Energy From Space to Your Car

The concept of Solar Power Satellites has been around at least since Dr. Peter Glaser in 1968. Sunlight in Space is 8 times more intense than at Earth's surface. If large solar arrays were built in geosynchronous orbit, the energy could be beamed to Earth via lasers or microwaves. So far the idea has been considered impractical because of cost. With the rising cost of energy, SPS has been gaining attention again.

As with many new technologies, the military may take the lead. To power all their gear, infantrymen use the equivalent of one AA battery per hour. Many lives have been lost delivering fuel convoys to soldiers, not to mention USS Cole. The National Security Space Office (NSSO) is counducting a serious study of SPS. They are looking for breakthrough ideas.

The NewSpace2007 conference in Washington was presented by the Space Frontier Foundation, which has been studying SPS for years. Saturday at the conference I had opportunity to talk with USAF Col. (select) Coyote Smith, chief of the NSSO's future concepts division. He has been leading an online forum soliciting ideas. Col. Smith envisioned kilometer-wide collector fields located outside major cities. He hopes to have a SPS system online by 2050. (He likes the spacesuit too.)

I was able to point out that if someone in 1907 had lectured about the future of energy it would have been about coal and oil. Yet in 2005, out of the limelight, someone had already written E=mc^2. 40 years later we had atomic reactors and an atomic bomb used in combat. First we must go beyond dead ends like "dark energy." The power of free thinking will lead to technological surprises.

If in 40 years we have tiny Black Holes in the laboratory, their energy could be tapped. Even nuclear fusion converts only 0.7% of fuel into energy. A Black Hole can convert matter into radiation with 2 orders of magnitude greater efficiency, approaching total conversion. The food that a human eats in a year could provide all the electricity needs of the United States! Any sort of mass could be used for fuel, even old AOL disks and issues of National Geographic.

Solar Power satellites have not been deployed because of the immense construction costs. An SPS constellation powering the US would require 30-40 satellites, each with kilometers of solar arrays. Note how much trouble it has been constructing one space station in low Earth orbit. Black Hole energy would require just one satellite without all those solar panels! The power of thought is far greater than anything humans have imagined.

In other news, Toyota has announced it will be road testing a plug-in hybrid version of my Prius. Such a car could get at least 100 MPG, more if you only drive short distances. Plug-ins and battery cars can get their power from solar, wind or geothermal plants without any petroleum in the loop. Your 21st century economy could be clean and all-electric.

UPDATE:
Tommaso Dorigo has an excellent post on Black Hole production.

Conservation of Energy Pt. 2

The new Highlander hybrid. As Samwise has noted, the Big Island has a lot of rugged terrain. Some lovely beaches are only accessible by foot or 4WD, and your Ocean View Estate may be at the end of a lava road. The greenest form of transport is still a good pair of legs. In Sacramento, California is a man who is very proud of his body, has posed in skimpier outfits than I would ever wear, and is the governor.

Conservation of energy leads to some interesting questions. Many of us have lived through earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Earth's internal heat creates the islands and continents we live on. Even the petrol in your tank was produced by internal heat. Earth may be thought of as a Gaussian surface containing an energy source. Where does the energy come from?

The old answer in the books is "radioactive decay." That inferrence reared its head last week as an explanation for Saturn's Moon Enceladus. As we have seen, the little Moon has a "hot spot" centred on its South Pole. The hot spot spews ionised materiel into Space, resupplying Saturn's E Ring. The JPL Press Release, suggested that radioactive elements caused the hot spot. This idea needs to be examined critically.

Because the hot spot spews materiel from the Moon's interior into Space, the Cassini spacecraft can sample what Enceladus is made of. The atmosphere contains nitrogen, which is produced from the decomposition of ammonia (NH3). That process requires temperatures in excess of 850 degrees Kelvin. Total energy production of Enceladus has been estimated at 10^9 Watts! The atmospheric plume also contains traces of methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), propane (C3H8) and acetylene (C2H2). Radioactive isotopes of these elements are all very short-lived.

The JPL team speculated about radioactive aluminium and iron. The only naturally-occuring isotope of aluminium is Al26, which has a half-life of only 720,000 years. The longest-lived isotope or iron, Fe60 has a half-life of 1.5 million years, an eyeblink in geologic time. Even potassium 40 has a half-life of 1.3 billion years. If these elements were found inside Enceladus, (they were not) the Moon should have run out of fuel billions of years ago.

When faced with an inexplicable phenomena, it is tempting even for good scientists to come up with a half-baked explanation. That is how "dark energy" got started. Once the half-baked idea is in place, it will prevent better ideas from being considered. The lead scientist of the JPL team says, "The only way to achieve such high temperatures at Enceladus is through the very rapid decay of some radioactive species." That is primitive science, for there is another way.

Enceladus' core can be modelled with a central singularity of 10^12 kg. This mass is typical for a primordial Black Hole. The singularity consumes only 2.8 kg of mass per year generating 10^9 Watts of radiation. Water and other molecules near the centre are heated to a plasma. Electrons are stripped from atoms, and the resulting ions are drawn into circular orbits around the core. The resulting electric current generates a magnetic field with the "positive" pole in the South.

Electrons and positively charged ions spiral along magnetic field lines to form bipolar jets, the classic sign of a singularity. The Northern jet is composed of electrons which are absorbed by the moon's interior. More energetic ions of the Southern jet penetrate these layers to create a South Polar hot spot. Escaping ions spiral into Space, exactly as observed by Cassini.

Without replenishment, Saturn's Rings would decay within 100 million years. Then we would face the anthropic question of why they exist at just the right time for humans to view them. Thanks to the Cassini spacecraft, we have witnessed the E Ring being resupplied from Enceladus. This observation suggests that other, unseen satellites maintain the Rings.

Like Wegener's continental drift, it will be years before these theories are accepted. in the meantime, there are many interesting discoveries on the road. This Prius has been modified as a "Plug In" hybrid, recharged from a wall socket. 100 MPG is a minimum; if you only drive locally you may not need to buy petrol at all. I confess to not paying a utility bill for years. Water falls from the sky and energy is all around us--why pay for it?

Conservation of Energy

As in Naval Aviation, there is great pleasure in being paid to drive the best toys. Toyota (a company that knows a good thing) was kind enough to give me a state-of-the-art Prius to test-drive. The car is being introduced along with other "green" technologies. To promote the car, Toyota will even plant a tree in your name. Physicists should naturally be involved with conservation of energy.

This car is like a peek into the future. There is no key, just a little fob with buttons to lock/unlock the doors. Upon pressing the POWER button, the car starts instantly with no noise at all. The petrol engine is contolled by computer and only cuts in when extra power is needed. The car actually gets better mileage in the city than on the highway because regenerative braking recharges the batteries. It is full of gadgets like a multifunction display and a colour rearview camera. Toyota has a huge waiting list for hybrid cars like this one.

Any day now Toyota will pass General Motors as the world's biggest automaker. One reason is fuel-saving technology like this. America's scientists and engineers are not stupid. In 1987, GM's Solar Raycer won the first World Solar Challenge in Australia. With prodding from California's Republican government, GM created the EV1, whose sleek design was inspired by the Solar Raycer. The EV1 could easily travel at 85 mph and could go twice as fast if not for speed governers on the engine. EV1 had a range in the hundreds of miles, and looked cute.

EV1 was so popular that there was a long waiting list to get one. In an incredibly stupid business decision, GM stopped production and ordered all existing EV1's confiscated from their drivers. This was documented in the film Who Killed the Electric Car? American automakers preferred the high profits of building SUV's. With the price of petrol rising, all 3 big US automakers are in deep financial trouble. Sometimes you earn what you get.

A little government intervention has been useful. In the 1970's high oil prices were a threat and the Japanese were building smaller, more efficient cars. The Republican administration instituted the strict CAFE standards for mileage. In response, American automakers downsized their car lines to make them more efficient. (The word "downsizing" was invented for cars before it was applied to people.)

It is a great disappointment that during 8 years of Clinton-Gore the CAFE standards were not improved. This was due to political pressure from entrenched auto interests. As a result US carmakers focused on building SUV's, which are classified as "trucks" and not subject to the same CAFE standards. In this way, the government made it more profitable to build fuel-guzzling SUV's. Only in the present administration have CAFE standards been adjusted.

Being "green" can be very good for business. America's Boeing had the option of building a super-size plane like the Airbus A-380. For a time Boeing considered building a faster airliner, the Sonic Cruiser. Finally they focused their limited R&D funds on the 787, an advanced plane which uses less fuel. They have sold over FOUR HUNDRED 787's for a price of 250 million US per copy. Airlines want 787's so badly that Boeing can't keep up with the orders.

With all the troubles and delays of the A-380, Airbus will not have a competitor to the 787 until at least 2014 or sometime after the ORION spacecraft is in orbit. The 787 technology has already been applied to the new fuel-saving 747-8. Next Boeing will introduce a thrifty replacement for the 737, and make Google-sized money replacing a thousand 737's as they wear out. (That is a secret, and you read it here first.)

For those who live on the Big Island and need 4-wheel drive, Toyota also let me test a hybrid version of the Highlander. More advanced projects include a hybrid sports car that goes from 0-60 MPH in 4 seconds! There will also be plug-in cars that can be recharged from a wall outlet. The car chassis of the future will resemble a skateboard, a flat slab with wheels sticking out. Each wheel will contain its own motor and steer independently. By attaching different bodies, the same chassis will be convertible into a variety of vehicles. Someday you may be able to build a car for your own personality, like Batman.

The next World Solar Challenge is October 21-28 in the Northern Territories. This will be the 20th Anniversary of the original event. As was briefly done with the EV1, the focus will be on building next generation cars that you can drive home. The goal of science should be to improve life on Earth.