A century-old vision of space-based solar power is being revived by tech billionaires, raising profound questions about the future structure of electricity markets and AI-driven energy demand.
Some of you may remember devouring those paperbacks with lurid, futuristic covers, imagining the worlds conjured up by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury the planetary entrepreneurs, the galactic empires, and the firemen who burned books.
Back in 1941, Asimov wrote a story about solar power space stations that beamed the energy to Earth. Arthur C. Clarke later 1951 laid out how to use satellites for communications in The Exploration of Space, but he also noted a German idea, from decades earlier, to put mirrors in space to beam back warming rays to the earth early climate control. Fast forward to 1968, when Arthur D. Little consultant Peter Glaser proposed a solar power satellite. In 1989, a NASA panel issued a report on building fusion power stations on the moon, with a number of the panelists, including Glaser, thinking that maybe solar power satellites were a better idea. Okay, you must be thinking, if you got this far, that this solar power satellite talk has gotten nowhere for a century. You certainly cannot sell the concept to an industry that cherishes coal and can't keep the lights on during and after bad storms. But enter Elon Musk, who proclaims that he will, within three years, put solar-powered AI data centers into space and beam the data back to earth. Jeff Bezos made a similar prediction late last year. Some of the more cautious think that the project will take ten years. The economics is not there yet. But, we're dealing with tech bros with big egos and a legion of fervid investors who want to get in on the next big thing, so we doubt that shaky economics will stop the projects. And once they are built, the technology remains even if the initial builders fail to reap financial rewards. Now for the power markets. If you can put up a satellite with solar panels to power AI data centers that take as much electricity as a small city, would it be any more difficult to put up a solar power satellite that beams down enough energy to supply a small city Would solar power satellites become suppliers to micro-grids and small systems or to a central power network Previously, we were sure the latter choice was the answer, but not anymore. If the space tech bros succeed, what will this do to the on-the-ground electricity demand of AI centers, which have now become the sole growth vehicle of the electric industry, now that the Trump administration has pretty much declared decarbonization and electric vehicles un-American Have we been reading too much science fiction Hey, science fiction writers predicted the advent of submarines, travel to the moon, ray guns, omnipresent surveillance, satellites, and intelligent and malevolent computers. They had vision. How many visionary electricity industry executives have you met lately By Leonard S.Hyman and William I. Tilles for Oilprice.com
Space-Based Solar Elon Musk Jeff Bezos AI Data Centers Electricity Markets Microgrids Energy Transition Space Technology Power Infrastructure
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