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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

If I read your post correctly, all the satellites would beam their energy at the same point on the Earth. I think your example of New England is entirely appropriate; I too would beam the energy there. I am not too worried about health effects, but I am skeptical about the practicality of such a power scheme. In your opinion, how large would the power collection antenna have to be? Would it be an array of antennas spread over some area of land? How efficient could this whole solar-to-radio-to-electricity thing really be?


59 posted on 07/25/2008 7:07:53 AM PDT by Sender (Never lose your ignorance; you can never regain it!)
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To: Sender

The conversion efficiency would probably only be about 25% efficient end to end. The solar flux at the earths orbit is approximately 1600 Watts/meter-squared. You’d need about one square mile of orbiting collectors per gigawatt delivered power. The power could safely be focused on area the size of a football field, the collecting antenna. Spreading the receiving antennas would be unnecessary and probably unwise. You need to spread the transmitters to effect a small ground spot and to keep them “decorrelated” in the event of the failure of any one satellite.

I just used New England as the foot print size of any one transmitter as an example.

I’m not at all convinced it would be economically feasible.


60 posted on 07/25/2008 8:22:38 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (His Negritude has made his negritude the central theme of this campaign)
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