Audobon Magazine: Companies are competing to reap energy from the heavens.

[bananas]

"The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency aims to generate 100,000 megawatts with SBSP by 2035."

http://www.audubonmagazine.org/fieldnotes/fieldnotes1009-solar.html

Solar Power
Space Race
Companies are competing to reap energy from the heavens.
By Sarah Parsons

Picture a massive, solar cell-lined satellite hovering in outer space. The solar panels continuously collect light from the sun, making energy that’s beamed to earth, where it’s transformed into clean electricity.

It sounds like science fiction, but space-based solar power (SBSP) is quickly becoming a reality. “The idea has been around since the 1960s, but the technology was way behind the vision,” says William Maness, chief technology officer at SBSP company PowerSat. “Now we have computers the size of our watches and thin-film solar cells thinner than a piece of paper. The economics have changed.”

Several companies aim to capitalize on those technological innovations and the world’s growing interest in renewable energy. In January the California Public Utilities Commission green-lighted a power purchase agreement between Pacific Gas and Electric and Solaren Corp., which plans to produce 200 megawatts of SBSP by 2016, enough energy to power thousands of homes, says Cal Boerman, the company’s director of energy services. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency aims to generate 100,000 megawatts with SBSP by 2035. With projects also in the works in China and Europe, the quest to launch the first SBSP system is quickly becoming the next great space race.

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“It will cost billions of dollars, but any nuclear plant of similar capacity costs the same,” counters Maness. “We can do something cleaner and get you the same amount of power.”