A new NASA study seems to pull the plug on space solar power, by saying its vastly more expensive than Earth based solar.
A new NASA study seems to pull the plug on space solar power, by saying its vastly more expensive than Earth based solar.
You're viewing a single thread.
I've never understood some people's fascination with space-based solar. Why go to all that over-engineered trouble to do something you can do on Earth anyway, except in an orders of magnitude simpler way.
Also, I love to see people devote efforts to space development, but it depresses me to see people do it and waste their time. I know it's a simplistic way of looking at things, but I wish they'd devote their time to something useful, like creating a commercial space station.
I think it makes sense in a Kardashev scale sort of way.
In the distant future, human energy demand may exceed what we can gather from terrestrial solar, especially since we wouldn’t devote the entire Earth to solar panels.
But it makes no sense in this century.
It doesn't even make sense in the future. Not only have power requirements decreased over the past two decades, fusion would be a much smaller and denser power generation method than space-based solar.
If solar power improves and power requirements are reduced, eventually you might just slap a few solar cells on every electronic item and call it a day. Solar powered calculators were very popular.
Sorry, but I need some evidence for your claim that human energy use has declined in the last 20 years because it contradicts what I’ve heard from everyone else.
Annual per capita energy consumption was relatively flat from the late-1980s through 2000 and has generally decreased each year since then.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/
Chart: https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T01.07#/?f=M&start=200001
But absolute use is still increasing.
I provided my evidence, now you need to provide yours.
Per the source you linked:
Total U.S. energy consumption has increased, but energy consumption per capita has decreased
- They provided no evidence for their claim that energy use has increased. They just said "it contradicts what I’ve heard from everyone else." Since my comment was about efficiency, energy per capita or per device used is the best measuring stick.
- World population is projected to increase for a bit more and then stabilize around 10 billion. Population growth has been declining since 1963.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth
- Why am I the only person posting sources? Do your own research.
Why is a direct quote from the article you yourself cited not sufficient for you?
It's not even like it's buried in there. The bit I quoted is a bold heading, right under a graph that shows the same thing.
We use more things, but each thing has become vastly more efficient.
Cities have more street lights these days, but each street light is likely some form of LED now which is vastly more efficient than the street lights in the 80s
Computers in the 90s were horribly inefficient for the computational capacity they had, now we have smartphones that are 50x more powerful while their power usage is practically 0 in comparison
So you’re agreeing that human energy use has increased despite efficiency gains.
No, you've missed the point entirely
I don't think you fully understand just how efficient things have become.
An iMac G3 with it's 400MHz processor in 1998 consumed about 100 watts of power just running.
In comparison an iPhone 15 pro max with it's 3.7 GHz processor draws about 14 watts at maximum load and like <2 just idling
That's just the consumer end use electronics, power supplies themselves have gotten A SHIT TON better in the last 20 years. Through the 80s and 90s power supplies just were not efficient at all and a ton of power was... just lost...converting from AC to DC.
On top of that my statement of we use more things might not actually be even true, after I thought about it, we replaced a ton of gadgets from the early 2000s with a singular efficient power-sipping device. We don't carry MP3 players, CD players, PDAs, Digital Cameras etc any more nor do we really listen to a dedicated radio or stereo setup anymore (Audiophiles excluded).
So no, I agree with the other poster (who actually provided solid evidence, where's yours?) Total power usage is trending downwards thanks to efficiency advancements
I’m not debating that efficiency has improved.
Total energy use by humans has increased and shows no sign of reversing. IDK what faffing around debating ancient CPUs is supposed to prove.
They're called examples
Here's the link from the other guy https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T01.07#/?f=M&start=200001
When the line goes Up ⬆️ that means usage is up ⬆️ when the line does down ⬇️usage is down ⬇️ if you look you'll see after 2000 the line is trending down ⬇️
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
Things are getting more energy efficient and in his chart it shows per capita flat or trending down. But unless population growth is also flat than overall is still growing.
That's not to say energy use overall will never go down (it did during 2020 when everything shut down) but it hasn't yet.
Edit: words are hard.
That’s just for the US.
Global energy use is still rising.
You probably want a comparison to something other than fusion, which is and seemingly will forever be 20 years away.
It can make sense also, for example, in parts of the world that aren't a good fit for solar power. I'd argue for more nuclear before space solar, but it's not like there's zero sense in it.
Despite being perpetually "20 years away", I still think we'll crack it before we run out of room on the planet for more solar panels.
It can make sense also, for example, in parts of the world that aren’t a good fit for solar power. I’d argue for more nuclear before space solar, but it’s not like there’s zero sense in it.
wild how people literally can't read more than one sentence before replying.
I thought based on your first sentence which implied fusion was a pipe dream, that the second paragraph suggesting "more nuclear" would be referring to fission. "More" implies some already exists, and as you've already noted, there is no fusion in use.
before we run out of room on the planet for more solar panels
I'm responding to this, there's potential uses outside of "we ran out of room on earth"
It can make sense also, for example, in parts of the world that aren’t a good fit for solar power.
You say this like NASA doesn’t also do everything on your wishlist. And like discoveries in one area doesn’t enable progress in another.
No one is wasting their time by doing this research.
Our view of what’s “useful” also varies - a commercial space station is not that appealing IMO given that corporations will own the research as opposed to it being publicly funded & transparent.
Did this particular research yield the outcome you desired? No - lots of research doesn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s useless.
It is one of the steps to get to a Dyson swarm.
What's a commercial space station going to do? Maybe if there was a bunch of solar panels to maintain and build out in space, but otherwise, it's just a boring ultra wealthy hotel.
Its hard to imagine a future where humans expand into space without space stations.
Seems weird to complain about one over engineered useless thing only to be saying we should be doing another ;)
"Why ever would we move to North America when everything we need is right here?"
All the reasons people came to America will eventually be valid reasons to move to space. I don't expect it will happen in my lifetime but, provided humanity continues to exist, it will happen.
ah yes, to exploit the peoples who cultivated mars and enslave people from earth