The Final Frontier for Solar Energy: An Absurd Boondoggle in Space
December 12th, 2007Scientists in the U.S., Europe and Japan want to build a massive solar concentrator in space to beam gigawatts of power down to the surface of the planet. (The idea has been around, on paper, for years.) Clean, green power, They say.
Absurd?
Maybe not, if we consider some of the cast of characters, and wrap their public rhetoric in a bit of tinfoil.
The Pentagon likes the idea, so that might be the tipoff as to the real interest from the U.S. side in a space based solar array. A system like this could be used as a power source for a variety of space-based weapons. Power is a big problem for weaponized satellites. Sure, They’ll talk up the story about beaming the energy down to the surface of the planet, but think about the death ray applications! They could deploy killer satellites with the usual power systems for communications and orientation etc., but without any power source for the onboard weapon system. During combat/slaughter of innocents, the large solar collector could beam the energy to the smaller killer satellites; which would drive the death rays, rail guns, plasma cannons, etc.
As a power source for terrestrial consumption…
We should ask all the rocket scientists and Dr. Strangeloves—who are involved with this ridiculous project—to do a calculation for us:
How many solar towers/concentrators and wave/tidal power systems could be built for what this space based solar collector would cost?
I don’t know, but it would probably enough to cover the land masses and fill the oceans of a couple of dozen Earths; give or take a few Earths.
While systems such as solar towers and wave power buoys are viable, they lack the sweet, technophilic allure of spacecraft and energy beams. But what is the overall motivation? Far from being a democratic, decentralized clean energy technology, this is just another expensive way of, quite literally, concentrating power—to do work, to kill, to intimidate—into a few hands.
Cui bono?
Actually, just read the BBC article below, and parse it carefully. It might help to drape half a roll of Reynolds Wrap around your skull before continuing:
From the article: Researchers from Europe, Japan and the US are considering the viability of building giant solar panels in a low earth orbit that would supply cheap, inexhaustible energy to industry and homes.
Coincidence: The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system.
From the article: It’s an undertaking that has been likened to the building of the Pyramids.
Coincidence: Illuminati Pyramids, What’s that on Senior’s lap?
From the article: For Lt Col Damphousse, despite the technical and economic challenges, the advantages are clear. “It opens up all the other things that we are trying to do in space; our exploration strategy, our planetary defence, commercialism in space, space tourism.”
Coincidence: Our planetary defense!? See: U.S. Department of Defense Shills: Prepare for Alien Invasion
From the article: “If we’re able to do this as an international effort this helps to relieve some of those pressures on resource shortages, overpopulation. This is something that’s in the interest of the entire planet.”
Question: How, exactly, does a space based solar array and directed energy system resolve overpopulation? I’d love to hear the answer to that one. Is it something like what happens when a six-year-old-boy with a magnifying glass finds an ant hill on a sunny day? (I kid, of course.)
From the article: “Once we open up the medium, there’s a whole new world waiting for us out there.”
Coincidence: New World Order
This is obviously just another ingenious carbon neutral technology that’s being thought up from the gentle environmentalists at the Pentagon. Sounds like a perfect project for Al Gore and Colin Powell to get behind. Sure, what could possibly go wrong? Just don’t blame me if it winds up being called the ExxonMobil Clean Green Solar Array and Death Star.
No brilliant ideas out of the Pentagon to solve the top soil depletion issue, though, which makes energy scarcity look like a walk in the park. Maybe that’s where the skyscraper farms come in. (Sarcasm.)
Via: BBC:
Scientists are assessing the possibility of embarking on a space engineering project that would eclipse the effort to construct the International Space Station.
Researchers from Europe, Japan and the US are considering the viability of building giant solar panels in a low earth orbit that would supply cheap, inexhaustible energy to industry and homes.
Building a huge array outside the Earth’s atmosphere would have the advantage of having no clouds to interrupt the flow of solar energy to the arrays.
Yet the sizeable downside would be the technical challenges of construction and of getting the power down to the ground.
It’s an undertaking that has been likened to the building of the Pyramids.
Right let us allow the Pentagon to envision us with their dreams of glory. In the words of Star Trek – the television program – Space – the final frontier.
How much of the U.S. budget does the Pentagon already enjoy without a freaking inch of oversight?
I can only imagine that the Pentagon will need to come with a plan to save the U.S. economy in order to justify their existance coming soon to the theater nearest you.
I imagine they’ll figure out a way to use all their unused nuclear arsenal to do so!
This is a freakin joke.
However, DOD will probably get the money for it.
Because when all else fails in a sick and dying empire, give the money to the military/DOD. That always stimulates the economy.
We’re are cooking like frogs in a slow burner here in the US and for the DOD to even propose ssuch ideas and therefore require more money and thereby get more control to me is really effed up.