Space-based microwave power
p2pnet special:- It’s taken increasing global shortages to make people realise oil and other forms of so-called fossil fuels aren’t only limited, they’re on the verge of running out.
Could microwave energy sent to earth by satellites in low orbit be part of the answer?
Michael Thomas believes it can.
Energy drawn from wireless power transmission is now under development by several countries and could be ready in 2012, he says.
But while we wait, world demand for energy is growing exponentially and somewhere, somehow, these demands will have to be answered.
If they’re not, our planet will die.
“Since greater supplies from our present sources are made available only at increasing cost and, most often, with even greater environmental impact, we must seek new sources that will be sustainable, economical, and which will not exacerbate environmental damage,” he says, going on »»»
Wireless power transmission and space power satellites proposed for the future use a wide array of physics and science fiction in an attempt to achieve power from space and solve this problem. All attempts to date plan on converting solar power into laser and microwave energy transmitted to Earth which need a satellite parked in GEO orbit to work.
Project planning for space power satellites uses microwave transmitters made with lasers, klystrons, magnetrons, or traveling wave tubes. The major problem with klystrons, the preferred microwave power device, is the cathode fails from electron depletion and while magnetrons and traveling wave tubes offer a little longer lifetime before failure performance is limited by the power they can finally transmit. Also, the recommended transmitted microwave frequencies should be kept at about 2.4 GHz due to refraction by the Earth’s atmosphere.
Laser power transmitters have also been proposed but due to the severity of laser light refraction and power loss due to clouds lasers have been seen as less desirable. The last method which was proposed by Nikola Tesla now in study by MIT and others is wireless power transmission. The method of having two resonating tuned electronic circuits which can transmit power over short distances rules out space operation as the power transfer is less efficient than microwave.
In contrast, the microwave power transmission satellite with its new concept of using free space electrons, low earth orbit (LEO) and phased shifted microwave signals, offers a unique approach to controllable high energy power transmission from a space-based satellite to a long distance power receiving station.
In the future it will also be possible to use a klystron with free space electrons feeding the cathode for a much higher electron amperage source while extending the life of the klystron many years. The present invention will allow for a high power microwave energy transmission method to Earth preventing any future major energy disruption or terrorist threat to the United States and the rest of the world.
The invention relates to a novel satellite using a free space electron feed klystron, and more particularly, a satellite that’s able to use these electron particles accelerated to 99 percent of light speed as a source for high energy microwave transmission and a propellant for maintaining the low earth orbit of the satellite.
The small, sealed and self-contained transportable autonomous satellite will send at least 10 years or more of 100 Megawatts, or 8.76 Gigawatt hours/year/satellite of microwave energy transmission to remote antennas on Earth. It’ll provide microwave energy as a source of uninterruptible high power electrical energy to energy conversions —- and it’ll do it for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
The F2 free space electron density varies around 10^12 e/m3 at 300 km height from Earth. The F2 Ionosphere electron temperatures vary from 1000 K to 3000 K where the mean thermal speed is 200 Km/sec and the electrons have a Mev to Gev potential.
When collected by the satellite collector screen the free space electrons will supply high quality energetic electrons as a source of renewable thermionic electrons to the klystron cathode and supplemental power to the satellite.
Increasing the amount and energy level of the electrons supplied to the cathode by free space electrons will increase the maximum thermionic current density and increase the total current supplied by the klystron allowing the klystron to produce significantly higher energy microwaves well beyond the original invention design gains specifications.
By using free space electrons the lifetime to failure of the klystron can be extended thousands of times its normal usage, a major problem preventing the successful implementation of space power transmission from satellites to Earth. All klystrons to date have a typical 5,000 hour cathode lifetime before burnout due to electron depletion of the thermionic emitter materials.
This major hurdle to wireless power transmission from space can now be overcome with the use of free space high energy electrons providing the necessary energy for the klystron to reach >100 Megawatt microwave power outputs while extending the lifetime of the thermionic cathode component preventing total loss of the satellite.
The electrical energy supplied by the 400 meter 250 kilowatt $ 60 million 1,000 pound solar panel array will provide the necessary operational energy to the satellite and high power klystron microwave system. The microwave phased array antenna electro magnetic frequencies will work together to create a variable angular pitch virtual waveguide in space for the path of the near light speed propellant electrons and a non mechanical means of changing the microwave beam angle to the receiving antenna microwave conversion station.
A satellite using electron subatomic beam particles can be accelerated to over 400 thousand electron volts having a thrust of greater than 88,000 horsepower. It can therefore be shown that the kinetic energy of the high velocity electrons having mass, ie E=MC2, can be used to maintain a satellite in low earth orbit, or propel it to some other interstellar position.
An equal and opposite force will thereby be applied to the satellite aft according to Newton’s Third Law of Motion, allowing the satellite to maintain a precise LEO, countering the effects of Earth’s gravitational pull and other frictional forces acting on the satellite’s preferred orbit.
All prior world wide aerospace designs of the ISS and satellites looked at free space electrons as bad contamination called space craft charging and a precursor to ISS or satellite destructive damage and much effort was and is given to ridding the ISS or satellites of these electrons.
Today’s space power systems proposed by all others talk of costs in the $ billions even $ trillions of dollars.
The unit cost per LEO satellite of $300 million for a microwave power transmission satellite (MPTS) that will use these free space electrons as an infinite renewable high energy source for the earth and future space exploration is more in line with logical costs. With the addition of more satellites, the energy output to Earth goes up dramatically.
When the Earth goes into darkness, satellites in GEO having 24×7 solar energy would use high power lasers not affected by atmospheric refraction in space can keep the LEO satellites continuously operational by supplying solar energy to the LEO satellites allowing them to keep pumping high power energy to Earth.
Using the US average cost of $.05 Kw/h for electricity to homes in America this would calculate to a gross profit from 1 year of operation of $ 44 Billion/year, essentially paying the cost of one satellite hundreds of times over. It would also be conceivable for 1 satellite to create >$ 1,000,000,000,000 profit (1 Trillion) in its operating lifetime.
Space base power is seen as a viable alternative to man’s need for energy and the need for security of our country from terrorist taking control or destroying the present oil / hydrocarbon dependent economies of the world.
Japan, for example, is investing billions of dollars and plans on investing Billions more money in this kind of technology than any other know to man.
Another more sinister problem is that of the current practices for supplying energy to the planet with hydrocarbon energy sources that aren’t renewable and pollute the planet. Earth-based wind power and solar power won’t be able to meet supply energy demands, is unreliable because changing weather conditions, and will effect food production and other animal and plant life.
Nuclear energy will not be able to supply future energy needs and has the added problem of radioactive nuclear waste contamination of thousands of years. All other proposed energy sources in research and development have major environmental problems and are still not renewable energy or reliable.
The best of all possibilities is this new cost effective renewable energy source that doesn’t destroy the planet, allow terrorist to threaten world peace, and will prevent further hydrocarbon green house gases from being created…. Killing our planet and its people.
Thomas is the founder of Colossal Storage and inventor the world’s first holographic storage system.
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July 23rd, 2008 at 7:34 am
Ehhh… 100MW = 877TW/y? There’s something missing here… Oh, I know! Megawatt hours!
Then, let’s see… 100MWh, 24/7/365… we get:
100MWh x 24h x 365d = 100MWh x 8760 = 876GWh a year.
I’ll concede the 876/877 difference as being rounded from 24×365.24.
But still, the numbers are off by a factor of 1000 (kilo -> Mega -> Giga -> Tera).
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Good catch. Looks like you’re right. Someone doesn’t speak metrics.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:54 am
Zorg,
You’re right. Hope to have this corrected. Thank you.
24 x 365 x 10 = 87,600
100,000,000 x
—————————–8,760,000,000,000 or 8.76 terawatts.
Regards,
Michael
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:05 am
Fixed.
Cheers!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 am
Yeah, it’s fixed… but not quite; now it has 8.76Terawatt/year/satellite when it should be either 8.76Terawatthours/lifetime/satellite OR 876Gigawatthours/year/satellite.
A constant production of 100MW will, in a year, produce 876 Gigawatt-hours, the “hours” part is essential since else it can be instantaneous (i.e. 876GW for one second, which equals 243.3MWh) or continuous (i.e. 876GWh every hour for one – or ten – full years, either of which would put it in the Petawatt-hour range).
Sorry to nitpick, but for something like this, accuracy (and nomenclature) is important.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
… If wireless power transmission is feasible, why put the solar satellites in GEO when you can put them on L1? It’s *much* closer to the sun, thus receiving much more power. Duh.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
It seems like putting up solar panels on the Earth could be achieved for a tiny fraction of the cost of launcing a satellite into orbit that essentially does the same thing.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
“… If wireless power transmission is feasible, why put the solar satellites in GEO when you can put them on L1? It’s *much* closer to the sun, thus receiving much more power. Duh.”
Wireless power transmission (from my rather outdated knowledge about it) is rather inefficient over long distances. The first prototype, which was designed to prove wireless power transmission was possible, could only transmit electricity up to 10 feet at 20% efficiency. I’m guessing that these solar satellites may take a dive in efficiency, due to the distance from L1 to Earth. It is still possible to shoot down a satellite in GEO, and impossible to shoot down a satellite in L1 though.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
> Wireless power transmission (…) is rather inefficient over long distances.
The point of this whole article is that it’s inefficient through athmosphere, because of refraction. Though vacuum there is no loss due to distance, provided the receptacle covers the output angle.
> The first prototype, which was designed to prove wireless power transmission was possible, [...].
Tesla? He didn’t try to prove anything, he aimed to utilize without proof (which was contradictory).
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:36 pm
oh, btw:
> It is still possible to shoot down a satellite in GEO, and impossible to shoot down a satellite in L1 though.
If it’s possible to put something /somewhere/ once, it’s possible to put something /somewhere/ twice.
If you can put a satellite in L1, I can put a pipe bomb there too.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am
[...] [...]
July 24th, 2008 at 9:12 am
What’s interesting to me as no one has mentioned any possible applications ? Here are a couple to get things rolling.
1. Desalination of the Ocean for fresh water – cheaply, anywhere forever.
2. Power grid for cars, homes, hospitals, ships, trains, etc. – clean energy
I would be interested to read some thoughts on applications and not so much on pointing out a missed decimal point or units of measure.
Let your mind think about the possibilities for the future of mankind with clean renewable energy.
July 25th, 2008 at 2:45 am
The Earth’s resources are indeed being used up because nobody wants free alternatives due to the greed factor. As a result the Earth is being ruined, however it won’t be destroyed. It’s well known that Australia has an untapped oil supply in Bass Strait, but personally I’d like to see alternative fuel supplies get a hold. Besides solar, wind, and electric power, even water may be used for steam or hydrogen power. To me, steam power is the obvious solution, but scientists always neglect to mention it, as the govt wants to keep it illegal. Why not just continue polluting the atmosphere with toxic gases, so long as they can rake in the taxes. Our brilliant scientists, rather offer the solution of apparently or possibly dwindling oil reserves, to be to further increase the fuel cost burden on motorists, to “force” them to buy hybrid cars which few can afford. This ‘plunder the poor’ mentality is just a ruse obviously to give the govt an excuse to bleed the public dry before they get a chance to switch to a less taxable alternative. It’s so bleedin’ obvious, and such a “scientific” view must be bought and paid for by our caring ruling parties.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Could also consider Criswell’s Lunar Solar Power system.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/355/1
He sez it is 50 times easier to build solar collectors (98+% from lunar material) ON the Moon than placing in Clarke (geosync) orbit.
I hope nobody is still thinking of launching all of this from Earth!
July 28th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
So we beam 8.76 terrawatts/year toward earth… one could boil alot of water with that much energy. And the end product of all electricity is heat! Will this plan also cause an increase in “global warming” ?
July 28th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Bob O:
Most so called “waste heat” is released converting boiled water into electricity. Nuclear, geothermal and thermal solar are all subject to this. Even the “darkness” of solar panels causes much the same. CO2 is an added factor if you burn carbohydrates.
Dumping the waste heat in Space greatly improves the situation, as the electricity replaces some that would be Earth made.
Also, as soon as you start making solar collectors from lunar material, you can start replacing Earth’s mines and heavy manufacturing with Space based processes, dumping less and less heat on the Earth. Then, start moving the population into Space.
http://www.ssi.org/
August 6th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Hilarious… Nicola Tesla worked on a strategy for super charging the ionosphere allowing anyone with a long pole to pull power from the atmosphere, no transmission lines – reference Wyclyff – it was killed because of fears that the super charging would ultimately burn off the atmosphere. It isnt the same problem as technology has improved but the problem remains that beaming high power energy from orbit is a highly dangerous pursuit, you promote this an an environmentally friendly solution – I think not! just the simple fact of atmospheric supercharging, creation of ozone by the destruction of atmospheric gases caused by the transmission beam, lack of actual control over where the beam is pointed.
Yes any first year physics student knows there is lots of solar energy outside the atmosphere but bringing that energy to the surface doesn’t require risking the kind of large scale threat to the planet represented by high power beams piercing the atmosphere. The energy your talking about bringing to the surface of the planet by microwave is already here – it falls on the planet everyday all day. By the time you could build a working system get it approved, deployed and operational, thin-film nano-solar technology will make the price per Kwh so low as to make your exciting futuristic energy business a huge money losing proposition.
I can see a use for this technology powering a space elevator that could operate without a tether, that would be a worthwhile use.
August 6th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Wow you should really do more research before publishing your silliness… Electrons cannot be accelerated as you stated above, weather and food production do not effect oil production and transportation in anything more than a temporary manner. So many statements in your stuff are just silly, lunacy that have no basis in fact.
BTW – if your looking for the future of renewable, cheap nearly unlimited supply of carbon neutral energy try looking into the enzymatic catalyzation of Co2 and water directly into hydrocarbons. Research done at the university of Beijing is leading to a chemical process that will pull CO2 from the air, catalyze it with water (using electricity) to create a hydrocarbon, creating carbon neutral gasoline from water. Yes solar power would be the best source to make the catalyzation process truly carbon neutral.
August 6th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Hey silly_people,
If Beijing is so advanced then why all the pollution in the air and water ?
Why do people in Beijing need to where mask to stay alive ?
Thank you for the amusing response.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Tesla_fan,
There must be some truth in what you state but I was hard pressed to find it.
Maybe you should just stay in your science fiction field of endeavor and leave the real science to others.
January 30th, 2009 at 2:52 am
This seems like a perfectly reasonable cover story for the military to continue putting military sattelites into orbit under the obama administration.
Carry on military industrial complex- the pod people swoon at your might.