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Papers |
The End of Easy Energy and What to Do About It
By kind permission of James Michael Snead, P.E.
Easy energy refers to the current oil, coal, and natural gas
energy sources that provide about 86% of the U.S.’s and the
world’s energy. An increasing average world per capita demand
for easy energy combined with a growing U.S. and world
population will exhaust recoverable resources of easy energy
this century, probably within the lifetime of today’s young
children.
Current sustainable nuclear and renewable energy sources provide
only about 11% of the world’s electricity and modern fuel needs.
To meet the world’s projected 3X increase in energy needs by
2100, if not decades earlier, today’s sustainable energy
production must expand by a factor of over 25X.
This paper’s assessment of the energy production potential of
conventional nuclear, geothermal, wind, ground solar electric,
and land biomass finds that these will fall significantly short
of both the U.S.’s or the world’s 2100 sustainable energy needs.
To fill the substantial sustainable energy shortfall that will
emerge by 2100 as the era of easy energy ends, space solar power
and algae biodiesel—absent the extensive use of advanced nuclear
energy and/or undersea methane hydrates—will need to be
substantially developed.
Space solar power will be needed to supply most of the U.S.’s
and the world’s dispatchable electrical power generation
capacity while hydrogen produced with off-peak space solar power
electricity and algae biodiesel will be needed to fill the fuels
shortfall. |
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POWERSAT UNIT 1
ECONOMIC & COMPETETIVE ANALYSIS
ECONOMIC COMPARISON OF EXISTING
GENERATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THE
PSU-1 MODEL
William E. Maness
Janet Hendrickson
The PowerSat, or Solar Power Satellite is an electrical
generation system that consists of solar collectors in orbit, a
wireless power transmission system and a receiving station on
the ground. This document presents an economic comparison of the
proposed PSU-1 system and traditional generation. The physical
details of the PSU-1 system are presented in the companion
document, “PowerSat Unit 1 Baseline Physical Performance Model.”
The PSU-1 physical document should be reviewed by those
unfamiliar with the proposed design, as this analysis draws
heavily on the PSU-1 computational results and assumptions. |
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POWERSAT UNIT 1
BASELINE PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE MODEL
PRELIMINARY GROSS PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A THEORETICAL
SOLAR POWER SATELLITE, PSU-1
William E. Maness
Janet Hendrickson
The PowerSat, or Solar Power Satellite, is an electrical
generation system that consists of solar collectors in orbit, a
wireless power transmission system, and a receiving station on
the ground.
This document has been developed to provide a theoretical model
of the physical aspects of a baseline PowerSat system (PSU-1).
The modeling has been done in Excel, with assumptions and
equations from various sources. Hyperlinks or footnotes are
provided to the sources cited. An effort has been made to
divorce this analysis from any specific PowerSat design.
However, this hasn’t always been possible, as certain design
decisions dramatically affect the performance of the system.
This document is intended to provide a baseline reference for
business planning and feasibility analysis. The ISEC is patent
pending. |
