Sps supplement Rough Draft-endi2011 Alpharetta 2011 / Boyce, Doshi, Hermansen, Ma, Pirani
Download 0.84 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- SPS is feasible- NASA study proves Smith 3
- SPS is feasible- studies prove Mahan, 07
- SPS is feasible and economically competitive- technology exists Prado 2
SPS Solves – StudiesSPS feasible – NASA’s studies are outdated MSNBC '07 (MSNBC, Oct. 12, 2007, Power from space? Pentagon likes the idea. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21253268/page/2/) Herm "The issue here is not technology, OK?" said Miller, who was a contributor to the study. "You could figure out how to do space solar power in the '70s. [But] you couldn't close the business case in the '70s. You couldn't close it in the '90s. How do you close the business case? That is the No. 1 question to be answered." Economic equation is changing The report — which was done on an unfunded basis and took advantage of online collaboration with outside contributors — notes that several factors have changed in the decade since NASA took its most recent in-depth look at the space power concept (PDF file). Today's best solar cells are about three times as efficient as they were in 1997, while crude-oil prices are roughly three times as high. And in the post-9/11 era, energy security has taken on far more importance. "The technology has advanced vastly, and the security situation has changed quite a bit, as well as the economic situation," Marine Lt. Col. Paul Damphousse, who took over the study from Smith last month, told msnbc.com. "Those things warranted another look." SPS is feasible- NASA study proves Smith 3, Director at Moon Society; Founder and President at Long Island Space Society, (Arthur,“The Case For Space Based Solar Power Development: solar energy on Earth and in space might be the first large scale space industry” http://www.spacedaily.com/news/ssp-03b.html, 8-11-03, MA) // CCH Space is big - there is an awful lot of energy out there, and the crumbs we fight about here on Earth are laughably tiny in comparison. Zettawatts from the Sun pass just through the region between Earth and Moon - that's enough energy for each man, woman and child in the US to sustainably power an entire US economy all to themselves. Even our terrestrial energy choices, fossil or renewable, fission or wind, almost all derive from the energy profligacy of our Sun and other stars before it. Gathering power in space and transmitting it to Earth should not be a mystery to us in this 21st century. Communications satellites already do it routinely. One significant obstacle to power applications, however, is regulatory: there is no spectrum allocated to power transmission, as there is for communications. Since frequency of operation has a significant impact on transmitter design which may alter the design of the overall solar power system, the earlier we have a frequency allocation decision, the better. The Federal Communications Commission and the International Telecommunications Union should be prodded to start work on this issue now. The potential for power from space has been recognized for over thirty years (1). Studies in the late 1970's by NASA and the Department of Energy produced a reference design for solar power satellites using then-current technology that showed technical feasibility, but also high cost. NASA returned to the subject with an exploratory study from 1999 to 2001. A review by the National Research Council (2) found the program to have a credible plan which required significant funding increases. Rather than strengthening the program, however, all funding for the space solar power group ceased after September 2001, and essentially no R&D work on power from space is now being done in the US. SPS is feasible- studies prove Mahan, 07 - founder of Citizens for Space Based Solar Power (Rob, SBSP FAQ, based on a Bright Spot Radio interview from December 28th, 2007, http://c-sbsp.org/sbsp-faq/, MA) Space-based solar power first conceived of in the late 1960′s, during the widely supported Apollo program. It was patented by Dr. Peter Glaser in 1968, when gasoline was a quarter a gallon, access to space was still a new frontier and technologies like photovoltaics and wireless power transmission were new and undeveloped. World population was much lower than today and so was the demand for energy. The business case for space-based solar power no where near closing. The world has changed in significant ways since then. Space-based solar power has been studied several times by government agencies over last 40 years. It was examined extensively during the late 1970s by the D.o.E. and NASA and then reexamined by NASA from 1995-1997 in the “fresh look” study. The concept was studied again in 1998 in a “concept definition study” by NASA, which was followed in 1999-2000, when NASA undertook the SSP Exploratory Research and Technology (SERT) program. During 2001-2002, NASA pursued an SSP Concept and Technology Maturation (SCTM) program follow-on to the SERT and also in 2001, the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) released a major report, providing the results of a peer review of NASA’s SSP strategic research and technology study. Most recently, the National Space Security Office released an updated feasibility study “Space Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security” in October of 2007. What are the results of all these Space-based solar power studies? The good news is that each time it has been studied, the technology and business cases are closer to being feasible and much of the basic knowledge for space-based solar power is already in place. The bad news is that most citizens have not yet heard of space-based solar power, it is not a part of the national conversation on energy and it is not yet a part of national policy or roadmap for America’s energy future. SPS is feasible and economically competitive- technology exists Prado 2, - physicist, former U.S. DOD space engineer and consultant multinational engineering and construction companies (Mark, “Environmental Effects of SPSs on Earth,” http://www.permanent.com/p-sps-ec.htm, MA) // CCH Even though SPS is technically feasible, environmentally attractive, and electricity is highly flexible and clean, will SPS be economically competitive? Yes. I have worked in the construction industry, and also intensely studied different energy supply technologies, and can produce this basic, common sense analysis: Compared to today's energy sources, the SPS and rectenna system offers an economically competitive large scale energy source, and in fact appears to offer a much less expensive energy source once significant space-based infrastructure is established. In addition, the SPS and rectenna system has strong advantages in terms of environmental issues. It appears that SPS will eventually become the premier energy source for Earth. The sooner, the better. In this section, the SPS is compared to both conventional energy sources (fossil fuels and nuclear), as well as alternative energy sources. The SPS is solar energy, so that it falls under the category of alternative energy. Compared to other solar energy concepts to date, the SPS is clearly the most feasible long-term, large scale solar power source for our economies, as well as the most economical. Compared to today's energy sources Currently, the world gets about 95% of its energy from coal, oil and natural gas, and almost all of the other 5% from nuclear power and hydroelectric dams. The SPS concept appears to have inherent promise to be a most economical source of electric power to our economies, relative to today's electricity sources and all other energy sources seriously projected for the forseeable future. The economics of energy supply consists of two elements: the cost of building the power plant and its supporting infrastructure, i.e., the front end capital cost, and the cost of operating the power plant, e.g., mines, fuel processing facilities, transportation infrastructure, and waste disposal. Let's first look at a coal fired power plant for comparison. In terms of front end capital costs, a coal fired power plant has massive generators and mechanical systems constructed from a great variety of precision parts which are expensive. A SPS consists of a very small variety of simple parts mass produced in great quantity. A SPS needs no fuel supply and waste handling systems. The SPS consists mainly of a flat plane of silicon solar cells on a beam structure, with electric busbars feeding a large antenna with waveguides and tubes. The satellite is made mostly from a small variety of simple parts mass produced in space. The satellite has only small quantities of precision or special parts. The receiving antenna on Earth would be mainly screens, posts, and concrete. Practically no moving parts. The mass of the rectenna would be a little bit less that a coal fired power plant with the same output, assuming a safe, low power density SPS beam, and the satellite in space is about a tenth the mass of a coal fired power plant, to give you a picture of what we're dealing with. Once built, the SPS and rectenna would continuously supply energy passively with no pollution. In contrast, a coal fired plant of equal power output to an SPS would have to burn tonnages of coal in excess of 20 TIMES the combined weight of the SPS and its ground-based rectenna, and also mine, transport, process and dispose of the ash of these tonnages, each and every year!! This is a massively expensive operation, yet it is the least expensive electricity source today which can reliably supply electrical energy in quantities large enough for our demands. A nuclear power plant is much more complex than a coal plant, i.e., composed of an even greater variety of specialized and expensive components. A nuclear power plant is about twice as massive as a rectenna, considering just the power plant and not all the facilities required for nuclear fuel mining, transport, purification, enrichment, rod fabrication, spent fuel temporary storage, reprocessing and disposal facilities. Nuclear power plants have very high front-end capital costs (especially with ever-changing safety regulations and the need for nuclear safety), but lower operating costs compared to coal-fired plants. Nuclear power also has long pending nuclear waste disposal issues. The most important case against adding more nuclear fission power plants is that it takes only 20 kilograms (45 pounds) of plutonium, about the size of a grapefruit, to produce a bomb. It's been 50 years since the first nuclear bomb was made, and advanced technical knowhow is now widespread. Much smaller amounts of plutonium are sufficient for a terrorist to fatally poison areas. The more nuclear plants there are, the greater the chances of an offensive person obtaining the material one way or another in the fuel cycle. Nuclear fission is a risky energy source for the world's growing energy needs, and the sooner we start moving away from it, the better. Coal and nuclear are more economical and reliable large scale power sources than alternative energy sources, which is the bottom line of why they are prevalent, so in the discussion here I will not give a long analysis of wind turbines, geothermal, and ground based solar energy sources (especially considering unreliable supplies and expensive storage needs for ground-based solar and wind power). The following table below summarizes the weak points of alternative energy, e.g., cost per unit of power produced, whether there's enough of it to power a significant percentage of our electricity needs, environmental problems, versatility (e.g., passive solar space heating reduces energy consumption but does not provide other energy so it's a partial solution), and location of the energy source relative to demand. Nuclear fusion using hydrogen will be technically feasible some day, but it does not look any more economical at this point in time than fission or coal. The power plants will be complex. Plus, fusion is not clean. Fusion produces dangerous radioactive gases, e.g., tritium hydrogen, which are much harder to contain than the solid waste products of nuclear fission. Hydrogen is the most difficult element of all to contain. These radioactive gases must be contained during production (breeding) and extraction, purification, plasma fueling and of course disposal of radioactive wastes and ancillary equipment. If we spent the same amount of money on SPSs as we do on oversold fusion, we would have a more economical and environmentally clean alternative energy source, sooner. There are no significant advances in technology required for SPSs, in contrast to the advances in technology required for fusion. The spinoffs of space development far outweigh the spinoffs due to fusion power. You can see that the SPS and rectenna have some natural economic advantages over conventional energy sources, once space based infrastructure in emplaced. Convincing arguments can be made that the SPS will be the main power source for Earth from an economic standpoint in the long-term future. However, the environmental advantages are also significant, as covered in another section, after we look at the pure economics and feasibility of other alternative energy sources. Compared to "alternative" power sources Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 0.84 Mb. Share with your friends:
|