NRL Space-Based Solar Power Concept Wins Secretary of Defense Innovative Challenge

[OKIsItJustMe]

(Please note, US Navy press release—copyright concerns are nil.)

http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2016/NRL-Space-Based-Solar-Power-Concept-Wins-Secretary-of-Defense-Innovative-Challenge

[font face=Serif][font size=5]NRL Space-Based Solar Power Concept Wins Secretary of Defense Innovative Challenge[/font]

03/11/2016 09:00 EST - 04-16r
Contact: Daniel Parry, [phone]

[font size=3]A team of scientists led by Dr. Paul Jaffe, spacecraft engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), have been named winners of the first-ever Department of Defense (DoD) Diplomacy, Development, and Defense (D3) Innovation Summit Pitch Challenge, for the innovative concept to harness space-based solar energy to power terrestrial assets.

Selected, March 2, from the top six innovation teams from across the DoD, Department of State (DoS) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the NRL team was named winner in four of the seven possible award categories for Innovation, Presentation, Collaboration, and People's Choice.

"The proposed approach entails collection of solar energy, its conversion to microwave energy, and the wireless transmission of the microwaves to the Earth," said Jaffe. "This offers the benefit of providing base-load power while avoiding diurnal cycles and atmospheric losses often associated with terrestrial solar power."

The Secretary of Defense's Innovation Challenge is a groundbreaking interagency initiative intended to spur innovative thinking and to encourage collaboration on policy issues that matter most to our nation's security and prosperity, converging technological innovation with defense, diplomacy and development objectives.

Comprised of members from the Department of State Bureau of Energy Implementation, Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA), Joint Staff Logistics Directorate, Air Force's Air University Center for Space Innovation, and industry stakeholders Mankins Space Technology Inc. and Northrop Grumman, the team, according to Jaffe, seeks to empower global prosperity and security through a three-step program leading to an ambitious international on-orbit demo of an orbital power station within 10 years.


[font size=1]Solar Power Satellite via Arbitrarily Large Phased Array (SPS-ALPHA) is a novel, bio-mimetic approach to the challenge of space solar power. If successful, this project will make possible the construction of huge platforms from tens of thousands of small elements that can deliver remotely and affordably thousands of megawatts of energy using wireless power transmission to markets on Earth and missions in space. (John Mankins)[/font]

"We are extremely excited and honored that this ambitious idea has been selected out of nearly 500 original entries," Jaffe said. "Other major powers around the world, particularly in Asia, are also investigating this idea in earnest, and it's gratifying to see interest in it domestically ... It's hard to overstate the significance and benefits of this concept if it comes to fruition."

If successful, this project — based on an interagency proposal led by Jaffe entitled Carbon-Free Energy for Global Resilience and International Goodwill — will make possible the construction of huge platforms from tens of thousands of small elements that can deliver, remotely and affordably, tens of thousands of megawatts using wireless power transmissions. This novel approach to the challenge of space-based solar power will enlist the support of a world-class international team to determine the conceptual feasibility by means of integrated systems analyses, supported by selected "proof-of-concept" technology experiments.
[/font][/font]

NASA Phase I Final Report on SPS-ALPHA:
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/716070main_Mankins_2011_PhI_SPS_Alpha.pdf

[leveymg]

1. Great idea if you want to burn huge holes in the ozone layer, or destroy a city from space.

No-go. I thought this one up 35 years ago, but was shot down when a professor pointed out those problems with the concept.

Nice weapon, though.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Your professor was wrong (it happens)

http://www.wired.com/2008/09/visionary-beams/

Read more here: http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/

This from a 2009 Scientific American article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-space-based-solar-power-finally-see-the-light-of-day/

…

This invisible column of microwave energy, measuring perhaps a mile or two (two to three kilometers) across, would be beamed at an oval-shaped, ground-based rectifying antenna, or a "rectenna," of similar size, and from there the energy would flow into the traditional electrical grid.

Despite the clear analogy to a science fiction death ray, scientists believe the diffuse energy beam from above would not pose a health threat to people or wildlife, even at its most intense center.

"Microwave radiation is nonionizing, just like visible light or radio signals," says Jim Logan, former chief of medical operations at NASA's Johnson Space Center and an expert on aerospace medicine. That means it lacks sufficient energy, like x-rays and gamma rays, to remove an electron from an atom or a molecule to make a charged particle that can damage DNA and biomolecules, he says.

Birds passing through the heart of the carrier wave from space might feel some warmth, Logan wrote in a February white paper on SBSP safety for Space Energy, but not at elevated levels. And should the beam stray from its rectenna target, it would be designed to defocus, Logan says, and not "run amok all over the landscape." Sage of Space Energy says: "We won't be frying birds or turning clouds to steam."

…

[leveymg]

4. Look up health effects of nonionizing radiation and microwaves on Ozone

http://www.azrra.gov/nir/topics_radiation.html

http://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/39901

http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/ARI/ARI%20Study%20Report/ACT-RPT-NRG-ARI-04-9102-Environmental_impacts_of%20microwave_beams-Report.pdf.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. And the death ray, to destroy a city from space?

It’s tough to focus a beam from space to do that kind of damage.

[leveymg]

8. Okay, so it just slow cooks their internal organs, al dente! And, who needs Ozone, anyway?

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. My point was the “burning cities from space” is nonsense

That draws the ozone concerns into question as well.

[leveymg]

10. It's the World Health Organization and the European Space Authority that are expressing concerns

As I said, read the links. None of this is news.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. The WHO link is to

Ultraviolet radiation : an authoritative scientific review of environmental and health effects of UV, with reference to global ozone layer depletion / published under the joint sponsorship of the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection and the World Health Organization

Ultraviolet radiation gives you a sunburn (for example.) It’s a different part of the spectrum from microwaves.

http://www.ency123.com/2013/08/what-are-ultraviolet-rays.html


The ESA link goes to:

The page you are looking for is not present anymore or is temporarily unavailable. Please choose one of the topics below and update your bookmarks accordingly.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. The first two links have to do with ultraviolet light (not microwaves)

http://www.ency123.com/2013/08/what-are-ultraviolet-rays.html


The third link doesn’t work.

[leveymg]

14. Just google "Effects of Microwaves on Ozone" Link to a pdf - here's the abstract

I'll provide links to the know health effects of microwave transmissions later.

Look, I'm not a complete Luddite. If they want to run cables to the ground, that's fine with me. In anny case, an astronomically expensive way to generate power, I hope you will agree.

Page 3
Environmental impact of high power microwave beams
ii
Abstract
The mechanisms involved in the trans-ionospheric propagation of Solar Power Satellite
microwave beams are considered in the context of both efficiency of the power transfer as
well as of environmental impact. Processes involved include, linear effects such as
collisional absorption, scintillation and scattering which lead to loss of energy from the
beam, as well as the excitation of certain nonlinear effects, such as stimulated scattering
and the thermal self-focussing instability. The results of predictions of simple analytic
theories of the threshold powers required to excite these instabilities are also discussed in
relation to the results of various experimental findings. Further, environmental impact
effects associated with the heating of the ionosphere by the microwave beam are dealt with.
The effects of heating on ionospheric electron temperature, neutral temperature, electron
density and chemical concentrations of atmospheric gases are estimated quantitatively.
Finally, limitations in current knowledge concerning all of these effects are considered

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. Here’s the 2004 paper

http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/ARI/ARI%20Study%20Report/ACT-RPT-NRG-ARI-04-9102-Environmental_impacts_of%20microwave_beams-Report.pdf

Here’s a key paragraph:

…

One consequence of the heating of the neutral gas would be a change in ozone concentration in the lower ionosphere. This can be inferred from a model first suggested by Chapman. It leads to a reduction in ozone concentration for increases in the neutral temperature given by (Milikh and Duncan, 1991)

∆N[font size=2]_{O[font size=1]3[/font]}[/font] /N[font size=2]_{O[font size=1]3[/font]}[/font] =(1330K/T)(∆T/T) (4.12)

where ∆N[font size=2]_{O[font size=1]3[/font]}[/font] / N[font size=2]_{O[font size=1]3[/font]}[/font] and ∆T/T are the relative changes in ozone concentration and neutral temperature, respectively. Thus, on this basis, the change of 0.2 K in the neutral temperature with a background of 1000 K, due to SPS microwave heating, found above, would lead to a relative change of 0.026% in the ozone concentration. This would increase to 0.1 % if the SPS power density were increased from 100 to 500 W m-2. These are clearly exceedingly small values for ozone concentration changes brought about by this process in the context of SPS.

…

[LunaSea]

6. So you're just waitin' for what... Cold Fusion?

That would be safe, right? No one could possibly weaponize that.
So you've already expanded the ozone holes by simply applying chemistry commercially, trashed the atmosphere burning rocks and petroleum, acidified the oceans, and warmed the climate but this concept might be too potentially dangerous?

This concept has been kicked around since the 1940s, and garnered serious attention in the early seventies. I think it's past time we tested the idea at some reasonable scale.

[mountain grammy]

3. Watched 'The Martian' the other night

and cried for where we should be in 2016. The movie made America look smart and this story gives me hope. Solar energy from space? Why the hell not?

[OkSustainAg]

12. It could make

powering lunar and mars colonies more feasible. Just saying.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. True!

That’s actually one of the stated goals

[NickB79]

15. Not gonna happen without a way to get the components into orbit cheaply

We either need an insanely cheap rocket system, a space elevator, or automated factories on the Moon or a captured asteroid. $10,000/lb to get orbital materials up there like we spend today isn't going to build many orbital solar collectors in our lifetimes.

Oh, and another 50 years without a complete breakdown of Earth-based society as climate change ravages the nations of the world.

Good luck.

[GliderGuider]

16. "A man's reach must exceed his grap, or what's a heaven for?"

Space elevators are a perfect illustration of that quote. I saw Brad Edwards speak in Toronto a decade ago, and even then I was shocked by his utterly unwarranted optimism.

http://www.space.com/356-elevator-man-bradley-edwards-reaches-heights.html

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5984371/why-well-probably-never-build-a-space-elevator

[OKIsItJustMe]

20. Given that it is impossible, it seems odd that NASA is pursuing it

Well, NASA, ESA, JAXA, Space Canada, even the Chinese… (you know… “rocket scientists”…)

Perhaps they’re unaware of the challenges…

[NickB79]

21. I never said it was impossible, only very, very difficult

And like I said, if we had another 50 or more years without having to worry about things like climate change destroying a large portion of human civilization, we might get a small step there. But seeing as we've already blown any chance of staying below 2-3C of warming, and climatic disasters are already ramping up rapidly....

I rank ideas like this up there with the idea of terraforming Mars to alleviate pressure on Earth's ecosystem. It looks good in sci-fi movies, and is theoretically possible, but it will take centuries of stable human civilization and untold amounts of capital to accomplish such a massive feat. Given the scale of what we've unleashed, I don't see that happening.

But then again, people at NASA and JPL are also researching how to geoengineer the planet to slow climate change.

[NNadir]

18. What a great idea!!!! Given that climate change is cooking the planet to death, let's change...

...the solar flux by increasing the effective surface area of the planet!

Why didn't I think of that?

What a great idea!

Actually, people have been talking about this for about thirty or forty years. It was a terrible idea thirty or forty years ago, and it's just as bad today.

Here, for just one example, is a patent from 1976 on the idea: Raytheon patent 3989994

There is so much wrong with this idea that it would take all night to list the details, and what's really, really, really depressing is that we're still even talking about it and that nearly half a century after the fact, there are still people who think it's innovative.

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. Let’s see… in 30 or 40 years (actually, since the 1960's) have plans changed at all?

http://www.nss.org/adastra/volume25/spsalpha.html

[font face=Serif]From Ad Astra, Volume 25 Number 1, Spring 2013

Image © Spaceworks Engineering

[font size=3]By John C. Mankins

The vision of harvesting solar power in space and delivering it to markets from large platforms in Earth orbit has been around for decades. The concept of the solar power satellite (SPS) was invented in the late 1960s by Dr. Peter Glaser. The SPS concept is an elegant solution to the challenge of providing large-scale energy for humanity. A series of enormous platforms would be positioned in space in high Earth orbit to continuously collect and convert solar energy into electricity. This power would then be used to drive wireless power transmission systems that transmit the solar energy to receivers on Earth. Because of its immunity to nighttime, weather, or the changing seasons, the SPS concept has the potential to achieve much greater energy efficiency than ground-based solar power systems, and since its invention, there have been numerous studies and technology projects conducted by various government agencies, companies, and universities that have been focused on the goal of the SPS.

However, early SPS architectures were technically complex and unlikely to prove economically viable. There were several reasons, such as low technology maturity; excessive mass, due in part to the need for huge, highvoltage power management and distribution (PMAD); the cost of developing a monolithic SPS much larger than the International Space Station; the need for hundreds of astronauts and thousands of robots for SPS construction in space factories at various orbits; and others. Some of these early issues—particularly regarding technical feasibility—were addressed by NASA's space solar power (SSP) studies and technology research in the mid-to late 1990s.

…

SPS-ALPHA incorporates a number of critical new technologies, including: (1) wireless power transmission using a retro-directive RF phased array with high-efficiency solid-state amplifiers; (2) high-efficiency multi-band gap photovoltaic solar cells, employed in a concentrator PV architecture with integrated thermal management; (3) lightweight structural components, applied in various systems and subsystems; (4) autonomous robotics in a highly structured environment; and (5) a high degree of autonomy among individual modules. However, no "breakthroughs" are required, and the key innovation is at the architectural level.

SPS-ALPHA involves three major functional elements: (1) a large primary array that is nadir pointing; (2) a very large sunlight-intercepting reflector system involving a large number of reflectors that act as individually pointing "heliostats," mounted on a non-moving structure (the "bowl" of the goblet in the figure); and (3) a truss structure that connects those two. As conceived, SPS-ALPHA is not a traditional three-axis stabilized satellite with one or more solar arrays; rather, SPS-ALPHA entails bodymounted (non-moving) solar power generation on a gravity-gradient stabilized satellite, with an axi-symmetric physical configuration.

…[/font][/font]