A newly released NASA study examines the feasibility and potential impact space-based solar power could have on the world’s sustainable clean energy needs. The Biden administration and Congress now need to step up their clean energy game and mature this technology in order to assure American leadership in this critical, new high frontier of clean energy technology.
Space-based power beaming essentially works like our space-based telecommunications systems except for the fact that it beams usable energy instead of data. The idea is to use huge solar arrays parked in space to collect and beam solar energy down to remote ground stations on Earth via focused microwaves. Space solar power stations could beam collected energy to anywhere they can see; the transmitted energy can pass through clouds. The stations could be placed in orbits that provide power to literally anywhere on Earth’s surface, day or night. The resulting energy can then be easily converted into electricity on Earth, as zero-emissions clean energy.
Once demonstrated, space-based power beaming could become the energy source that moves us past fossil fuels in a way that is equitable, evolvable, scalable and distributable. Space-based solar power beaming could deliver energy that is cheaper, cleaner and more accessible than many alternatives.
The new NASA report, withheld for more than a year for technical and political review, shows that there appear to be no clear technical showstoppers for an in-space solar power demonstration mission. It also showed that tapping into technologies under development today by NASA’s global partners could make space solar power beaming feasible soon — within two decades. And because pieces of this promising technology are currently or soon to be available, development requires no miracles — just commitment.
While development of a space solar power beaming system will require a lot of work to get from today’s concepts to tomorrow’s…
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