Build A Rocket Boys!
As regular readers will have picked up, here at SQHQ we enjoy covering the latest innovation in alternative energy sources. Last week we brought you the wonderful work being done in fundraising for solar power by CORENA (Citizens Own Renewable Energy Network Australia). CORENA’s ethos of operating through small, community-based donations for solar projects is close to our heart here at the SQHQ bunker.
However this week we’re going the big picture. The bloody BIG picture.
We’re talking of a project to solve the world’s energy problems by putting a solar power plant on the Moon.
That’s right and with many interesting ideas that come from left field, this one comes from the land of the rising solar energy source: Japan.
Support for alternative energy sources has grown since 2011 since the tsunami that caused so much havoc with the now-infamous Fukushima nuclear power plant. Now the Shimizu Corp — whose board obviously contains a number of wild, free-thinking members — has proposed a 250 mile (400km) wide solar panel belt around the Moon to power the Earth’s energy needs. The band will generate a staggering 13,000 terawatts of energy per year, which will be transmitted via microwave or laser transmissions to a series of receiving stations on the planet.
“A shift from economical use of limited resources to the unlimited use of clean energy is the ultimate dream of mankind,” Shimizu says in discussing the plan. “The Luna Ring … translates this dream into reality through ingenious ideas coupled with advanced space technologies.”
Ingenious indeed. The proposal goes on to suggest that construction on the project could commence in 2035.
Now those solar fans who are science fiction fans may have already thought this through in a War of the Worlds kind of way. After all building a solar power plant on the Moon is putting the ultimate in alternative energy sources in a place well away from the solar narks, doubters, elected chair polishers and fossil fuel vested interests. That is until polluting energy sources are discovered just below the lunar surface folks!
Can it work though? Is it indeed the ultimate place to generate alternative energy sources for the gasping Earth? Or does it sound more like the ultimate in quixotic ventures? The challenges are enormous according to this article in iScience Times though perhaps, just maybe, not insurmountable. If achieved the corporation will have solved the Earth’s energy and climate crises in one stroke of genius. We’ll keep an eye out for further developments on this for you readers, however in the meantime we’d like your opinion on this proposed (mis?) adventure either here or over at our Facebook Page.
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Ambitious plan… . We’ve presumed the next major leap forward would be from tidal power, but weren’t all that impressed with the Tidal Power Station at Annapolis, Nova Scotia. It seemed a lot of investment for minimal return… . (Brilliant museum in Annapolis, though!~ )
Who’s to say the Japanese plan won’t work? Wonder what the downside might be? Environmentalists claimed that bird and marine life were affected by the Annapolis plan. On the opposite NA coast, US scientists now cite Annapolis when opposing similar projects.
How many cups of green tea will be foregone by 128 million Japanese, to place a 400 km belt of panels around the moon, I wonder? And how resistant to continual meteorite showers would ‘the belt’ need to be?
Not saying it can’t be done. Wonder if Tony Abbott might run with the idea… and beat the Japanese to it? If we can find all that extra cash for schools in just one weekend, the sky’s the limit… . 😉
From the absurd to the ridiculous.
A different form of tidal power is the go, and according to casual discussions with local engineers could provide all Australia’s electricity for a capital investment of a couple of billion dollars (or the cost of the Parliamentary tea-trolley service!).
The model used is Port Phillip Bay, though given our 60,000 km coastline, could be set up nearly anywhere. It suggests burying large-diameter pipes, incorporating turbines, across the Mornington Peninsula isthmus, connecting the Bay with the Southern Ocean.. The rising and falling of the tides would thus produce consistent power permanently. Power production (peak/off-peak) would be regulated by simple stop-valves, and no storage considerations would apply.
Anyone who’s ever watched the wasted power of the Rip at the heads would have no doubt about the possibilities.
Too bloody easy to adopt, one suspects, given our SOP!
Yes, the tidal station in NS is a small project based on the massive rise-and-fall of tides along the NS / NB coast. As I say, we’ve placed a lot of hope in tidal power, but its limited output at Annapolis has been quite disappointing.
Our north-west coast offer similar possibilities to those you suggest. Is ‘the model used’ in actual use, or is it ‘the model proposed’?
Fully agree, but ‘Tidal Power’ is still ‘Moon Gravitational Power’ effect with Trade and other Wind-movements confounding the outcomes. The periodicity of the Japanese System will also still depend on phases of the Moon much like ‘Wave-Duck Turbines generated power
That would be a most wonderful present to the World If successful, providing and ‘anodyne’ source of ‘clean’ energy during most People’s lifespans,and a welcome alternative to the ‘DEADLY’ though finite ‘Fossil-fuels’ .Being ‘anthropogenic’ in conception, it is bound of-oourse throw up unhidden technical hitches and unforeseen problems here and there that will always rake time to circumvent but we wish them a HASTY SUCCESS !
According to Bjorn Lombard at todays National Press Club the Japanese and everyone else should be getting into “fracking” for gas and forget about solar because solar is only about making a few people with too much money feel good about themselves, and does nothing significant to reduce greenhouse emissions. As Paul Keating said “Give us a break” ” Give us a break”!!
Hey, c’mon, Matthew. Give them some credit. They were certainly right about nuclear power… . 😉
yeah right. Sounds like a dream but seriously. How long a lifetime to solar panels have? Are they going to send people up there every time one dies? How much carbon fuel are they going to use sending them up there and where are they going to get the resources to make it. I don’t doubt that they could do it if they tried but I’d be worried about the emissions of the way there sending the power back.
Thanks for your comments folks. Seems the Japanese are John Lennon fans (“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one”) but wouldn’t it be fun to spend a bit of time at a Shimizu board meeting! Hats off to them though, I mean there were many that listened to Kennedy’s speech announcing the Moon program who considered it an impossible waste of money. And if it does work then well….
If it did work and it created that much electricity, we could practically live on any part of earth including the north pole because we wouldn’t be worried about the electricity to charge the equipment that would fix up the environment for us. Still though the heat from such equipment might lead to global warming lol.
Imagine getting zapped by an inadvertent peak of microwave energy sent a minuscule fraction of a degree off target. How much cheaper would it be to put the same area of solar array here on earth than truck mirrors and hardware up to the moon on rockets ? Science fiction lunacy.
They dont need to put panels on the moon – just put them into geo-stationary orbit.