Bizarre craptastic outerspace microwave energy bill advances in the Hawaii legislature

[mahina]

15 Reps voted for it, 1 voted for it with reservations, 35 did not vote, and nobody voted against it.

The bill would create a public/private entity to siphon money away from low impact renewable energy technologies and toward ridiculously expensive super-tech solutions.

HB 1704 HD1 states: ''Although there exist green energy technologies, such as conventional photovoltaic arrays and traditional biomass fuels, these technologies alone are incapable of meeting Hawaii's energy challenges.'' (That is false.) The bill proposes that the State Government enter into a first-of-its-kind, public-private for-profit partnership called Sustainable Energy Innovation, LLC that could fund research on futuristic technological solutions to Hawai`i's energy crisis, including satellite-based solar energy collectors that could beam the energy down via microwaves to where it is needed.

Seven people/organizations filed testimony (www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2009/Testimony/HB1704_HD1_TESTIMONY_EBM-EEP_02-19-09_LATE_.pdf)

Managed Energy Technologies LLC, a Virginia-based defense contractor, stated that ''the cost of energy delivered by commercially available green energy systems is still too high and the systems themselves have been developed and optimized with markets in mind other than Hawaii and those of the rest of the Pacific region. Moreover, new sustainable energy technologies are crucial to the long-term policy interests of the US and its allies across the Pacific region ... HB 1704 would result in the creation of a government-industry consortium in the form of a limited liability company that would focus on integrating, validating and demonstrating a range of exciting new technology options that are chosen and tailored for application in Hawaii and across the Pacific region'' (i.e., military solutions).

Former Governor George Ariyoshi testified in favor of ''space and terrestrial-based solar energy solutions''.

DBEDT, stated it was not in their budget, but suggested that the bill move forward.

BluePlanet Foundation stated: ''We would support the creation of a state Hawai'i Energy Security Authority (HESA), something akin to the existing Hawai'i Tourism Authority (HTA). HESA would be a stand-along entity, tasked with all aspects of planning, research, permitting, and implementation of Hawaii's clean energy future. The Authority would be funded solely from a fee on each barrel of oil imported into the state.''

Life of the Land pointed out that existing technology, including wind, sun, wave, ocean thermal, can supply all of our energy needs many times over, that the problem is not a lack of technology, but a lack of the political willingness to require actual deployment of low-climate-impact renewable energy systems. The consortium would be dominated by non-Hawaii governmental, defense and university contractors.

Rep. Ward (R-Douchebag) pointed out that while other countries have for-profit public private partnerships, the U.S. has not.

Yesterday, 15 representatives voted in favor of the bill as it: Representatives Cabanilla, Chang, Ching, Chong, Choy, Coffman, Evans, Herkes, C. Lee, Luke, McKelvey, Morita, Tsuji, Ward, and Wooley

You can find their contacts at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/info/direct/repdir.asp
To track: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2009/lists/RptIntroHB.aspx

[Betsy Ross]

1. Hawaii is so thermally active

it would seem to be a possible source for energy.

[sam sarrha]

3. that is WAY TOOOO OBVIOUS, not to mention CHEAP AND EASY

[mahina]

5. I think the Big Island is using geothermal for about 20-25% of its electricity now.

The islands are not connected, so until that happens, what's made on the Big Island stays on the Big Island.

We have more than enough wind, solar, and wave resources to do the job, at what would have to be a tiny fraction of the cost. Check out Oceanlinx http://www.oceanlinx.com/
IMW per station. Wow, laulau...

[sam sarrha]

2. nothing will ever work out involving privatizing the Commonwealth

[bananas]

4. This may be a good thing

I don't know about the specifics of this bill,
but eventually space solar power will be a major energy source.
Hawaii can't be connected to a continental grid,
and when oil prices rise again transportation by boat or airplane will become very expensive.

(edited subject to "may be", it depends on the bill)

[mahina]

6. Well, it may be a good thing for somebody, but not for us...

What we need is distributed generation. Because our grid is so fragile and our energy generation so centralized, when we had two blackouts we had horrendous environmental conequences- (think millions of gallons of sewage spilled)

We need solar, wind and tidal energy. Big centralized generation looks like another way to hold on to the (forgive me) power.

[struggle4progress]

7. I doubt if it's much good for anybody except the people paid to investigate it

In 2005, Hawaii used about 10 000 GWh of electric power, about 90% from sources other than hydro or renewable -- so solar satellite power needs to make a dent in 9 000 GWh to be useful; say one aims for 1000 GWh. Since there are about 8760 hours a year (probably not all available for transfer of solar satellite power), on average the power rate would have exceed 100 MW to make up the 1 000 GWh. If one devotes 2500 sq km (or about 1000 sq mi) to a collector(s) for this, the collector(s) must see about 40 kW per sq km -- or about 40 times the highest intensity of midday sunlight; of course, in reality, the peak intensities will be higher because the device(s) presumably will not be working round the clock. The potential effects of this on humans and other ecosystem components will vary with wavelength: short microwaves can excite some molecular modes and transfer heat; longer microwaves in the 1 - 10 meter range can cause significant currents in the human body. This might raise a host of questions about what one would do, for example, if a mis-tracking satellite could not be shut down

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/electricity.cfm/state=HI
http://www.antennex.com/preview/Folder03/Jul3/mwabsor.htm
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/radiofrequencyradiation/hazards.html

The bottom line is, of course, that the consortium working on "solar satellites" as a source of energy is unlikely to provide a useful contribution to Hawaii's energy needs

[skids]

11. The other problem with this is the sheer surface area...

...they seem to want to put in geostationary orbit. That's not as crowded as LEO, but this would have a pretty huge cross section.

You may have read about the recent corruption of LEO by debris from a collision between two satellites.
http://www.dailytech.com/Space+Nations+Unsure+How+to+Handle+Space+Junk/article14304.htm

While there's a lot more space out in the geostationary ring, this would still be a concern.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r2642668j47q71k4/

[struggle4progress]

12. Yeah, assuming sunlight has 3X power above the atmosphere and assuming only 1/3 of the

transmission is lost, producing 100MW at groundlevel requires 150MW transmission from 3kW per sq km sunlight, which (even with perfect collection and re-emission as a microwave beam) would require something like 33 000 sq km of collector: as a square, that would be about 100 mi on side

Assuming a 0.1 mm particle hits every sq m of that every day, that collector experiences something like a billion small impacts daily, before one even considers larger impacts from space junk or interplanetary pebbles

[skids]

14. check your units...

3kW a square km?

Still, where they think they are going to find a clear ring to fly this thing... oh hell this thing is too ridiculous to even bother with the discussion.

Sad thing is when someone posted it as a whitepaper to change.gov the illiterates showed up and lavished it with praise.

Christ on a trailer hitch, what the hell is so wrong with building a nice distributed terrestrial storage and generation network that gets rank-and-file people acting so allergic to it they would even consider such a thing? Is it just that it's boring?

[struggle4progress]

15. oops. thanks: it's more like 1kW per sq m so about 1 GW per sq km

under optimal circumstances

eh ... a factor of a million here or there ...

[bananas]

17. Your numbers are way off.

One thing I've learned about DU,
don't tell people to "do the math",
because they'll get it wrong.

[wtmusic]

22. Hmm.

One thing I've learned about DU is that the people who criticize others for doing the math are usually incapable of doing it themselves.

Or maybe you'd like to point out just how SFP's numbers are "way off".

[struggle4progress]

25. Skids was right: I dropped a factor of 1000 in computing the power of high noon sunlight

[bananas]

18. He needs to check more than his units. nt

[struggle4progress]

19. Well, let's go through some of it again, correcting some of my mistakes:

9000 GWh non-renewable consumption in Hawaii I linked above
Over a year (8760 h) that's about 1GW continuously
Say a reasonable dent in that is 10% or about 100MW

The best solar cell efficiency one might hope for currently is less than 50%
There is also the full spectrum issue
So suppose we could get 50% full spectrum conversion
http://cleantechnica.com/2009/01/20/german-researchers-break-solar-cell-efficiency-record/
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-full-spectrum-solar-cell.html

Say insolation above the atmosphere is about 1.4KW per sq m
http://www.bookrags.com/research/insolation-and-total-solar-irradian-woes-01/
One won't collect more than 700 W per sq m

Maybe one loses only 1/3 in transmission
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/visionary-beams.html
So the most optimistic assumption is something like 500 W ground level per sq m of collector in orbit
This leads 200 000 sq m of collector for 100MW of ground power

There are many optimistic assumptions built into that: abolishing the optimism will increase orbiting collector size enormously, say to at least 1 sq km continuously illuminated; geosynchronous orbits would require several such collectors; every one of them will still be hit a million times a day by 0.1 mm particles

[struggle4progress]

20. The typical proposed ground antennae are of the order of 80 sq km

so the 100 MW corresponds to a density of about 1 MW per sq km (1 W per sq m or 10 mW per sq cm) -- just about what the the 1999 IEEE standard recommends as the limit for 6 minute exposure
http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/radiofrequencyqa.html

My apologies for screwin up the units

[bananas]

23. You're getting closer

but why make guesstimates when this has been studied extensively?
They've even done wind tunnel tests with birds.
This is the most environmentally benign form of power generation,
except maybe fusion, if we ever get that to work.
Energy payback is about a year, but launch costs are high,
so it has high EROEI but low ERO$I.
We just have to get the launch costs down, and people are working on that.

http://electricalandelectronics.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/01145676.pdf

http://www.permanent.com/p-sps-bi.htm
http://www.permanent.com/p-sps-bm.htm
http://www.permanent.com/p-sps-cm.htm

[struggle4progress]

24. "Launch costs are high" is an understatement: the study I just looked at

suggested a weight of 0.5 - 10 kg/kW (or 500 - 10000 tonne/GW) and a launch cost of $10000/kg ($10,000,000/tonne), which leads to an estimated cost of $5E13 - 1E15 to launch an assembly with 1 GW capacity; $5E13 is of the order of the world economy, so (using the current estimated cost) putting a smaller 100 MW facility at US government expense would approximately double the national debt. Economic activity at this scale is unlikely to be environmentally benign

The degradation rate will be 1 - 2% per yr; assuming 20 yr service with 1% annual degradation rate, the integrated output (assuming constant optimal illumination) will correspond to about like 18 times the initial year, so a device initially capable of delivering 1 GW to ground will produce something like 160000 GWh over its lifetime, with a launch cost in the range $317 000 000 per GWh ($317 000 per MWh or $317 per kWh). The heavier 10 kg/kW estimate multiplies the cost/kWh; using a 2% degradation rate adds about 10% to the cost/kWh. Current overall US electric costs average about $0.10/kWh. This isn't a factor problem; it's an orders-of-magnitude problem

[bananas]

26. Your math is getting worse - off by 7 orders of magnitude!

It's an orders-of-magnitude problem because your math is off by 7 orders of magnitude.
0.5-10 kg/kW * $10k/kg = $5-100k/kW which is $5-100B for a 1GW satellite.
That's $5E6-1E8, not $5E13-1E15.
Estimates for new nuclear are $6-10k/kW so at the low range it's cheaper than nuclear.
There are cheaper launch vehicles now, eventually they expect under $500/kg.

[struggle4progress]

27. Your math is as bad as mine. Let's see: $1E4/kg = $1E7/tonne so

5E2 - 1E4 tonne/GW is in the range $5E9-$1E11/GW launch costs, and I'm off by 1E4 not 1E7. D@mn! Gotta watch those pesky exponents!

Anyway, these are merely transport costs, not manufacturing or assembly cost. Westinghouse a few years back estimated new nuclear facilities could be built for about $1E3/kW or $1E9GW, so even at the low end the cost of shipping the collector to orbit appears to exceed the nuclear industry's total construction estimates per kW. The true cost of nuclear typically exceeds industry construction estimates; I don't know if your $6E3 - $1E4 estimate is accurate or not

[bananas]

28. Well that just proves my point about how bad the math is around here!

I make mistakes too!

Here's a recent study which estimates new nuclear at $10,553/kW,
the author of the study answers questions in the comments section of the blog entry:
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants

Another estimate:
"In May 2008, Moody's Investment Service estimated the capital cost for new reactors at $7,500/kW."
http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/press/press-releases/ontario-wearing-economic-blind

The applications for DOE loan guarantees averaged $6,528/kW,
I did the math on this one, so please double-check it:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x173575

[struggle4progress]

29. The more sensible comparison might be to ground-based solar

for which current costs may run in the range $1-$2/W or $1E9-2E9 /GW

New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production
Colorado's State Univ.'s panels will cost less than $1 per watt.
Sept. 10, 2007
Colorado State University's method for manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production ... http://www.industryweek.com/articles/new_low_cost_solar_panels_ready_for_mass_production_14932.aspx

This suggests current ground-based solar can be installed for something like the estimated launch-costs of hypothetical space-based capacity. Crudely, one might expect future collector efficiency improvements to affect both ground-based and hypothetical space-based systems in approximately the same way, so there's no reason to expect the gap to close, unless it became possible to produce light-weight full-spectrum collectors that were much cheaper to produce than collectors suitable for ground-level deployment -- because (say) they somehow took advantage of high vacuum conditions

Your nuclear cost estimates suggest photovoltaics can now beat nuclear -- but of course as bad as I think nuclear is environmentally, the semiconductor industry isn't at all environmentally benign either

[wtmusic]

8. "beam the energy down via microwaves to where it is needed"

:rofl: stop, you're killing me. :rofl:

[mahina]

9. Not my words,

fyi. I think it's pure bullshit.

[wtmusic]

10. Understood

"craptastic", like you said.

:thumbsup:

[TheWraith]

13. Actually the science is sound; it's the logistics that suck.

In theory, this system would work as advertised. The problem is that launching a satellite large enough to capture significant energy and retransmit it down here would be prohibitively expensive.

[wtmusic]

16. I guess that's kind of what I meant.

The jump from theory to practicality that sometimes makes an idea a no-starter.

But not just because size (losses from atmospheric disturbances and raining radiation down on populated areas help).

[TheWraith]

21. I think that the technical hurdles could be overcome.

But until and unless we have an infinitely more efficient system for launching payloads into orbit, something like a EM catapult or fusion plasma drive, the costs don't change. (Of course, if we had a fusion plasma drive, that would make space-based solar power pretty redundant.)