[ad_1]
It sounds like science fiction: giant solar power plants floating in space that carry huge amounts of energy to Earth. And for a long time, the concept – first developed by Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the 1920s – was the main source of inspiration for writers.
A century later, however, scientists are making huge strides in turning the concept into reality. The European Space Agency has realized the potential of these efforts and is now seeking to fund such projects, predicting that the first industrial resource we will get from space is “radiated energy”.
Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time, so there is a lot at stake. From rising global temperatures to changing weather patterns, the impacts of climate change are already being felt around the world. Overcoming this challenge will require radical changes in the way we generate and consume energy.
Renewable energy technologies have developed considerably in recent years, with improved efficiency and lower cost. But a major obstacle to their absorption is the fact that they do not provide a constant supply of energy. Wind and solar farms only produce power when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining – but we need electricity 24 hours a day, every day. Ultimately, we need a way to store energy on a large scale before we can switch to renewable sources.
Benefits of space
One possible solution would be to generate solar energy in space. There are many advantages to this. A space-based solar power plant could orbit to face the Sun 24 hours a day. Earth’s atmosphere also absorbs and reflects some of the sunlight, so solar cells above the atmosphere will receive more sunlight. and will produce more energy.
But one of the main challenges to overcome is how to assemble, launch and deploy structures this large. A single solar power plant can have up to 10 square kilometers in the region, or the equivalent of 1,400 football fields. Using lightweight materials will also be critical, as the biggest expense will be the cost of launching the station into space on a rocket.
One proposed solution is to develop a swarm of thousands of smaller satellites that will come together and configure to form a single, large solar generator. In 2017, researchers at the California Institute of Technology presented designs for a modular power plant, made up of thousands of ultralight solar cell tiles. They also presented a prototype tile weighing just 280 grams per square meter, the weight of the card.
Recently, developments in manufacturing, such as 3D printing, are also being explored for this application. At the University of Liverpool, we are exploring new manufacturing techniques to print ultralight solar cells on solar sails. A solar sail is a foldable, lightweight, highly reflective membrane capable of harnessing the effect of the Sun’s radiation pressure to propel a spacecraft forward without fuel. We are exploring how to integrate solar cells on solar sail structures to create large fuelless solar power plants.
These methods would allow us to build power plants in space. Indeed, it may one day be possible to manufacture and deploy units in space from the International Space Station or the future lunar gateway station that will orbit the moon. Such devices could actually help deliver energy to the Moon.
The possibilities don’t end there. While we currently depend on materials from Earth to build power plants, scientists also plan to use space resources for manufacturing, such as materials found on the Moon.
Another major challenge will be the transmission of energy to Earth. The plan is to convert electricity from solar cells into energy waves and use electromagnetic fields to transfer them to an antenna on the Earth’s surface. The antenna would then convert the waves back into electricity. Researchers led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have already developed designs and demonstrated an orbiter system that should be able to do this.
There is still a lot of work to be done in this area, but the goal is for solar power plants in space to become a reality in the decades to come. Chinese researchers have designed a system called Omega, which they aim to have operational by 2050. This system is expected to be able to deliver 2 GW of electricity to the earth grid at peak performance, which is huge. To produce that much energy with solar panels on Earth, you would need more than six million.
Smaller solar satellites, like those designed to power lunar rovers, could be operational even earlier.
Around the world, the scientific community is devoting time and effort to the development of solar power plants in space. We hope that they can one day become a vital tool in our fight against climate change.
This article was originally published on The Conversation by Amanda Jane Hughes and Stefania Soldini, both at the University of Liverpool. Read the original article here.
[ad_2]
Source link