Space-based clean energy could alter the future

Cheap, clean energy has been seeping into the minds of innovators for centuries.

Much longer ago, alchemists and magicians sought the source of ultimate power in a slightly different way, calling it magic.

The economic consequences of cheap, clean energy would be tremendous. Imagine energizing rural Africa or providing the poorest neighborhoods in India with affordable, uninterrupted power. All that brain power waiting for the opportunity to connect with a lucrative idea could lead to substantial changes in technological development, not to mention economic might.

However, so far, that search remains unfulfilled. Do you remember cold fusion? How about the mythical magnetic power generator, a device that claims to produce “free” electricity.

Unfortunately, it is a vessel. Until now, anyway.

In search of clean energy

That doesn’t stop the search for some nearly free source of energy. Or daydreaming. Or bona fide research that brings existing clean energy technologies closer to the cost of conventional carbon-generating fuels.

Writers regularly take up the challenge, envisioning star travel as the likely outcome of conquering energy. Isaac Asimov’s universes were powered by atomic energy. Even Albert Einstein and Otto Stern imagined a hidden source of power in all things. They called it Nullpunktsenergie, which was later translated to zero point energy. Imagining that is one thing. Touching it is another.

With this in mind, I decided to do some research. By bad that meant looking for the masters of science fiction. Of course, clean energy wasn’t the only thing on his mind. Reading offers the same opportunity for inspiration.

back to the barn

Used bookcases exude a musty eclectic elegance. They are often littered with waste filled with guys waiting for someone to give them another look.

At the recently expanded and aptly named Book Barn in my hometown of Clovis, California. I accompanied my wife, Peggy, who taught high school English, to browse the shelves for teen literature. Werewolves, vampires, angst and drama. The usual things.

In the meantime, I hit the sci-fi shelves. I searched the corners of my memory for the authors I had once read and scanned the carefully arranged titles. My God, Groundskeeper F. Fox had a couple of books. He wrote in the style of the incomparable Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian. The publisher at Fox had nothing on the author in the series of slim little paperbacks available, so it’s no surprise he’s totally out of print today.

I picked one up, even though it read like something I’d consumed before. Many times before.

Charlton Heston’s Legacy

On the next shelf, I found several by Harry Harrison, who started my generation in 1966 with the story “Make Room, Make Room,” which explores the consequences of uncontrolled population growth. Most remember the somewhat altered film version, “Soylent Green,” starring Charlton Heston in the title role of Detective Thorn and Edward G. Robinson as his roommate Sol. It was to be Robinson’s last film.

Harrison has written a number of novels in various science fiction subgenres, many containing themes of social commentary. Although not so much with the “Stainless Steel Rat”, a space criminal anti-hero who had a bit of a soft side. I thought he had consumed almost all of his books, but I found a couple at Book Barn that proved him wrong. “Invasion Earth” tells the story of an alien invasion by means of a high-stakes scam, and “Skyfall” depicts the struggles of an American-Soviet project (the Reds still had energy in this 1978 novel) to send a deep Space solar collector in the skies to provide clean and cheap energy to the world.

In “Skyfall”, the project is not easy. In fact, disaster lurks in almost every way. It is not surprising. Actually, the story is something timeless, apart from the Soviet connection. Swap out the CCCP characters for Russian and it could spark interest a decade from now, when climate change is a strange reality, sending residents of island nations and low countries like Bangladesh into their neighbors’ garages and outhouses.

“Skyfall” is not Harrison’s best. He creeps. His characters have all the zip of a lead brick. The pilot is an idiotic chauvinist. The US president is an idiot, not as “crooked as Tricky Dicky, but he’s more cunning”. The Russian female pilot is underdeveloped and somewhat two-dimensional. The narrative doesn’t sound like most of the author’s work.

space based solar

But Project Prometheus sounds great. The idea is to deploy huge deployable solar collectors where they can collect solar energy without interruptions at night and transmit it via microwaves to points on earth. The cost is immense and the project hugely controversial. The book’s antagonist is a Newsweek reporter who wants to write nothing but potential doom.

Coretta Samuel, one of the crewmen, tells him at one point: “Just the physical reality that, at the current rate of consumption, we’re going to burn all the oil on Earth in a couple more years. So we have to do something drastic.” about”.

Doing something. Sounds great to me. Back when this book was published, I was thinking about earning gas money for my mini truck and enjoying the spoils of refined fuel while spinning in the parking lot of East High in Anchorage.

Current political discourse has almost ignored climate change. That’s a problem for our children, apparently. They will have to make the tough decisions because there will be no alternative. Most likely, they will curse the older generation for myopia.

I know I would.

solar solutions

There is an alternative. Investing in a series of solar projects will reveal over time that there is money to be made from clean energy. There is certainly economic development in clean energy. Spending on facilities that continue to generate money in the form of electricity offers a steady return, as well as the initial injection of construction jobs.

Just as a wider road or bridge makes it easier to travel and move goods and services, clean energy facilities generate power without the constant strain of natural resource extraction. Drilling will recover only what is left of history. Coal mining will become increasingly expensive as easy-to-extract sources are depleted, while oil recovery is already tapping into the tremendous technological talents of engineers.

Federal dollars must continue to be channeled into clean energy research. You never know what a graduate student will pull out of a beaker after long nights and neuron-firing inspiration.

The National Space Society promotes the concept Harrison wrote about in “Skyfall.” Maybe it’s not unreasonable. It is definitely hugely expensive and would require almost global coordination of resources.

Space Office Study

An October 2007 study by the National Security Space Office says the US Department of Energy and NASA have spent about $80 million over the last three decades to study space-based solar power. By contrast, he says the US government has spent about $21 billion studying nuclear fusion.

The study concluded that space-based solar power “presents a strategic opportunity that could significantly advance the security, capability, and freedom of action of the US and its partners, and deserves increased attention from the US government.” and the private sector”.

The study also says that while significant technical challenges remain, the concept “is more technically feasible than ever and current technology vectors promise to further enhance its viability.”

Intriguing.

Sounds a bit like you’ve read this somewhere. Oh yes, in almost every book I consume. Hugh Howey is my latest favorite author. His “Bern Saga” series takes energy sources, space travel, and future economic and cultural conflict and turns it all upside down. His concepts stretch my imagination, certainly.

Possibly Howey and others writing quietly in their home offices will change the direction of humanity. For the best.