7 Responses

1. After you set up a solar panel to work, there isn’t much work that will need to be done to maintain it (in comparison to other forms of energy).

   You’re specifically asking about satellites? I don’t think there is wind in space. And there isn’t geothermal or tidal activity either.

2. Biomass. You can actually go carbon negative and clean up the atmosphere with biomass.

   If you really want a presence in space then support the 1950’s era Project Orion which was to use the shock waves from small atomic bombs to launch a massive ship into space complete with all the infrastructure needed to mine raw materials and manufacture whatever we needed in space. A single launch could launch hundreds to thousands of people, millions of tons of equipment and would only be responsible for maybe 0.1 to 1 deaths globally per launch due to the cancer risks of the slight radiation increase. The radiation increase would be negligible compared to that from the weapon testing programs of the 50’s anyways. Only one launch would be needed to firmly establish an industrial complex in space. Project Orion can be done with 1950’s technology, otherwise you’ll have to wait for carbon nanotubes and other exotic technologies to develop before you can inexpensively get the materials needed for Solar Power Satellites built in space.

3. Launching a satellite is NOT cheap.

   Using solar power ON satellites IS being used now!
   Generating power on satellites for use on earth is a whole other problem.

4. Launching satellites and providing a linkup back to Earth is so expensive that even with the massive increase in power output from being out of the atmosphere I’m almost certain it’s still more expensive than terrestrial renewables.

   Wind, hydro, tidal, wave, ocean current, solar, geothermal and biomass.

5. there is wind energy.

6. The Japanese gov. A year ago were investigating if it ws possible to build a solar in space with a tether to earth to transfer power. Have not heard anything since. Maybe N.Korea threatened to shoot it down. Can you imagine the power they would be able to generate.Zap!

7. I am not clear as to whether you are asking

   i) whether there are cheaper ways to power satellites (“solar-powered satellites”)
   in which case no, I shouldn’t think so, once a satellite is in orbit sunlight is a free, inexhaustible power source, reliable (no clouds in space and no atmosphere to dissipate UVs) and so readily available

   or

   ii) whether there are ways of generating power that are cheaper than orbiting solar collectors (“solar satellites”)

   in which case, yes, almost anything would be cheaper than this gimmicky, frankly unhinged plan… the transmission losses over that distance would be astronomical and, as a cable would be technically impossible, it would require some sort of laser beam… with even greater losses, owing to atmospheric beam scattering.