April 30,2004Space Solar Power Workshop1 The Clean and Natural Baseload Energy Solution -- Space...

April 30,2004 Space Solar Power Workshop 1

The Clean and Natural Baseload Energy Solution

-- Space Solar Power

“Energy and the Near Term Future" March 30, 2007

Foundation for the FutureBellevue, WA 98004

Darel PrebleChair, Space Solar Power Workshopwww.sspi.gatech.edu


Space Solar Power

No other energy alternative can so fully, cleanly and directly address so many of the dangerous, complex and intractable threats we face:

I. Peak Oil – increasing competition for declining global oil production;

energy cost; energy security; nuclear proliferation; energy-associated terrorism.

II. Escalating climate change – drought, increasing wildfires and hurricanes, famine, flooding. Food or Fuel production dilemma- rising food costs - declining nutrition in our food;

“We truly are standing at the edge of mass extinction” of species. - Co-author Terry Root of Stanford University.

“Things are happening and happening faster than we expected,” - Co-author Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for

Atmospheric Research. - “Climate report sounds dire warnings - Global warming effects could mean hundreds of millions without water” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17554963/ MSNBC.com Associated Press March 10, 2007


Current efforts/plans are not helping the CO2 picture!


SSP could provide 100 Terrawatts from GSO.

Cleanly.


Many people don't know what space solar power is - even those in the energy, environment, and aerospace fields - and especially public policy. SSP has no research budget and no constituency. They don't understand that it is the most potent weapon we have in the campaign for energy security and against runaway climate change. Because they don't understand the immense progress that aerospace and many other advanced technology pioneers have made in the recent years. These entrepreneurs are ready to grow cis-lunar space business into trillions of dollars per year if we can give them a boost up. We cannot waste this serendipitous and holy opportunity.

A new US GAO report finds that a large number of experts believe the world may have reached the peak for conventional petroleum supplies. The report provides "an extensive look at ... the academic and scientific community and has calculated a consensus on where they think peak oil is in our future.“ - Jim Wells, director of the natural resources and environment division at GAO. "Congressman says US report points to arrival of peak oil “, 28 Feb 2007 http://www.platts.com/Oil/News/6360268.xml


“It will require more than a decade to transition our civilization away from our heavy dependence on oil. Nothing close to the efforts envisaged have yet begun.

- Testimony by Robert Hirsch, SAIC, at the Pentagon and U.S. Congressional Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing, from the "Hirsch Report", commissioned by the Department of Energy -http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/hearings/12072005Hearing1733/hearing.htm and "Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management www.netl.doe.gov/otiic/World_Oil_Issues/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf

August 31,2006 Space Solar Power Workshop 9

“World oil production is at or near its peak and current world demand exceeds the supply.”

“Saudi Arabia is considered the bellwether nation for oil production and has not increased production since April 2003.”

- “Energy Trends and Their Implications for U.S. Army Installations”, by D. Fournier and E. Westervelt, September 2005, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/files/2005-09_US_Army_Corps_of_Engineers_Energy_Trends.pdf


Mexico’s Super giant field Cantarell is in Decline

Pemex CEO says production will fall without massive help to develop Ku-Maloob-Zaap, a heavy crude and/or Chicontepec with small oil pockets within fractured rock. Developing Chicontepec requires $38 billion to drill 20,000 wells, more than Pemex has drilled in 70 years. (With drilling technology Pemex doesn’t have.) Mexico’s Congress refuses to allow private investment. Production at Cantarell dropped by 12% in 2006, and a 15% decline is expected in 2007. - “Pemex Oil Output to Drop Without Private Investment” March 30 (Bloomberg) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aiCFqPwH6eo4


The supply gap for the US natural gas market alone could reach 10 Trillion Cubic feet/year by 2020[1]. (In Btu equivalent terms, this is nearly twice the amount of oil the U.S. currently imports from the Middle East.) Globally the oil supply gap of 2020 has been projected to be 15 million barrels per day[2]. On this massive scale required, we briefly compare SSP with other alternative energy technologies:

[1] “Playing with Fire - Part II”, http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1397

[2] “Is There A Painless Way To Fill The Oil Supply Gap?”, by Dr Michael R. Smith, http://www.energyfiles.com/oilsupplygap.html


Clean? Safe? Reliable? Baseload?

Fossil Fuel No Yes Decades remaining Yes

Nuclear No Yes Fuel very limited Yes

Wind Power Yes Yes No, intermittent No

Ground Solar Yes Yes No, intermittent No

Hydro Yes Yes No; drought; complex scheduling

Bio-fuels Yes Yes Very limited quantities - competes directly with food production. *

SSP Yes Yes Yes Yes


Some Peak Oil links :

Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO)http://www.peakoil.net/

Energy Bulletin http://www.energybulletin.net/

Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC) http://www.odac-info.org/

Peak Oil Committees and Task Forceshttp://oilawareness.meetup.com/about/

Oil Drum http://www.theoildrum.com/

Matthew Simmonshttp://www.simmonsco- intl.com/research.aspx?

Type=msspeeches


Increasing levels of CO2 are

impacting all

ecosystems.


Using Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiments to create doubled CO2 environments, impact on plants can be measured and predicted accurately :

Harshaw Experimental Forest near Rhinelander, Wisconsin http://oden.nrri.umn.edu/factsii/


Plant-available nitrogen decreases 40 to 50 % under elevated carbon dioxide ...

Resulting in reduced nutrition from forage and grasses grown under doubled CO2 .


Ruminants, including cattle, sheep, oxen, buffalo, deer, etc., are the source of nearly all the milk and half the meat the world eats. They will gain weight more slowly under under doubled CO2 »» Kansas State University

http://spuds.agron.ksu.edu/gainco2.gif


Rice and wheat, the top grains in the world, both decline in nutritional value based on testing under elevated CO2.

Wheat grown at doubled CO2 declines in protein content by 9-13%. Wheat grown at high CO2 produces poorer dough of lower extensibility and decreased loaf volume. Hence, for bread making, the quality of flour, produced from wheat grain developed at high temperatures and in elevated CO2, degrades.

Nutrition from grains drops - wheat


“The nutritive value of rice was also changed at high CO2 due to a reduction in grain nitrogen and, therefore, protein concentration.” The protein content of rice declines under combined increases of temperature and CO2.

Iron and zinc concentrations in rice, important for human nutrition, would be lower.

Nutrition from grains drops - rice


Wild Bees And The Flowers They Pollinate Are Disappearing Together

An international team of researchers from the UK, the Netherlands and Germany compiled biodiversity records for 100s of sites, and found that bee diversity fell in almost 80% of them. Over the last 25 years, many bee species are declining or have become extinct. Plant declines closely mirrored those of their pollinators.

Researchers were shocked by decline in plants as well as bees. If this pattern is replicated elsewhere, the 'pollinator services' we take for granted could be at risk.“, said Dr Koos Biesmeijer, Univ of Leeds.

The economic value of crop pollination worldwide is between £20 and 50 billion each year. - Science, 21 July 2006, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060721200158.htm

Field scabious (Photo: Gérard Minet)


Macro Global Climate Change

Large scale climate changes:

• drought heat waves • floods severe storms

are immense problems to forecast or model. Where does “regular weather” end and climate changed weather begin?“Abrupt climate change” is a growing and poorly understood concern.


Global Ocean Slowing – Temporary or Increasing?

Much of the ocean water in the high latitudes of the Northand South Atlantic has grown fresher over the last fifty years, as tropical Atlantic waters became dramatically saltier. These were due to evaporation rates over the tropical Atlantic increasing by 5% - 10 over the last 40 yrs.

“The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge the continent into a mini ice age. A study of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream.” - "Failing ocean current raises fears of mini ice age" by Fred Pearce, Nature (vol 438, p 655)

www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398 See also www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewArticle.do?id=9206 www.mbl.edu/inside/what/news/press_releases/2006_pr_08_24.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398

http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewArticle.do?id=9206

http://www.mbl.edu/inside/what/news/press_releases/2006_pr_08_24.html


More Bigger Hurricanes

The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has doubled over the past 36 years, even though the total number of hurricanes has dropped since the 1990s. The only region in the world experiencing more hurricanes and tropical cyclones overall is the North Atlantic, where they have become more numerous and longer-lasting, especially since 1995. The shift occurred as global sea surface temperatures have increased over the same period. – “Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment”, by P. J. Webster, G. J. Holland, J. A. Curry, H.-R. Chang, Science, 16 September 2005: Vol. 309. no. 5742, pp. 1844 – 1846 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5742/1844 and www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/hurricanestudy.shtml also http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=898

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5742/1844

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/hurricanestudy.shtml

http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=898

http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=898


“Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century. Research indicates that increased levels of carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. ...

“Scientific research provides a basis for mitigating the harmful effects of global climate change through decreased human influences, technological advancement, ...

- adopted by the Council, American Geophysical Union, December, 2003


“The costs of natural disasters, aggravated by global warming, threaten to spiral out of control, forcing the human race into a catastrophe of its own making”. The economic costs of such disasters threaten to double to $150 billion a year in 10 years, hitting insurers with $30-40 billion in claims, or the equivalent of one World Trade Centre attack annually.

"There is a danger that human intervention will accelerate and intensify natural climate changes to such a point that it will become impossible to adapt our socio-economic systems in time. The human race can lead itself into this climatic catastrophe -- or it can avert it.”

- World's second-largest reinsurer, Swiss Re,

Geneva (Reuters) March 3, 2004


“2005 was marked by record losses from hurricanes in the North Atlantic, with insured losses exceeding US$ 83 billion and about $350 billion dollars of uninsured economic loss, e.g., including lost profits, lost business opportunities, etc.

Florida’s largest property insurer, State Farm Insurance, raised their average hurricane rates from $1,733 to $3,101 this year.

- “Hurricanes – More intense, more frequent, more expensive Insurance in a time of changing risks” Munich Re and American Re, (The 2005 hurricane season) April 2006, page 18, http://www.munichre.com/publications/302-04891_en.pdf?rdm=1825


“Things are happening and happening faster than we expected,” said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the many co-authors of the new IPCC report.

“Climate report: Droughts, starvation, disease - Global warming effects could mean hundreds of millions without water”, March 10, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17554963/


In Summary

• Oil production slowly declines as oil prices set record highs against roaring demand, triggering other price increases. Declining oil stocks intensify global tensions. • Production of nutritious food is very slowly declining, similar to Biosphere II. Many agricultural regions experiencing increasing drought. Water for irrigation is in short supply. Fertilizer, essential to many crops, especially corn, becomes more expensive as natural gas and electricity rise in cost. • Global Ocean Circulation has begun slowing, warping our climate further.• Energy alternatives reveal SSP to be key energy solution


Global oil usage is inefficient, producing more waste heat and injecting more CO2 into the atmosphere per Btu than any other fossil fuel. The Air-CarRuns on compressed air. Top speed 68 mph. Range ~250 km. 4 models.Recharges in 3 minutes at acost of 1.5 Euros. Compressor “exhaust” is clean cold air – it runs the air conditioner: www.theaircar.com www.gizmag.com/go/7000/

Conservation & better technology can help


SPS requires no fuel and has no operations personnel – it is an antenna – with farms underneath.

It is the cleanest source of virtually unlimited baseload energy.

SSP is available 99% of the year at GSO. Baseload nuclear or coal plants are available only 90%.


With SSP -- that nuclear power plant 93 million miles away

nuclear waste problems

nuclear fuel supply worries

nuclear proliferation problems

Evaporate ..


"We are in the beginning stages of major changes to agricultural markets caused by rapidly expanding production of bio-fuels.“

– Credit Suisse Group, in “Corn Is Booming as Ethanol Heats Up”, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116260858542413472.html

Although that is only one-seventh the quantity President Bush foresees for 2015, that demand has pushed corn to near-record prices. “If all the corn produced in America in 2005 were dedicated to ethanol production it would reduce U.S. demand for gasoline by, at most, 12 percent...

– “A bumper crop of unintended consequences”, http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=180746


"75,000 Mexicans stood up in Mexico City’s giant Zocalo plaza to denounce the rising price of tortillas...

“Calderon stole the elections, and now he’s stealing the tortillas!” screamed a banner...

“If all the corn produced in America in 2005 were dedicated to ethanol production it would reduce U.S. demand for gasoline by, at most, 12 percent...

- “A bumper crop of unintended consequences”, February 3, 2007 http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=180746


To reach Bush’s 20 percent goal, corn production must grow to 167 percent of its 2005 levels, and every kernel must go into ethanol. Kiss your corn pudding goodbye.

Corn is also the major feed/ingredient for chickens, pigs, cattle; milk, cheese, eggs, hamburger, Coke, Pepsi, Jack Daniels, etc., ...

(By weight, a McDonald’s hamburger is 52% corn.)


“The 111 ethanol refineries now in operation, the 75 under construction or expansion, and others still being planned, would be able to use 10 billion bushels of corn a year by 2009 — about the same as the entire 2006 crop. The price of pig feed has gone up 25 per cent since the US summer, he said, "and it's not the price so much as the fact that it's just not available“ - Dave Warner, National Pork Producers Council.

"The days of the United States meat industry in its current state appear to be numbered. The gates are down. The lights are flashing. Does anyone see the train coming?" - " David Nelson,

agribusiness analyst for Credit Suisse Group. - “Ethanol fuels concern of US farmers“ http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/ethanol-fuels-concern-of-us-farmers/2007/01/28/1169919212154.html


Nuclear fuel supplies /prices

provide No Confidence we can expand nuclear energy to levels that make a difference ~ 10 Terrawatt level – if we

wanted to - and uranium fuel prices are soaring.


SSP would revitalize America by showing that a multitude of space-development-related-educational-fields, from telerobotics to wireless power transfer and environmental sciences, are vitally relevant to these great problems.

Greatly reduced launch costs, the key enabler, will provide unprecedented access to space and space operations including products we can merely dream of today, beginning with SSP - promising to provide reliable power delivery and global energy security at greatly reduced environmental impact.

Choosing to charter an SSP corporation would be “a small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.”


2002 2005 What should be America’s Goal in Space?

32% 35% Build satellites in Earth orbit to collect solar energy to beam to utilities on Earth

23% 17% Develop the technology to deflect asteroids or comets that might destroy the Earth

13% 10% No Opinion

4% 10% Send humans to Mars

2% 7% Search for life on other planets

6% 7% Build a human colony in space

3% 6% Develop a passenger rocket to send tourists into space

5% 4% Build a base on the moon for humans to use for moon exploration

11% 2% None of the above, we should stop spending money on space

1% 2% None of the above

- Thomas Matula and Karen Loveland, " Public Attitudes toward Different Space Goals: Building Public Support for the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) “, Proceedings of Space 2006: 10th International Conference on Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Space, Houston, TX, March 5-8, 2006.


No company(s) or agency(s), however, is prepared to assume the immense financial risk of initiating construction of an SSPS.

There are simply too many engineering, financial, regulatory and managerial risks for any group we have been able to identify to undertake SSP today.

But this road has been well traveled by America before ...


“In the bureaucratic format, satellite power has no natural home and no built-in constituency. NASA, now a timid, fearful NASA made up of aging pre-retirees rather than the young tigers who made Apollo work in just eight years, would be frightened out of its skin by a tough, make-it-work assignment with a tight budget and a tighter time scale. And NASA’s charter doesn’t cover energy. The DOE? Its charter doesn’t include space. The NSF? Satellite power isn’t science, it’s engineering.”

- The World’s Energy Future Belongs in Orbit”, by Dr. Gerard O’Neill, Trilogy January/February 1992


There is a tried and true vehicle, that could initiate SSP construction today.

A private Congressionally chartered corporation has all the requisite advantages. Comsat Corp., chartered in 1962, opened space for communication satellites - when we knew little about space, rockets or space communications. Communications satellites are now a $100 Billion industry per year. The “Sunsat Act” would accomplish the same task, creating a space solar power industry of much greater size.


Trans-Continental Railroad “Cape Horn at The Head of The Great American Canon”,

…- Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, April 27, 1878


Congress chartered Comsat Corp.in 1962 to build communications satellites. Comsat Corp. opened space to the diverse $100+ Billion per year communications satellite business of today. Congress should charter a new corporation, Sunsat Corp. to build power satellites. Draft legislation for Sunsat, very much like Comsat, would have all the requisite advantages. We recommend that congress charter Sunsat Corp.


This legislation would provide a launch “subsidy” to new private or public/ private businesses, such as SunSat Corp, which are contracting for space transportation. This subsidy would be in the form of stock transfers and loan guarantees.

Sunsat Corp. is aiming for 42,000 flights per year, nominally. Prices would quickly fall below current levels once subsidies established such a market volume.


The red dots are Elon Musk, SpaceX, $1300/lb and Sandia National Laboratories $20/lb - “Space Sunshade Might Be Feasible”, Nov. 3, 2006, http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/wa/MainStoryDetails?ArticleID=13269.

April 30,2004 Space Solar Power Workshop 50Source: Ken Zweibel, NREL


Thank you for the privilege of speaking to you today about Space Solar Power.

Space Solar Power can cleanly repower earth and build a highway to the High Frontier…

Integrated Symmetrial Concentrator, Pat Rawlings http://64.40.104.21/sps/large/ISC_in_GEO.lrg.jpg


FOR MORE INFO...

Let’s Roll!!

Call or write your Congressmen: www.congress.org

Ask them to sponsor the Sunsat Act - a draft is available at

www.sspi.gatech.edu/sunsat-how.pdf

Learn more - at www.sspi.gatech.edu

Email: [email protected] Or [email protected]

(Mark Wallach chairs our 501(c)4)

April 30,2004Space Solar Power Workshop1 The Clean and Natural Baseload Energy Solution -- Space...

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