Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standard, White House says

Re:Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standar... by DennisP on Friday April 02, 2021 @03:52PM (#26675262)

I support nuclear but if you're beaming power from space, it might as well be from solar panels. In geostationary orbit you have power 24/7, with 5X more sunlight per day than panels on the ground. The only time your satellite goes into shadow is for a few minutes per day around the equinoxes, half an hour max. Capacity factor is still over 99%.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standar... by bserge on Friday April 02, 2021 @04:07PM (#26675400)

Basically Gundam 00 haha. I was young when it aired, but it left a long lasting impression of what the future of space exploration might be like. Space elevators and massive solar arrays around the planet.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standar... by snuxoll on Saturday April 03, 2021 @04:29PM (#26684446)

It’s not the worst idea, but we kind of need to get the whole orbital elevator but done first before the massive planet-spanning solar array.

Truth though: I think Gundam 00 showed a shockingly plausible future (sans mechas, most likely) for our planet if we do not get over our reliance on fossil fuels. Global conflict on a scale that makes WW2 look like child’s play is an inevitability if we cannot mitigate the environmental impact and eventual depletion of fossil fuels, and that includes support to help less developed nations move away from them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standar... by stjohnswarts on Friday April 02, 2021 @04:15PM (#26675463)

It's too easy for space junk to destroy it, also a single point of failure or attack. It's a terrible solution as long as we remain a warlike species.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standar... by DennisP on Friday April 02, 2021 @04:55PM (#26675888)

I hate to break it to you but most of our power stations are vulnerable to attack already. Certainly anything near the coast could be taken out by our major adversaries, even with conventional attack.

For a lot of plants, an anonymous cyberattack could probably do it. That'd be way worse than an attack to geostationary, which very few actors could manage, and probably nobody could pull off anonymously.

Space junk seems a more serious problem:

https://physicsworld.com/a/space-debris-threat-to-geosynchro...

I've seen various proposals to clean it up but it'd take some work.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standar... by 8note on Friday April 02, 2021 @04:02PM (#26675346)

With geostationary? Don't they track a location on the earth? Is the satellite not in the earth's shadow at night?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standar... by mikepurvis on Friday April 02, 2021 @04:09PM (#26675413)

Geostationary is super far out— you're effectively in constant sun:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit

Except, as the parent noted, very briefly during the equinoxes.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standar... by yellowapple on Friday April 02, 2021 @05:54PM (#26676371)

And even that seems "easy" to circumvent by having redundant satellites, such that during the equinoxes (equinoxen?) only a fraction of said satellites are shadowed out at once. Alternately, a massive battery or capacitor bank could give the receiver enough buffer to hold out through an equinox-induced shadowing.

[ Parent | on HN ]