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larsschellhas OP t1_je0i7cv wrote

Reply to comment by electric_ionland in Is Space-Based Solar Power An Option to Solve Humanity's Energy Hunger After All? by larsschellhas

I wasn't trying to promote it... 😔 I've just been down a whole rabbit hole the last weeks realising that ESA, Airbus, and Co. are all over the topic and I wanted to learn everything I could. There is even a government initiative in the UK now (https://spaceenergyinitiative.org.uk/).

I've been really excited about it and wanted to discuss with some likeminded people here, just sharing the background for those who haven't heard of it.

Didn't expect to be completely overwhelmed with 100 % underwhelmed reactions though. Really making me sad right now.

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electric_ionland t1_je0lqe5 wrote

It's fine, but implying that you just found that article rather than wrote it is more than a bit disingenuous.

My personal take as an aerospace engineer is that I find it hard to believe that the benefit of better illumination outweigh the complexity and cost of a project like that.

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larsschellhas OP t1_je0to7w wrote

>I've tried to summarise what I was able to learn about it in this article :)

I literally wrote that I wrote the article myself.... 🙈

Yes, I get that. I'm an energy/mechanical engineer, and working as management consultant for the energy industry. It's a hard case. But the problem of renewables right now really is their intermittency... Solar PV has a load factor of 11-16 % over the course of the year, but in winter weeks you can easily get load factors of 1 %.

Space-based solar power can achieve close to 100 % load factor and delivers equally in summer and winter. From the value side, it provides much more than wind and solar do right now. But the cost side, of course, is also much more intensive. However, it appears to become economically feasible with launch costs decreasing further and further. If not as baseload than at least as peak capacity.

ESA is currently running two studies (results expected in the next months) which are expected to show that the cost of such a system could actually be further reduced if we were to use materials from the Moon.

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