{"id":32500,"date":"2016-12-09T05:46:38","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T13:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/houston-we-have-power-space-based-solar-power-could-be-the-final-frontier-in-renewable-energy"},"modified":"2017-06-04T13:59:22","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T20:59:22","slug":"houston-we-have-power-space-based-solar-power-could-be-the-final-frontier-in-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/houston-we-have-power-space-based-solar-power-could-be-the-final-frontier-in-renewable-energy","title":{"rendered":"Houston, we have power: Space-based solar power could be the final frontier in renewable energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, renewable energy technologies exist. But solar power, the one with arguably the most promise for significant, scalable deployment, is intermittent. Although the sun provides more energy in one hour than humans consume in a year, we can only tap into this power when the sun is shining. At least, that\u2019s been the predominant school of thought.<\/p>\n

But since the 1960s, a group of researchers from NASA and the Pentagon have been thinking outside the box \u2014 or in this case, outside the atmosphere. Solar power captured in outer space would not be limited by nighttime hours or cloud cover. And \u2014 unlike 23 percent<\/a> of current incoming solar energy \u2014 it wouldn\u2019t be absorbed by water vapor, dust and ozone before reaching us. Finally, because space solar is constant, it wouldn\u2019t need to be stored, which can lead to energy losses of up to 50 percent<\/a>. In other words, taking our solar panels from the ground to the cosmos could be a great deal more efficient. It may also be key to humanity\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn countries right now where they\u2019re trying to deal with poverty, water scarcity, poor health, lack of education and political instability \u2014 these are all things you need energy in order to fight,\u201d Paul Jaffe, PhD, spacecraft engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, said in a recent TakeApart story<\/a>. Or, as John C. Mankins, founder of Mankins Space Technology and author of \u201cThe Case for Space Based Solar<\/a>,\u201d told Salon, \u201cIn the long run, renewable large-scale energy sources such as space solar power are essential to sustaining industrial civilization, and the long and increasingly high quality of lives that we enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, renewable energy technologies exist. But solar power, the one with arguably the most promise for significant, scalable deployment, is intermittent. Although the sun provides more energy in one hour than humans consume in a year, we can only tap into this power when the sun is shining. At least, that\u2019s been the predominant school [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1495,1633,1514,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-solar-power","category-space-travel","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32500"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65630,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32500\/revisions\/65630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}