Japan eyes solar station in space

[bananas]

Japan eyes solar station in space

By Karyn Poupee (AFP) – 17 hours ago

TOKYO — It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan's space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves.

The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades.

<snip>

The researchers are targeting a one gigawatt system, equivalent to a medium-sized atomic power plant, that would produce electricity at eight yen (cents) per kilowatt-hour, six times cheaper than its current cost in Japan.

<snip>

Within several years, "a satellite designed to test the transmission by microwave should be put into low orbit with a Japanese rocket," said Tatsuhito Fujita, one of the JAXA researchers heading the project.

The next step, expected around 2020, would be to launch and test a large flexible photovoltaic structure with 10 megawatt power capacity, to be followed by a 250 megawatt prototype.

<snip>

[poverlay]

1. Now I know what stock to buy in a few years. Amazing. I'm so glad somebody is working on this!.n/t

[metapunditedgy]

2. I guarantee there are already billion+ dollar interests out there thinking:

1) How can I stop this, and/or
2) How can I weaponize this.

Go Japan!

[Lucky Luciano]

3. either that or "How can I invest in this?" nt

[eppur_se_muova]

4. 1 Billion Watts of microwaves beamed at one of Earth's most densely populated countries?

What could possibly go wrong?

[caraher]

5. Depends

Back in the '70s when this idea first got a lot of serious attention the receiving arrays were huge, meaning the power densities were not very high. I think the main thing I'd worry about is not some catastrophe from misdirected beams but how birds, etc. might be affected by chronic low-level exposure.