MICROWAVE SOLAR POWER
The recent invention of very thin film solar electric material based on inexpensive flexible plastic sheets makes possible a huge paraboloid balloon shaped to capture solar energy and launched into space where sunlight will be uninterrupted outside the atmosphere. The parabolic shape will permit the energy to be converted to an electromagnetic frequency that can pass through cloud cover with minimum loss and at low enough density to be relatively not dangerous as it makes its way to a receiver station on the ground where it can be reconverted to standard electricity for grid transmission. The space balloon would have one half of its surface transparent and the other half solar electric and vacuum metal coated to act as a parabolic antenna. Conceivably it could be several miles in diameter.
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I have often pondered if this was possible. What stumped me is how the balloon would deploy? What would fill the balloon and what weight burder would this place on the lift vehicle? Also, with this kind of energy traveling through the atmosphere, would this cause radio signal problems in the area of transmission from the energy ballons? How big of an area would be disrupted? In my design I didn't see the energy coming back to earth but powering a much bigger space platform than the current space station in orbit. An Earth based receiver would be a phenomenal advance in power production if we could pull it off. How many kilo/megawatts do you estimate your balloon design could produce? How much would be lost in the atmosphere as it returned to earth and what effects would weather produce as the beam returned to earth? I am glad I submitted this. Hopefully others might have some input of making this happen or at least be thought about openly.
Correction... glad YOU submitted this!
It is not a totally novel idea. The only new aspect is the utilization of the newly developed solar panels. Any gas could be used to inflate the balloon, but if it were inflated with a breathable atmosphere it might have application as a space station. The film is extremely thin and fragile so I doubt it could be utilized by itself for retaining a breathable atmosphere but the concept is extremely sketchy amd I have no real expertise in the area. If the frequency of the transmitted power were carefully chosen it should be transmissable through cloud cover.
Another problem is colocation. Microwave in the form of a MASER needs to target a reciever. As the balloon drifts, new volumes of atmosphere are permeated with microwave energy. Aircraft may accidently fly through these fields of energy. Electrical instrumentation, human health factors, pace makers, ... I would think this concept could be deployed by a space elevator or the space shuttle and exist in geosynchronous orbit.