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Elon Musk Bets On The Sun To Supply Energy To The US. Understand How A Giant Photovoltaic Installation Can Transform Sustainable Energy And The Energy Future
For Elon Musk, the energy demand of the entire US could be easily met with the help of a gigantic fusion reactor installed in the sky, directly above our heads. The good thing, according to the businessman, is that no crazy project or a billion-dollar investment is necessary to achieve something like this: we have one that has existed for billions of years and we call it the Sun. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX estimates that a huge photovoltaic plant, approximately 160 x 160 km, would be enough to meet the energy demand of the US.
That Musk likes eye-catching headlines and provocative ideas is no surprise, but in this case, he is not the first to suggest a XXL-sized project with a futuristic approach to harness solar energy.
The Mother Of All Installations
Elon Musk likes impactful phrases, and this was made clear recently during his appearance on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’, a podcast hosted by commentator and comedian Joe Rogan, who in recent weeks has had a cast of guests as eclectic as actors Dwayne Johnson “The Rock” and Whitney Cummings, former CIA agent Michael Baker, martial arts expert Tim Kennedy, or writer Elliott West. Musk participated in the podcast on October 31 and, among other things, talked about the potential of solar energy.
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“In fact, it would be possible to power all of the United States with a solar area of 100 miles by 100 miles,” the mogul explained in statements recorded by Money Wise. Converted to our metric system, this would equate to an installation of about 160 x 160 kilometers. Musk’s proposal is so enormous that upon hearing it, Rogan asked him to explain further: “So you could choose a dead spot, cover it with solar panels, and power the whole country?”
Panels, Batteries, And A Giant Solar Energy Reactor
“Absolutely. We need batteries, but yes,” Musk replied, who believes that bringing such an idea to practice wouldn’t be difficult and sees it perfectly “viable” to supply energy to the entire country with the help of the Sun: “This thing simply works. We have a giant fusion reactor in the sky.” His bet actually goes beyond words.
Investing In The Solar Energy Industry
In 2016, Tesla acquired SolarCity, a company dedicated to marketing solar power generation systems, in a deal valued at around $2.6 billion. “Tesla is preparing to commercially scale its Powerwall and Powerpack energy storage products,” Musk’s company stated at the time, which had previously launched its own energy division: Tesla Energy Operations.
Musk’s bet on photovoltaics is also not unique. The Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie recently estimated that this year the US solar industry will add 32 GW of production capacity, a 53% increase from 2022, and by 2028 the operational capacity of the country will reach 375 GW. The growth projections are also considerable in Europe.
Issue Of Megaprojects
Musk is not the first to suggest a XXL-sized project with a futuristic philosophy to elevate photovoltaic energy utilization to a new level. In fact, there are already concrete initiatives that go far beyond the mogul’s statement on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’. One of them is led by the European Space Agency (ESA) itself.
For some time, the intergovernmental agency has been nurturing the idea of harnessing SBSP, the acronym in English for “Space-Based Solar Power,” a strategy that would involve capturing solar energy with the help of enormous satellites in geostationary orbit, which would then convert it into low-density microwaves and transmit it to receiving stations located on Earth.
Achieving something like this would require, however, facing “prohibitive challenges,” such as deploying huge receiving antennas, assembling large structures in space, or studying the effects of low-power microwaves. For now, the ESA has already launched the SOLARIS initiative to assess its feasibility.
In The Focus Of Other Agencies
The ESA is not the only one that has dedicated time to analyzing SBSP possibilities. Its Japanese counterpart, JAXA, published a report with its advantages and challenges, and even suggested solutions. In the 1990s, JAXA’s predecessor participated in a conceptual design, SPS2000, of 10,000 kW, and in the first decade of the 21st century, the space agency and the Japanese government worked on another SSPS concept of one million kilowatts.
China and NASA have also considered this possibility. Last year, Space News reported that the American agency had begun a study to assess the possibilities of SPS. “As technology evolves, the viability of the system changes over time,” explained Nilokolai Joseph from NASA’s Technology, Policy, and Strategy Office. With the new report, the agency desired to “assess how much it should support SPS.” Recently, research from the Universities of Surrey and Swansea concluded that it is feasible to create lightweight, low-cost panels to generate energy in space.
Large Installations On Land
Not all solar megaprojects are focused on space. Here on Earth, gigantic solar farms with panels have been created, such as the deployment that China is promoting in Inner Mongolia, which includes a unique installation: 196,000 panels spread over an area of 1.4 million square meters, becoming the largest station of its kind in a desert. Tesla itself has already participated in large solar projects.
… And In Theoretical Studies
If there is an installation that makes any of the solar farms built to date seem small, or even that enormous stretch of panels of 160×160 kilometers suggested by Musk to power the US, it is the Dyson Sphere, an idea proposed in the 1960s by physicist Freeman Dyson. His proposal: to build a structure capable of surrounding the Sun.
Dyson believed that to continue evolving, there would come a time when a civilization would need to drastically improve its energy collection. And how to do this? With an installation capable of covering its star, in our case the Sun, with a “mesh” covered in panels or another technology that captures its potential.
Esse desgraçado ainda vai acabar fazendo ****. Pior será se países que não tem nada a ver acabar sendo afetado.
Acredito que usando o movimento das mares e o sol aqui mesmo em terra, ficaria mais barato e menos arriscado
Isso acho que seria como, roubar o Sol de alguém em benefício próprio.