Space Solar Power Station

(images via: Inhabitat, Treehugger and Pink Tentacle)

The challenges and difficulties involved in large-scale orbital construction projects are immense… yet someday they will be tackled as the demand for interplanetary spacecraft, space elevators and orbiting power stations becomes irresistible. The latter – a solar power station in geostationary orbit – is now on the drawing board and has been given a sky-high price tag of 2 trillion yen ($21 billion).

(image via: Bloomberg)

The project, conceived by the Japanese government and industry researchers, will see a space-based solar power station built in orbit 22,360 miles (36,000 km) above the earth. The station will generate 1 gigawatt of power from sunlight and beam the energy down to a receiving station where it can be used to power almost 300,000 homes.

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Author: Steve

Source: Web Urbanist