[ExI] More ranting on power sats

[Keith Henson]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Charlie Stross
<charlie.stross at gmail.com> wrote:

snip
>
> (Now, if you meant to say "anthropogenic", that's another kettle of fish ...)

Talk about one the spell checker is *not* going to find.  :-)

> From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>

> But the microwave power density from satellites would be even more dilute
> than sunlight and thus you'd need even more land area to collect the
> energy.

The higher efficiency of converting microwaves to electric power lets
the power per unit are be about the same as PV, about 99% of the
time..

>I think the microwave-electricity conversion factor would be better
> than with solar, but not enough to make up for its very dilute nature. And
> I concede of course that unlike solar power satellites would work at night,
> but probably not in the rain, and they wouldn't work for up to 72 minutes a
> day when the earth eclipses anything in geosynchronous orbit.

> From: "spike" <spike66 at att.net>

> Indeed sir?  Did you forget that the plane of the ecliptic is tilted 23
> degrees from the orbit plane of the earth's orbit about the sun?  Of course
> for a few days in March and a few days in September, your comment is partly
> right, if you don't consider the penumbra all the way out there.

It's a time of low demand and if you have a grid, then we can "cross
the beams" to keep the grid fed from power sats out of the shadow.

Keith