 2011]
“The military would like nothing better than to have highly mobile energy sources that can provide our forces with some form of energy in those forward areas,” Smith said. One way to do that, he said, is with space solar power, something that Smith and a few fellow officers had been looking at in their spare time. They gave a briefing on the subject to Maj. Gen. James Armor, the head of the NSSO, who agreed earlier this year to commission a study on the feasibility of space solar power.

There was one problem with those plans, Smith said: because this project was started outside of the budget cycle, there was no money available for him to carry out a conventional study. “I’ve got no money,” he said, “but I’ve got the ability to go out there and make friends, and friends are cheap.” So Smith and his cadre of friends have carried out the research for the study in the open, leveraging tools like Google Groups and a blog that hosts discussions on the subject.


SBSP CAN BE A DISRUPTIVE GAME CHANGER FOR THE US MILITARY, ALLOWING MUCH MORE RAPID AND FLEXIBLE DEPLOYMENT-Rouge, et al ‘07

[Joseph; Acting Director, National Security Space Office; Space‐Based Solar Power



As an Opportunity for Strategic Security; 10 2007; retrieved 24 Jun 2011; http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf]
For the DoD specifically, beamed energy from space in quantities greater than 5 MWe has the potential to be a disruptive game changer on the battlefield. SBSP and its enabling wireless power transmission technology could facilitate extremely flexible “energy on demand” for combat units and installations across an entire theater, while significantly reducing dependence on vulnerable over‐land fuel deliveries. SBSP could also enable entirely new force structures and capabilities such as ultra long‐endurance airborne or terrestrial surveillance or combat systems to include the individual soldier himself. More routinely, SBSP could provide the ability to deliver rapid and sustainable humanitarian energy to a disaster area or to a local population undergoing nation‐building activities. SBSP could also facilitate base “islanding” such that each installation has the ability to operate independent of vulnerable ground‐based energy delivery infrastructures. In addition to helping American and Allied defense establishments remain relevant over the entire 21st Century through more secure supply lines, perhaps the greatest military benefit of SBSP is to lessen the chances of conflict due to energy scarcity by providing access to a strategically security energy supply.
FAILURE TO DEVELOP A SECURE AFFORDABLE SUPPLY OF ENERGY JEOPARDIZES MILITARY’S PEACEKEEPING AND DEFENSE ROLE-National Space Security Office ‘08

[Space Based Solar Power; Ad Astra; Spring 2008; www.nss.org/adastra/AdAstra-SBSP-2008.pdf; retrieved 11 Jul 2011]

The very real risks of climate change, energy nationalism and scarcity, unconstrained technology explosion, and potential resource conflicts weigh heavily on the futurist minds of the action officers of the Air Force Future Concepts and Transformations Office and National Security Space Office (NSSO) “Dreamworks.” These officers are charged with visualizing the world 25-or-more years from now, and informing and guiding Air Force and space strategy development. For a military that is fundamentally dependent on high-energy capabilities to protect its nation and the international commons for the good of all humanity, not only are the strategic risks associated with energy scarcity that lie ahead great, but so too are the operational and tactical vulnerabilities for the finest war-fighting and peacekeeping machine humans have ever known.

ADVANTAGE 5: SBSP WILL REDUCE WAR


REDUCING OUR RELIANCE ON CURRENT FOSSIL FUEL INFRASTRUCTURE WILL REDUCE THE MOST IMPORTANT MOTIVATION FOR WAR IN THE 21ST CENTURY-Dinerman ‘08

[Taylor; author and journalist; War, Peace, and Space Solar Power; The Space Review; 15 Sep 2008; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1209/1; retrieved 23 Jun 2011]


While politicians in the US and Europe debate the best way to ensure access to the International Space Station (ISS), a more profound lesson from the crisis is evident. The world can no longer afford to depend upon easily disrupted pipelines for critical energy supplies. The one that ran from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey was, no doubt, an important factor in setting off the events of August 2008.

In the future other pipelines, such as the one that may run from the coast of Pakistan to western China, may be just as important and as vulnerable as the one that runs through Georgia. Removing this kind of infrastructure from its central role in the world’s energy economy would eliminate one of the most dangerous motivations for war that we may face in the 21st century.

If the world really is entering into a new age of resource shortages—or even if these shortages are simply widely-held illusions—nations will naturally try their best to ensure that they will have free and reasonably priced access to the stuff they need to survive and to prosper. Some of the proposed regulations aimed at the climate change issue will inevitably make matters worse by making it harder for nations with large coal deposits to use them in effective and timely ways.

The coming huge increase in demand for energy as more and more nations achieve “developed” status has been discussed elsewhere. It is hard to imagine that large powerful states such as China or India will allow themselves to be pushed back into relative poverty by a lack of resources or by environmental restrictions. The need for a wholly new kind of world energy infrastructure is not just an issue involving economics or conservation, but of war and peace.



Moving a substantial percentage of the Earth’s energy supply off the planet will not, in and of itself, eliminate these kinds of dangers, but it will reduce them. Nations that get a large percentage of their electricity from space will not have to fear that their neighbors will cut them off from gas or coal supplies. The need for vulnerable pipelines and shipping routes will diminish.
SEEN AS A WAR AVOIDANCE TECHNOLOGY, SBSP BECOMES MUCH MORE AFFORDABLE-Dinerman ‘08

[Taylor; author and journalist; War, Peace, and Space Solar Power; The Space Review; 15 Sep 2008; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1209/1; retrieved 23 Jun 2011]


While most space solar power advocates believe that the basic technology already exists, the engineering challenges are huge, as are the capital requirements. Seen as a simple business proposition space solar power (SSP) is a long way from becoming a viable economic source of energy. It could be subsidized the way that wind power or terrestrial solar has been. Even with subsidies, it is hard to see that the private sector would pay for the development work due to the unknown technological risks and to the long time scale.

However, if SSP were perceived as a “war avoidance” mechanism or technology, the investment logic changes. The profit-seeking side of the private sector does not see its role as inflicting peace on an unstable and violent world. Traditionally that has been the role of governments, and in recent decades the so-called NGOs or non-profit sector.

ADVANTAGE 6: ECONOMY

SBSP DEVELOPMENT WILL LAUNCH A NEW ERA OF SPACE-BASED COMMERCE AND INDUSTRIALIZATION FOR THE US-Snead ‘09

[James; senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; The vital need for America to develop space solar power; The Space Review; 04 May 2009; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1364/1; retrieved 23 Jun 2011]


An interesting and timely debate has begun within the American pro-space community about the need to support the start of the commercial development of space solar power (SSP). Given strongly held personal and organizational preferences for space science, suborbital commercial human spaceflight, the human exploration of Mars, etc., it’s not surprising that achieving a consensus to support and strongly advocate for starting the commercial development of SSP has not yet been reached. I argue that the time for such support has arrived. Such support will not only help America and many other nations avoid energy scarcity later this century, but it will also help advance America into a new era of the space age focused on space industrialization that will broadly benefit all pro-space agendas.
SBSP WILL REVITALIZE THE AMERICAN ECONOMY BY CREATING MILLIONS OF JOBS IN MANY FIELDS-Preble ‘09

[Darel; Chair of the Space Solar Power Workshop; Space Solar Power: Star Player on the Bench; The Oil Drum; 19 April 2009; http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5306; retrieved 23 Jun 2011]


SSP takes advantage of our historic investment in aerospace and other technical expertise to increase STEM jobs. SSP technology is near-term-available with multiple attractive approaches and would create millions of inspiring and important jobs. SSP would revitalize America by taking advantage of a multitude of space-development-related technologies that are vitally relevant to our current problems, including space transportation, telerobotics, photovoltaics, control systems, communications, aerospace engineering, wireless power transfer, environmental science including “space weather” knowledge.
SBSP WILL REBUILD A PRODUCTIVE AMERICAN ECONOMY, WITH ABUNDANT CLEAN ENERGY-Preble ‘10

[Daniel; scientific programming and supercomputing manager at Georgia State University; The Sunsat Act - Transforming our Energy, Economy and Environment; Online Journal of Space Communication; Winter 2010; http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue16/preble.html; retrieved 24 Jun 2011]


Our global economy depends on low cost energy. In reaction to peaking oil prices, our economy is "in a shambles." We must rebuild our energy supply. Many energy alternatives have been explored and subsidized since the Arab Oil embargo shock of 1973, yet our oil, gas and energy dependency has grown. Our energy security is declining. Rebuilding our primary energy supply is hard. Fortunately, technology has opened the door to a clean new baseload energy player, Space Solar Power (SSP). The difference between communication satellites (comsats) now in use and the power satellites (sunsats) we need, is that sunsats would optimize for efficient power transfer, while comsats have optimized their signal to noise ratio. Just as the Comsat Act of 1962 created our robust commercial satellite communications industry, the key legislation that would enable SSP to become a major energy source is entitled the Sunsat Act. The Sunsat Act would create a commercial power satellite industry.
A/T: LAUNCH COSTS
INCREASED DEMAND AND LEVERAGED EXISTING TECHNOLOGY WILL MAKE LAUNCH COSTS PRACTICAL FOR SBSP-Hsu ‘10

[Feng; Sr. Vice President Systems Engineering & Risk Management, Space Energy Group; Harnessing the Sun: Embarking on Humanity's Next Giant Leap; Online Journal of Space Communication; Winter 2010; http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue16/hsu.html;retrieved 23 Jun 2011]


What I really want to point out here is that we can solve the cost issue and make Solar Power Satellites a commercially viable energy option. We can do this through human creativity and innovation on both technological and economic fronts. Yes, current launch costs are critical constraints. However, in addition to continuing our quest for low cost RLV (reusable launch vehicle) technologies, there are business models for overcoming these issues.

Several such models have been studied and are now being pursued by some American private aerospace entrepreneurial companies, such as the SE (Space Energy Group) and the SIG (Space Island Group) based in Switzerland and California. The SE approach is based on systematic development of solar technologies for terrestrial and for space environment applications. The company expects to rely on extensive terrestrial solar technology development as the stepping stone, focusing on the space-grade thin film PV technology innovations for launch cost reductions. The SIG idea is to modify and utilize legacy components of the Space Shuttle, turning the huge volumes of the external Shuttle tanks into a commercial asset for the space-based research and orbital tourism industry. Increased demand in space tourism will certainly bring about higher launch rates, which should drive down space transportation costs. Who would have thought that ordinary people could afford air travel just a few decades after the Wright brothers had succeeded in flying their first aircraft?


A VIGOROUS SPS PROGRAM WILL PROVIDE THE MARKET AND INCENTIVES FOR CHEAP SPACE LAUNCHES-Bova ‘08

[Ben; president emeritus of the National Space Society; An Energy Fix Written in the Stars; Washington Post; 12 Oct 2008]


What's more, a vigorous SPS program would provide a viable market for private companies, such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, that are developing rocket launchers. Like most new industries, these companies are caught in a conundrum: They need a market that offers a payoff, but no market will materialize until they can prove that their product works. The fledgling aircraft industry faced this dilemma in the 1920s. The federal government helped provide a market by giving it contracts to deliver mail by air, which eventually led to today's commercial airline industry.

A vigorous SPS program could provide the market that the newborn private space-launch industry needs. And remember, a rocket launcher that can put people and payloads into orbit profitably can also fly people and cargo across the Earth at hypersonic speed. Anywhere on Earth can be less than an hour's flight away. That's a market worth trillions of dollars a year.



Download 1.79 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   ...   32




The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message

    Main page