Powering Earth with a Giant Solar Power Plant on the Moon

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  • sgreger1
    Member
    • Mar 2009
    • 9451

    Powering Earth with a Giant Solar Power Plant on the Moon

    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010...n-the-moon.php

    Unpossible you say?


    Like trains? Flying with metal machines? Burning wood to propell a ship forward? Scribbling stuff on paper?

    "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
    -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

    "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
    -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

    "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
    -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

    "But what ... is it good for?"
    -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968,commenting on the microchip.

    "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
    -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

    "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
    -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

    "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
    -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

    "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
    -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

    "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face not Gary Cooper."
    -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

    "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."
    -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields'Cookies.

    "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
    -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

    "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
    -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

    "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
    -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

    "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'"
    -- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

    "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
    -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

    "You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training."
    -- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.

    "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy."
    -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

    "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
    -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

    "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
    -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

    "Everything that can be invented has been invented."
    -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

    "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
    -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

    "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon".
    -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

    "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
    -- Bill Gates, 1981

    "$100 million dollars is way too much to pay for Microsoft."
    -- IBM, 1982

    "Who the h_ll wants to hear actors talk?"
    -- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
  • justintempler
    Member
    • Nov 2008
    • 3090

    #2
    I'm still waiting for my flying car that I was promised in the 1960s.

    Comment

    • tom502
      Member
      • Feb 2009
      • 8985

      #3
      North Korea launches first manned mission to Mars.

      Comment

      • danielan
        Member
        • Apr 2010
        • 1514

        #4
        And you are ok with giant microwaves and lasers shooting through our atmosphere?

        Alternately, we could just move to closed fuel cycle nuclear reactors.

        Comment

        • sgreger1
          Member
          • Mar 2009
          • 9451

          #5
          Originally posted by justintempler View Post
          I'm still waiting for my flying car that I was promised in the 1960s.

          They have those, only about 200k, they are pretty cool but outside of my price range.

          I always thought harnessing solar energy in space would be the most efficient, assuming we could find an efficient way of transfering the energy back to earth. They have ways of doign that now but I am not sure of the possible health/safety implications of any of it. But it seems like a no brainer to put something outside of our atmosphere to harness all that free energy.

          Comment

          • justintempler
            Member
            • Nov 2008
            • 3090

            #6
            Originally posted by danielan View Post
            ...Alternately, we could just move to closed fuel cycle nuclear reactors.


            Comment

            • tom502
              Member
              • Feb 2009
              • 8985

              #7

              Comment

              • Jwalker
                Member
                • May 2010
                • 1067

                #8
                Mr.Fusion seems more likely and cheaper than building hundreds of thousands of square miles of solar panels on the moon. I'm sure the project is cost prohibitive. I'm not a scientist but reflecting all the solar energy and heat onto the earth might have some effect on the environment.

                Comment

                • sgreger1
                  Member
                  • Mar 2009
                  • 9451

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Jwalker View Post
                  Mr.Fusion seems more likely and cheaper than building hundreds of thousands of square miles of solar panels on the moon. I'm sure the project is cost prohibitive. I'm not a scientist but reflecting all the solar energy and heat onto the earth might have some effect on the environment.

                  Well it depends on how efficiently we can shoot the energy back to earth. A lot of it is likely to get lost int he transfer etc, though I doubt it would have more impact on the planet than burning fossil fuels. The issue here is that we are surrounded by nearly limitless free solar energy that current technology can turn into clean energy, so it's a no brainer we should be tapping it. I expect as technology improves on solar panels the cost issue will be less. And it doens't have ot be on the moon per se, but rather outside of the atmosphere somewhere. We can beam electricity over large distances right now using various methods but I don't think any of them are up to the standard required to efficiently transfer terawatts of energy back to earth.


                  I like nuclear power, right now it's the best we have that creates the least pollution, but again it does cause pollution and carries an inherint risk of meltdown. There are some workarounds to this but I think that it is more efficient and environmentally friendly that burning coal and digging dinosaur bones out of the ground.



                  Edit: At 7.2% the surface area of earth, the moon is has roughly 14.6 million square miles of surface, however half of the moon recieves no sun (dark side), so about 7.3 million square miles of surface that recieves ample solar energy. Of that 7.3 million square miles, a lot of it is mountains and places that would be hard to place solar panels. Still, there is a lot of usable surface area that could be utilized, surely enough to power a sizeable amount (if not all) the planet depending on how efficiently we get it back to earth.

                  Comment

                  • danielan
                    Member
                    • Apr 2010
                    • 1514

                    #10
                    Originally posted by sgreger1 View Post
                    and carries an inherint risk of meltdown.
                    Meltdown is not an inherent risk. It is a risk of bad design. Not surprisingly, designs have improved over the past 30+ years.

                    Mr. Fusion is pretty cool.

                    Comment

                    • sgreger1
                      Member
                      • Mar 2009
                      • 9451

                      #11
                      Originally posted by danielan View Post
                      Meltdown is not an inherent risk. It is a risk of bad design. Not surprisingly, designs have improved over the past 30+ years.

                      Mr. Fusion is pretty cool.

                      Anytime you have such an extremely volatile substance in there working 24/7 it absolutely carries inherent risks. Like I said, unlikely but possible. Like storing a bunch of tnt in a shed. Is it likely to blow up? No, but it doesn't mean it won't happen from time to time if enough sheds are filled with TNT across the world. Still less of a chance than what fossil fuels and coal bring us, so best choice considering what we have right now.


                      Even with improvements they are still handling substances that can be devistating, and are also open to terrorist attack. But, again, still better than oil and coal. But the enviro nazis don't understand harm reduction, they are like the anti-tobacco people.

                      Comment

                      • danielan
                        Member
                        • Apr 2010
                        • 1514

                        #12
                        Originally posted by sgreger1 View Post
                        Anytime you have such an extremely volatile substance in there working 24/7 it absolutely carries inherent risks.
                        Yeah, there are risks, although I'd rather live next to a reactor then a "tnt shed".

                        Meltdown is a specific type of failure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown While there are certainly other risks, meltdown is 100% avoidable with proper design.

                        Comment

                        • sgreger1
                          Member
                          • Mar 2009
                          • 9451

                          #13
                          Originally posted by danielan View Post
                          Yeah, there are risks, although I'd rather live next to a reactor then a "tnt shed".

                          Meltdown is a specific type of failure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown While there are certainly other risks, meltdown is 100% avoidable with proper design.
                          Yes and oil spills like the one in the gulf are 100% avoidable with proper design, the problem is that in the real world these companies get cozy with the regulators and, like BP in this scenario, are able to get away with less safety measures than others, which is how tragic things like this happen.

                          Comment

                          • truthwolf1
                            Member
                            • Oct 2008
                            • 2696

                            #14
                            Tesla, Tunguska
                            http://www.reformation.org/tesla-and-tunguska.html

                            Comment

                            • sgreger1
                              Member
                              • Mar 2009
                              • 9451

                              #15
                              LOl, please elaborate on how Nicola Tesla had something to do with the Tunguska explosion.



                              Comment

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