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WOAH, JAPAN CAN NOW BEAM SOLAR POWER FROM SPACE
by Rachel Oakley in Web on Wednesday 29 April 2015

CONTRIBUTOR

http://www.techly.com.au/2015/04/29/woah-japan-can-now-beam-solar-power-space/
Last month Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan announced that they had successfully tested a system designed to collect solar power from orbit and send it back to Earth.
In the ground demonstration test, 10 kilowatts of power was sent from a transmitting unit by microwave. The presence of power was confirmed at a unit located 500 metres away via the illumination of LED lights, “using part of power transmitted“.

As Gizmag points out, Mitsubishi didn’t disclose what percentage of power sent actually made it to the receiver. But some is a start, I guess. Baby steps, baby steps.

According to Mitsubishi, the aim of their wireless power transmission technology is to eliminate the cable connections normally used for transmitting electricity:

The achievement of wireless power transmission over long distances will not only facilitate the transmission of power to locations where installation of power cables has been difficult or dangerous; it is also expected to contribute to transmission of power from offshore wind turbines and various other applications in the future.

The Space Solar Power System (SSPS) is currently being developed to generate power on a geostationary satellite 36,000 kilometres above Earth using solar cell panels, which will then be transmitted to Earth by microwave/lasers, without a cable in sight.

Image via NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
“As the power source is environmentally clean and inexhaustible, the SSPS is highly anticipated to become a mainstay energy source that will simultaneously solve both environmental and energy issues,” Mitsubishi noted.

Anyone else think of Isaac Asimov’s short story Reason while reading about this? I’m starting to think he knew exactly what was up.