Harvesting the sun's abundant energy from space could provide a cost-effective way to meet the world's power needs, a group of international scientists have said.
Orbiting power plants capable of collecting solar energy and beaming it to Earth appear “technically feasible” within a decade or two based on technologies now in the laboratory, it has been claimed.
“It is clear that solar power delivered from space could play a tremendously important role in meeting the global need for energy during the 21st Century,” a study group of the Paris-headquartered International Academy of Astronautics said.
The study, which was led by John Mankins, a 25-year Nasa veteran , was billed as the first international assessment of potential ways of collecting solar energy in space and delivering it to Earth via wireless power transmission.
Some scientists believe that space solar power is a potential long-term energy solution for Earth.
The idea is to put first one, then a few, and later scores of solar-powered satellites in orbit over the equator.
Each will be as wide as several kilometers across and the spacecraft would collect sunlight up to 24 hours a day.
The power would be converted to electricity on-board the spacecraft and sent to wherever it is needed on Earth by a large microwave-transmitting antenna or by lasers, then fed into a power grid.
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