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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Hopelessly skipping microwave power plants because of rich Oil-Men
 
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Tias
May 25, 2008

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CommieGIR posted:

I'm saying pouring MEGAWATTS of energy through the atmosphere is a terrible idea, regardless of giant metal rods or giant tubes.

The current satellites in orbit generate maybe 400-500 watts on average for their payloads. Even the ISS generates only about 84 Kilowatts from its massive solar panels. You are wanting to generate Megawatts, and then pass those through an atmosphere. Ivanpah generates ~320 MW and covers THOUSANDS of acres. So to get to the scale you want to be at, we'd need an orbiting solar panel thousands of acres in size.

This. A sustainable model of star energy collection was already proposed back in the sixties by way of Dyson Spheres/Swarms: Fucktons of radiation panels put up close to and around a star (in our case, the sun), but the technology to do so still eludes us. Especially since, if we blocked off the sun, we'd have to go live on the habitat we'd build around it, and that's kinda hard too.

* # ¿ Apr 22, 2015 08:03
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Hopelessly skipping microwave power plants because of rich Oil-Men