WEBVTT - Is space-based solar power realistic? 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:11.480 Hey, Kelly, do you guys have solar power over there 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.680 at the science farm? We do. We actually pretty recently 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.120 installed solar panels on top of one of our barns. 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.040 And so does it give you like all the energy 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.439 you could ever want? No, not all the energy we 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:25.439 could ever want. I married a man who would like 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.040 to build a giant laser, and so he's always going 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.320 to be disappointed. But it gives us some power. Well, 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.320 does it give you all the energy you need? I 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:35.720 mean not quite. It's cloudy where we live, and then 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.000 there's nighttime and the batteries aren't quite up to the task. 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:41.920 Who needs energy at nighttime? Jeez? Or like in the winter, 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:44.600 you guys are way too demanding. Yeah, we could just 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.519 put on like five layers of socks. That might get 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:49.320 hard for Zac to wear socks and sandals, but I'm 0:00:49.360 --> 0:01:08.640 sure he'd persevere. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.440 and I'm the co host of our podcast, Daniel and 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.480 Jorge Explain the Universe. And I'm Kelly Weener Smith. I'm 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.120 an adjunct professor with Rice University and I study parasites. 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.319 And welcome to the podcast, in which we talk about 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:26.280 everything out there in the universe, the tiny little particles 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:28.959 that wiggle around beneath your toes and in your toes, 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.600 and the huge mysteries of the universe, how it began, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.319 how it will end, how it all works. We talked 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.480 about all that crazy stuff and try to break it 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.640 down and explain it to you. My normal co host, 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.560 Jorge cham the creator PhD Comics, isn't here today, but 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.680 we're very lucky to have our returning regular guest host, 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.480 Kelly Wiener Smith. Kelly, thanks for joining us again. Yeah, 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:51.200 my pleasure. I'm excited to be back. It's a lot 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:52.960 of fun. Well, we try to have fun, and we 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.000 also try to talk about the science. And we talked 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.280 about the mysteries of the universe. We talked about the 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.920 tiny little particles, but we also like to talk about 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.080 how things work and whether things will work. We'd like 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.360 to explore technologies. We've talked to this podcast about how 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.480 l e Ed's work. We've talked about how solar panels work, 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.440 and we've talked about things like space elevators. And I 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.040 understand Kelly, that you're becoming something of an expert in 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.640 how space technology and space colonization works. Yeah, our upcoming 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.360 book is sort of on that topic. So we've been 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:23.720 spending a lot of time reading about these sorts of things, 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:25.920 and soon has had a chapter on space elevators. And 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:27.560 are you excited to think about this kind of stuff 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.040 because you think like everything in the future will be 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.600 based in space, of space farms and space schools and 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.320 space grocery stores. Well, I have the sense that we 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.920 are maybe a little bit too overly optimistic about how 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:41.720 great it's going to be to live in space. But 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.120 I do think that at some point we'll have space 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.800 settlements and we'll have lots of cool stuff going on 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:48.840 in space. And how we're going to power all of 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:51.840 that and and make this awful environment habitable is a 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.120 very interesting question, I think, because it is kind of 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.840 an awful environment. I think it's amazing that spaces is 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.520 sort of like cool sheen to it, right, and it 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.840 is some out there, it's like part of the universe, 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:04.639 But it's also kind of awful, right. I mean, it's 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.000 like not a cozy place to be, no. I mean, 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:08.600 I think you look at a picture of the Moon 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:10.840 are Mars, and you can sort of imagine places on 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.000 Earth that looks sort of similar and sort of convince 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.720 yourself like, oh, it's not that different, but no, it's 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.240 super different, and it's super unpleasant and it's definitely trying 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.800 to kill you all the time. And that really makes 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.320 us cherish life down here on Earth. You know, we 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.320 are really lucky to get to live in this warm, 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.280 atmospheric little slice of the universe that's wet but not 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:33.639 too wet and has all the right conditions for our 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.880 kind of life and our cozy lifestyle. And so I 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.120 think another way to look at space is like as 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.800 a resource, a way to support and improve life here 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:44.400 on Earth, rather than as an alternate for life on Earth. 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.280 And I think there's a lot of enthusiasm about that. 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.880 But I also think there's a lot of reasons why 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.760 getting things from space to Earth is really difficult, and 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:54.280 those are maybe some of the big things we need 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.600 to overcome so that we can make space improve our 0:03:57.640 --> 0:03:59.920 lives down here. Right, We need like a better highway 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.160 between here and space so we can take better advantage 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.600 of all of its resources, yes, exactly. And also we 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.560 have to be careful about Earth being a gravity well, 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.840 so you don't bring, for example, an asteroid with great 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.680 resources too close and then have a sort of dinosaur 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:15.280 event happen again. So it's a little sensitive talk about 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:21.880 cell phones. Right, Oops? Ye, right, whoops, extinction level event. 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:24.240 My bad. Well, one of the big issues of course 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.719 facing us down here on Earth is energy and how 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.320 to get clean sources of renewable energy that are cheap 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.880 and that are easy to distribute, and that are consistent, 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.839 and that can heat your toes on a cold winter night, 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.240 even on the science farm. So what are some proposals. Well, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:42.400 obviously there's been a big surge down here on Earth 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.200 of solar panels and green energies such as wind, etcetera. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.600 So that's been helping a little bit. But I get 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:50.720 a little worried when I look at these projections from 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.640 the I p c C about like the various paths 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.359 we're going on if we only use like twenty or 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.320 thirty or fifty renewable energies for the next few years, 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:04.000 like the nerves for increasing global surface warming temperatures still 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.640 look pretty dire. Yeah, and I'm not super optimistic that 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.400 we'll be able to switch to more climate friendly technologies 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.479 like nuclear because they have sort of other big downsides 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.239 when you've got humans using it. Absolutely and so people 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.599 have been talking about crazy new proposals to supercharge our 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.360 solar power industry, to make it much more efficient, much 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:29.240 more dramatic, much more available by connecting it to space. Yeah, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.240 so what would that look like? How the heck do 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.920 you do that? And that's the topic of today's podcast. 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:42.520 Today on the program, we're asking the question is space 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:46.159 based solar power realistic? Because you know, we can talk 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.920 about space based whatever, and you can spend ten billion 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.799 dollars doing some proof of principle or a hundred billion dollars, 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.040 But if we're going to talk about something like delivering 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.640 power to people down here on Earth, it's got to 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.200 be economical, right, It's got to be robust, it's got 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.159 to be actually realistic. We've got to be developing an 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.000 industry people actually want to invest in and work in, 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.600 not just some fancy thing for a nationalistic pride. Totally 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.120 and so okay, So we've got solar panels on Earth, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.919 and the price of solar panels is plumbing quickly. So, 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.239 like Zach and I've been together for something like fourteen 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.120 years now, and almost every year in our relationship we've 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.240 checked the price of solar panels just because we're both 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.160 excited about renewable energy, and last year we were like, 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.080 we can afford it now, And partly that was because 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.200 of tax credits and stuff, but also it's because the 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.720 price of these panels is going down a lot. And 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.200 so when you can put these cheap panels on your house, 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:40.120 is why would you bother putting them in space? Right? 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:41.800 So let's dig into that in a moment, But first 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:43.800 I want to ask you, like, what made you pull 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.359 the trigger? Was it really like it's below the threshold 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.200 where we can afford it. We keep looking at this 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.680 and keep thinking, you know what, next year they'll be cheaper. 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.280 If we just wait another year, they'll be cheaper. So 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:55.279 at what point do you decide, well, they're cheap enough 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:56.920 and now is the time to buy them. So I 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:01.000 think the trigger for us was that there was a 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:05.039 tax break for something like thirty percent where the cost 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.080 of the solar panels you could apply to your taxes, 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.520 and that was set to expire, and so we decided 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:12.640 we needed to do it right away. And actually a 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.920 bunch of the local solar companies were just way overburdened 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:17.560 because a bunch of people must have made that same 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.160 calculation just a couple of months before the taxes were 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.280 about to expire, and so for us, it was the 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.600 tax break that made us decide we weren't going to 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:26.120 wait for the price to go down anymore because we 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.080 thought it would be a while. And also we had 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.640 finally purchased our own house, and this is something we 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:32.280 had been, you know, dreaming about for a long time, 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:33.800 so we decided it was time to go for it. 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.080 And it's really interesting to see the evolution of this. 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.480 Twenty or ten years ago, solar panels were really pretty expensive, 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:41.480 they were hard to make, they didn't last very long. 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.760 We weren't that good, but you know, people were buying them, 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.080 and the industry got started and the government gave it 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.600 some pushes, and now we have this very vibrant solar 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.200 panel industry where the prices are falling rapidly and lots 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.360 of people are buying them, and so it's sort of 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.520 builds on itself. It's sort of like consumer electronics, you know, 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.200 once it gets going and the big marketplace comes in 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:00.920 with all of his cap at all, than things that 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.160 just get cheaper and cheaper and easier and easier and 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.240 better and better. But one thing that is not getting 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.800 cheaper and cheaper as fast as I think we would 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.720 like is the batteries that go with the solar panels. 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.720 So we live out in the middle of nowhere, and 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.400 we sometimes will lose power for like a week. The 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.560 previous owner at least told us that, and so we 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.280 asked the solar panel company, like, so we should buy batteries, right, 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:23.960 and we'll store up a week of power and when 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:25.440 our power goes out in the middle of winter, we'll 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.240 live off of the batteries. And the guy was like, no, no, no, 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.480 you should still buy a propane power generator because the 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.520 batteries are way too expensive. We're not there yet. That's 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.480 totally not worth it. And so I feel like solar 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:39.839 isn't going to be a really great solution until you 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:41.960 can actually be storing the power from the sun even 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.600 when you don't need it. And the things like Tesla 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:46.720 are helping to drive down the cost of these batteries 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.000 because they're you know, making them more efficient and better 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.640 to put in electric cars. But I think it's still 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:53.560 in a lot of cases, the technology is still not 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:55.559 there yet at a reasonable price point. And I think 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.360 you put your finger on what motivates space based solar power, 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:02.280 which is that you can't get solar power on Earth 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:04.800 twenty four hours a day, three sixty five days a 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.880 year because it's nighttime sometimes and you know it's cloudy sometimes, 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.160 and so what if you could like beam that power 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.400 from space anytime, any day, no matter how cold it 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.840 is and how overcast it is. But we'll get into 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.599 that in a moment. First, we surveyed our listeners to 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:21.880 hear what they thought about the prospects of having solar 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.720 power come down from space. So thank you to everybody 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.200 who volunteered to answer random questions on the internet. If 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:32.840 you're excited to participate and hear your voice speculating baselessly 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.719 in the future, please write to us two questions at 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.280 Daniel and Jorge dot com. So here's what people had 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.040 to say. I think, yes, maybe not for us on 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.160 the ground, to to the limits of currently available extension codes, 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.280 but definitely important for everyone who is or regis stationed 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.280 in space. I think it is uh something is I'm 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:59.880 assuming that would be either a dison sphere or a 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.120 the what you call it solar solar sale. I think 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:05.880 very large scale is impossible. I don't think we have 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.440 enough matter in the Solar system to make a dicen sphere. Um, 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:11.400 but I think some things can be made of it. 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:15.680 I guess the problem would be getting the power from 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.560 space down to Earth. Again. Um, I guess it would 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.400 be a good idea to have solar panels outside of 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.040 the Ear's atmosphere because you probably get more power because 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.640 there's no clouds and things. But then you'd have to 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.320 get the power down to the surface. So I don't 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.920 know if you can beam power? Is that too star 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.760 Trek I don't know. Um. Otherwise you could do it 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:40.480 with batteries, I guess, and then transport it, but that 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:45.400 would be very expensive. Space based solar power is not 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:50.240 realistic now because I don't think we know how to 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.640 get the power back to the Earth. If we're going 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:55.480 to use it on the Earth, I feel like that 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.720 would be a very hard engineering problem. Like we we 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:04.720 already have trouble sending solar power distances here on Earth. 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:10.720 So if it's collected in space, that seems logistically like impossible. Well, 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.920 it depends how the technology will evolve, but for now, no, 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.880 But who knows how what we will do in the 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:22.040 future why not? So what do you think of their answers, Kelly, 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.520 I thought those were super interesting answers, and I thought 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:26.760 they brought up some important points, like how do you 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:28.960 get the power back to Earth? So they were well 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.079 thought out answers. What about you. I heard a lot 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:35.240 of skepticism there, which I think is well motivated. There's 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.720 at least one person who misunderstood the question. I think 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.680 I was talking about like solar sales and whether you 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.760 could sail on photons from stars while you're sort of 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.559 far away from a solar system, which is another totally 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.800 fascinating question and would require like massive lasers to push 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:52.360 on those solar sales. But I think the question of 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:54.800 like building solar power in space and beaming it down 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.880 to Earth does seem pretty complicated and problematic. But you know, 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.160 maybe we're is that the early stages of this industry, 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.720 back when solar panels on your roof were expensive and 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.959 flaky and hard to arrange. Maybe we're just sort of 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:10.480 in the early days and we need to sort of 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.480 get the ball rolling. Anyway, we'll dig into it. So 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.360 you mentioned in the IBCC reports that it just didn't 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.040 seem like renewables were maybe going to be enough to 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.079 deal with the climate change problem, like what is holding 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.600 us back? Why can't we just use renewables for all 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:29.000 of our energy and you know, stop using things like coal. Yeah, well, 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:30.960 I think you put your finger on it earlier, which 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.760 is that you don't get sunlight all the time. And 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.440 in some cases there are places where you get like 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.400 a lot of sunlight exactly when you need it. For example, 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.200 if you live in Arizona and you need energy in 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.640 order to cool your house, then you're getting a lot 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.640 of sunlight right when you need to cool the house. 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.160 Sins to the energy production produced by the solar panels 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.560 are very close to the energy needs where you need 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.040 it to drive that air conditioning. But that's not always 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:57.600 the case. If, for example, you're living in the dark, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.719 cold northern Scandinavian winter, then you're not getting a lot 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:02.959 of solar power and you need power in the winter 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.280 to stay warm. And so the bottle neck there is, 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:10.200 as you said earlier, storage and transportation, Like you could 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.000 have a huge solar farm somewhere in the Sahara or 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.359 in the Mojave Desert that produces enough powerful whole country, 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.360 but getting it from there to somewhere else and storing 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:23.520 it is very, very expensive. Battery technology and transmission losses 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:27.559 make it essentially totally uneconomical. Okay, so solar panels are 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.199 just never going to take care of some parts of Earth, 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.320 that's right, because they can't get energy twenty four hours 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.160 a day and they can't get energy three sixty five 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.040 days a year. And a similar problem for wind. Right 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:43.400 wind also directly produces electricity, and electricity is hard to 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:45.920 store efficiently and hard to transfer efficiently. Is this the 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.360 kind of thing where if we improved our grid dramatically 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.840 things could improve a lot? Or are we limited by 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.400 the physics of transmission loss as you go, even with 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.160 a great grid, we still couldn't get the power to 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.679 place as we need it. Transmission losses are pretty tough, 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:01.920 and we're talking about you know, across the country or 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.760 across the world when we're talking about storage, and storage 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.600 is pretty expensive. So you know, you can't rule out 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.000 future breakthroughs in battery technology. And actually, we're gonna do 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.960 an episode in a few weeks about electric airplanes, which 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.640 require innovation in batteries to make them lighter and more powerful, 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:20.680 but current ideas don't have us getting there, and so 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.480 we have this limitation of just sort of producing the 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:25.840 power at the right time and in the right place 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.000 where it needs to be used. All right, So solar 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:30.840 power is great, but you've got these problems with trying 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:32.440 to get it from place to place and problems with 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.080 not having enough of it in some of the places 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.400 that you need it. How does spending the incredible cost 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:43.000 of putting solar power in space help us overcome these problems. Well, 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.000 the basic idea is that it's always sunny in space, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.400 So you can have these solar panels up in space 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:51.240 and they're always seeing the sun. Right, they're gonna be 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.200 a high enough orbit that they're not gonna be in 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:54.960 the Earth's shadow for very long at all, like a 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.440 very tiny fraction of their time. And of course they're 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:01.440 above the clouds, and so they have basically continuous generation 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.000 of power. And you know a lot of energy is 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.880 lost when the sunlight passes through the atmosphere. It's like 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.200 reflection and absorption and that kind of stuff. So the 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.640 idea is that you start out collecting much more solar 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.760 power five six, seven, eight times as much as the 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.440 equivalent ground based array, and so that provides you the 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.720 ability to gather more power and also to gather power 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.240 all the time. And because you're in space, you can 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:28.880 reach anyone who might need that power anywhere? Is that 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:30.640 the idea? So like you can get those people who 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:32.600 are living in Norway in the winter. Yeah. So that's 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.480 the other issue is like you generate this power in space, 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.360 then what do you do with it? Right, Because we 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.240 have already solar panels in space, like every satellite that's 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:42.640 out there, and the I s S has solar panels. 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:44.800 It's a very well established way to generate power in 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:47.840 space for use in space. But you want to generate 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:49.800 power in space and then use it to build you know, 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.120 Zack's big laser or whatever, then you need to get 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:54.720 it down to Earth. Right. So you might be imagining 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.560 like big wires draped from satellites down to Earth. Obviously 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.800 that's not gonna work, right, huge problems there, and so 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.400 the idea is to beam it down to Earth. So 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.520 you collect the power in space and then you transform 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:11.040 it into microwaves or lasers and beam that down to 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.600 Earth to some receiver which then picks it up. And 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.920 we have a fair amount of experience with working with 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.320 solar powers and space, right, So you mentioned the I S. 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:23.440 S has solar panels, solute Skylab mirror. They probably all 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.040 I'm fairly certain they all had solar panels. Also, the 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.840 rovers on Mars have solar panels yep, yep, yep. And 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.280 so we have some information about how solar panels persist 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.560 in a vacuum and how long they survive and how 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:37.040 well they do as they move in and out of 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.240 the sunlight. So which would mean they're dealing with these 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.480 massive temperature changes as you go in the area where 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:43.920 you get hit with the sun versus when you go 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:45.760 in the shadow of the Earth. And so I guess 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.080 we have a fair bit of information about the use 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:49.880 of solar panels in space. Do you think that's fair 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.120 to say? Yeah, I think we definitely have some experience. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.080 I don't know what the history of repair is for 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.360 those missions, if they're like constantly repairing and replenishing the 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.840 solar panels on the I. S. S. Because of micromedia, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.280 it's a radiation damage. So how long have people been 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:05.320 thinking about this idea? Is this like a brand new 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:07.720 idea or an idea that's sort of been floating around 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:09.520 for a while. I was doing a little bit of reading, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:11.560 and it turns out this is an idea that's been 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.600 bubbling up for decades. Actually, there was a first paper 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:16.760 about it by a Russian scientist who the name I 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.280 camp pronounce can pronounce that name, Konstantine Solkovski. There you 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.240 go in the nineteen twenties and sort of speculative idea, 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:25.560 and then I think it's sort of burst into public 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:30.480 imagination because of a short story by Isaac Asimov. He 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.800 had this device where he would collect solar power and 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.919 then beam it to various planets, like around the Solar System, 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.760 but you know, that's science fiction. And then it trickled 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.760 back into academia. In the late sixties there was a 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.400 paper by Peter Glazer sort of like trying to take 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.680 this topic seriously and break it down and ask the 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.399 questions about what would work and how much it would cost. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.280 So it's been bubbling around for you know, several decades, 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:54.320 and now people are really starting to work on it, 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.120 developing the technologies, thinking about how to beam it down 0:17:57.160 --> 0:17:59.639 to Earth, how to make it economical. The advent of 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.159 cheap launches from companies like SpaceX or bringing like you know, 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.560 into the realm of the possible. All right, So let's 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.680 take a moment to talk more about the fine details 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.800 of what exactly would need to happen in order to 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:27.200 make this technology work after we take a quick break. Okay, 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.120 So it's a little hard for me to imagine all 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.840 of the details about what will the solar panels look like, 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:34.840 how much energy will they be creating, do they need 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:36.760 to be repaired? How do you get the power down 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:38.880 to Earth? So can you give us some more details 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:40.479 about how this is all going to come together. So 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:42.760 there's a lot of different ideas for how to make 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.520 this work, lots of different sort of conceptions. Some of 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.320 them have, for example, huge mirrors that focus light onto 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.119 a few solar cells and gathered together, so you're like 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.080 capturing sunlight from a large area and then focusing onto 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.159 just a few solar cells. Other ideas are just have 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.119 like massive sheets of solar cells just like you know, 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.600 lots and lots and lots of them to capture the energy. 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.080 So there's a lot of different sort of strategies for 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:08.400 how to build this thing and how to make it work. 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:10.560 And we'll talk maybe in a little bit about which 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:12.800 ones are more economical and which ones are more feasible, 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:14.760 But one of the biggest questions to have to deal 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.080 with is how to get this power down to Earth? Right? 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.520 And it seems a little weird, like you collect the 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.080 power up in space and then you need to beam 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.639 it down to Earth. It's a little counterintuitive because it 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.280 was already sort of getting beamed down to Earth, Like 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.240 the Sun is already beaming it's power to Earth, right, 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:33.560