The current interest in Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) is opening the way to an eruption of projects. The permanent sun illumination met in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) could enable the cost per continuous watt to be competitive with ground based like solar and wind. There have been a number of assumptions made in the various studies and reports, encompassing technological, development, validation, deployment, operational and financial point of views.
A new paper delivers a first order evaluation of the power management, conversion, distribution and wireless transport aspects and to show that, from this technical point of view, the feasibility of gigawatt size SBSP systems is everything but established. A brief assessment of some other aspects is also provided, going in the same direction. Altogether, the conclusion is that the analyses about the economic and environmental benefits of SBSP, sometimes extremely detailed, are built on a technical ground far from being solid enough to make them credible.
The PDF for the Henri Barde study is not publicly available without purchase.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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