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Energy in the Space Age
by Christopher Wilkinson
2008-07-06 09:45:24 |
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I have never read the following idea in science-fiction literature, but I believe I should have.
Consider a large concave perfect mirror floating some seventy or eighty thousand feet above the surface of the Earth. Consider that it was not designed, like the Hubble, to look out into the stars, but to serve the Earth.
How? Consider that the Earth turns around, while the satellite can either hold a relative spatial position or be brought into a geo-symmetric orbit. Let us here consider the idea of a geo-symmetric orbit. That is, the mirror-satellite remains above the Earth in basically the same spot – Earth-wise. It might hover in a space that made the light it reflected always able to strike a specific point in Kansas, for example.
Now consider current progress in superconductor technology. It’s quite amazing.
Now consider that the chosen orbit of this mirror-satellite is such that it can always catch the sun’s rays and reflect them to a given spot on the Earth. Earth-side, a receiving station for the intense light-beam that would descend from this satellite would be built. Materials for absorbing the blasting rays, converting them to heat and conducting this heat to water-filled Steam Stations, which steam would them rise and spin turbines, creating electricity.
Whether this method would be damaging to the ozone layer remains to be analyzed. The benefits of having not only pollution-free power and the generation of steam in large quantities – which steam could be produced by boiling sea water – would then create cloud banks that would assist in greater rainfall, to the benefit of agriculture, nature, and the hydroelectric industry.
Does everybody win? Would such a device potentially be a weapon out of a James Bond Thriller? Does the idea deserve to be considered seriously? I do believe the idea deserves, at the very least, to be incorporated into one of the sci-fi classics.
Think about it.
science-fiction energy Science Environment |
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