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Discovery Project Earth-Orbital Power Plant

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This video describes the process of testing the feasibility of using an orbiting power plant that would be able to transmit power generated to stations on Earth.

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can we tap the Sun and Bemiss power down from face we are going to switch on now to find out the Discovery Channel team fires a wave of energy from a Mountaintop send a turbocharged power cell for the edge of our atmosphere it's called geoengineering using technology to modify the natural systems of the plant but haven't got the power to free us from fossil fuels wherever our atmosphere is Jeff 60 miles thick it's all the separate. From a cold wife was Lloyd in space the air we breathe is made up mostly of nitrogen and oxygen carbon dioxide measures less than 1% not much but freak out in nature volcanoes at about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide that's nothing compared to us human we pump one 30 * that mounted on the air as we burn through full and oil to generate electricity as a result excess CO2 was warming our plant causing global climate change our mission has to be to come up with new sources of energy that are affordable that are abundant and that are renewable if we fail to accomplish these goals eventually the lights will scientist John Mankins believe the end of our dependence on fossil fuels should begin in space 174 million gigawatts of solar radiation hit the Earth every second that's more energy than our civilizations used since the dawn of the electrical age electricity before but their effectiveness is limited by two major factors the first is our atmosphere idiot absorb 50% is more obvious round 8 panel collector When the Sun Goes Down what does sun never sets in Play 24/7 second-by-second in fiends energy towards Earth equal to the output of a billion large power plant and if we can somehow capture that enormous amount of energy we just passed the Earth we can transform our energy situation here on it wants to launch an array of revolutionary solar cells 22,000 miles above the Earth Uber a mile grid Bell harvest the maximum power of the Sun fiscal renogy would then be transmitted through harmless form to focused microwave down to Giant receiving stations on the ground these receivers hundreds on every continent would convert the microwave beam into Alexa the potential for harvesting energy with Mancan system if it works is almost inconceivable it's perhaps ten thousand times more than all the energy needed to drive the bus city of Macon space base strategy is technically possible but special team from the Discovery Channel will conduct a scaled-down experiment interested in episode of House Quantum physicist Basile singer will test the science it's a big enough idea to replace fossil fuel for making electricity to make the experiment happen that is beautiful work will Explorer Pro wave Technologies needed to protect can plan we are still transmitting is a long-range test form the bean show that we can point it show we can transfer energy and do it over a long enough distance that is similar to the kind sentences that you'd have coming down from space the team now has two major objectives they have to engineer a microwave beam that can transmit electricity through the atmosphere from space down to the ground dim the capture vast amounts of solar energy in the face they'll have to design a solar cell more efficient than any in use today the solar collectors on the internet space station are a good example of overcome likegram base units are the space station is powered by solar cells made with a single layer of silicon silicone absorbs just a tiny portion of the energy available in space and so it is incredibly inefficient as a result the spacestation roughly the size of a jumbo jet needs or antennas culinary X6 basketball courts support for small crew single layer collectors are also used on Earth but harnessing them for all our energy needs would be out of the question do power the total human population we need a network of solar panels covering 100,000 miles is it somehow sunlight were more intense how do we somehow make sunlight more intense to find out if it's possible Basile visits a company called and Tech dear Chief scientist Mark O'Neill is developing a super length going to boost the power of the sun before it hits a solar cell the secret is a high-tech magnifying glass called a fresnel lens for nail works by focusing sunlight with maximum efficiency the lens is still effective he can focus 200w power on a 1in circle in this case in ordinary red dress if this technology could safely train the sun on a solar cell it could increase the power output exponentially the idea hasn't fired Marta designed adult version of a fresnel lens for spay it's called a solar concentrator here's a piece of lens material is smooth surface but it has all these hundreds of little linear prisms on the inner surface they're looking at cross section 8 disability collectively they magnify the Sun's light by 8 a solar array that's very unique captures the sunlight and focuses the sunlight on a much narrower tell ourselves cereal special silicon it falls into a small economical package perfect for a launched into space but could it really work once it got there couldn't withstand extreme conditions beyond our atmosphere Tesla in space has been found in space yet we very much want to fly this place would you go on single-cell I can take away with me today who did when powered solar cell help John on the team get his dream off the ground the only way to find out you can send it to the edge of space Banerjee is equal to 100 million atom bombs exploding every second it's a small fraction of our planet forever the first challenge design the most efficient solar cell ever created Bethel thinks he found the solution a tiny fresnel lens the thickness of a thumbnail by using this lens to focus light on a solar cell efficiency by 8 * this kind of solar array is spent half the problem is that it's and as a consequence they've never been tested in space to resolve the key issue Babel gathers a team of scientists to launch an obelisk from the floor of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada the purpose is to test whether or not this type of solar cell in this type of Solar Ray can really offer at the edge of space almost to see how this high tech package Mary there by a low-tech but highly reliable helium balloon has been laid out is an envelope which holds the blue places being inflated with helium by Mickey winds pick up too much from the flu when she's mad quite thin material is very light and Shake around the team will launch two identical solar cell yes I called triple Junction sells they have two more son absorbing layers than conventional models making them 35% more efficient only one of them will be fitted with a special fresnel lens array the cats will compare the electrical out for the boat shelf by the lens can produce more electricity and by what percentage space reliably the lens array has to withstand temperatures as low as minus 100 degrees during its Ascent to 100,000 ft Mission controller John Powell where is the lens will become even more volume what the balloons rate of climb suddenly accelerates right from 50 to 65,000 feet that's that's the worries on cuz we get from 9200 degrees below zero if you climb too fast the sudden temperature changes that you can cool the lens of too quickly in and get brittle I'm getting into space is only half of the problem once you're there the system that's going to gather in the Sun have to constantly and with precision. To solve the problem John's come up with a novel design the cells rotate continuously on a turntable collecting you call Dad at each time we line up with the Sun the second the gathers data from both panels will see the son coming into position as the power goes up in the sun dropping out after this have a good Goes Down And since you're both on the same time we get a good comparison between a 1GB data card will record the sun's intensity on each self and a tracking device should help the team recover the payload returns to earth my favorite now finally the balloon is ready for launch Brown video go systems go Walmart a very nice 951 a camera aboard the payload platform the team now track the balloon from the ground with a global positioning system successful at 100,000 feet the balloon should explode a parachute should then deploy drop the payload back to Earth only then will back will be able to get at the data card to learn the test results this is the word means absolutely nothing you can do about it I'm desperate for this experiment to get up to a hundred thousand feet the information that we need at 35000 FT the sunlight is already more than 25% stronger than itsy level buy 60,000 feet the temperature of the Bells has fallen 2 - 106 degrees Fahrenheit but they're still operating perfectly by 106000 ft the balloon is frozen and the f word journey is about to end what on Earth that's when the problems begin for Ground Control how we looking we get getting information back from that vehicle but we're not getting altitude data it's not soon enough satellites right now to send that down that we don't know why GPS data from the payload is knocking back to the Team Battle now has no idea where the vehicle will land at the parachute to send the camera record The Landing out in the Badlands months of hard work is now parked somewhere on a 1000 square miles of Blazing desert this is a tricky recovery he's a cold heart something carrier is difficult he's coming into the reservoir area now the only real hope to recover the data card if the tractor Palos emergency locate he thinks in that direction it is likely that way in that Valley finally well deserved rank despair that looks good with the lens and solar cell module are intact lower deck looks good on a few cards the fate of John Mankins dream of endless solar energy from space now rest in a $5 memory card permission send science package to the edge of our atmosphere the dream Darkness the power of the Sun the boys to help the world and its dependence on fossil fuel out in Space the energy that is contained in a single square yard sunlight is equivalent to that what is used in a three-family home Tokyo the bar plan the experiment and the payload is finally found and the data card holding the test results is rushed to a lab Battle singer in John Powell can only hope the data contains definitive results is it you got to see the whole history of the experiment through here see if we can make sense to do the graph shows the power output of the combined solar cell in the fresnel lens is it a sin to the edge of space the output of compared to the amount of power generated by the solar cell without a win and the results are staggering that looks really good setup for now land is harvesting sunlight from much larger area of me getting eight times more power than the Thunder the experiment is an unqualified using the lens to focus light on the events or cell have confirmed nearly 300% more solar radiation into electricity existing technology it really damaged pieces of this technology are ready for primetime if men controller sell lens array were adapted the power the International Space Station the crew 3 solar antennas instead of that's great for astronauts but what about the rest of us unless making can find a way to safely beams base harvested store electricity 22,000 miles his dream of clean energy will remain just that a dream but John Mankins in the team think there's a ray of Hope on the other side of the world nickname is bird Catherine obiyuki Kaya build a prototype transmitter that uses microwaves to being power through the air time has come to test and Electric pass into the copper transmitter that constantly alternating its magnetic field at 2.5 billion times a second the charge produced should fire off waves of electromagnetic energy through thin air to keep the test results clean the team uses an anechoic chamber this Connecticut the chamber how to special walls absorb random microwave and cancel out stray energy the show that a microwave Bean can energy but high-tech cheaper okay so this is basically microwaves that are hitting metal so I know if I throw a piece of metal in my microwave is going to spark get hot do all sorts of crazy things and that's because the microwave is exciting the electrons which is what you're saying is happening here incoming radio energy it gets it each of these will absorb the radio energy it'll make the electrons in these copper plates the slosh around they get converted from alternating current into direct current at these small. All of these get come by and they go flowing out to the edge of the antenna up to the wires and out to the array of light waves received converted power perfect who produced the 30 watts of power needed to light the array amplifiers must keep the electrical current flowing perfectly through the transmitter even small buildup of energy will cause the amplifier to heat up and explode cake that's all the heat the amplifier with his hand okay Professor Kaya's watching that high power amplifier all he does not that baffle fire to overheat constantly he's just making sure that it is not gotten too hot at 7 and 1/2 the lights on the display remain unless there's no electricity tocaya cranked up the voltage and holds his breath okay at 11.3 a major breakthrough Carey bio microwave beam 30 watts of electricity travel 12 ft through the air they light up the board along with a bunch of faces so kind of team takes Jen cell Empresa charge buy a microwave cell phone today and tomorrow the world it were able to be usable 12v LED light up we saw a cell phone charge we've proven that we can send power across three states in the chamber and we're ready to proceed with fabricating the anger of the panels and bearing for the long-range cast the movement playing forward the Discovery Channel team has its work cut out Kevin's found just the right spot to do it in a few weeks they hope to fire me off the edge of a volcano electricity is pure power but make it is most often a dirty business the world continues to rely on fuel for most of the Tower and now we're paying for it with Rising global temperatures scientist John Mankins looks to a clean energy source as old as the universe star power his plan to capture the clean energy of the sun on a matrix orbiting solar cells Timothy worse in the form of microwave work a little like a raindrop falling into a pool of Still Water weight chart at a single point and spread in all directions low energy microwaves are great for carrying information our voices Rudy are on cell phone what is the downside microwave lose energy quickly if they travel out from their source beaming solar power from space compound problem exponentially permit can plan to work the microwave carrying the energy has to be focused more like a garden hose than a wave in a pool how to be a focused beam we can carry converted solar energy 22,000 miles receiver without losing any towel to learn how to get a microwave focused Mankins in the team have set up an ambitious experiment on a wing Airfield in Hawaii so what we're looking at is essentially for transmitter panels that are being configured into a phased array which means that every one of them will be transmitting the same microwave frequency and it will send that out in a in a beam of coherent being across the Airfield to these receivers on the far side in order to join chaotic waves into a unified Dean the team will attempt to synchronize Lincoln believed that his plan works the separate signals will merge into one 4 times bigger and stronger than away from a single panel and we're hoping that by having these detectors every and a half or so that we're actually going to be able to see the edge of the bean the middle of the beam and the opposite edge of the beans going to like a shape that's what we're trying to do 19 set of 7 receivers in to intersect the bean from these receivers will feed directly into a laptop which will confirm the true width of the microwave as a graph the microwave transmitter are now powered up to fire a beam 150 ft through the air to the receivers the test is a go right now what we hopefully will see on the monitor Pacific beam of where the microwaves are going the results are good news she was a microwave beam across has traveled Route 50 feet through the air and if the receiver gets another breakthrough started transmitting and we actually saw a bean for the team has succeeded beyond our wildest expectation is shown that electrical energy can be transmitted by microwave as one big Focus being the question now is how to prove it 22000 miles from space to Earth transmitting energy through the vacuum of space should be pretty easy since there's no air in the way to absorb or deflect the bean the Killer 60 miles through our atmosphere stimulate the passage of microwaves from Faith to Earth's perfect the team real to Maui Hawaii here on top of the great volcano Haleakala across open ocean for the big island I didn't say equal to death atmosphere technically this is very challenging nobody has tried to send a focused microwave beam using these Technologies over this kind of distance and I think there are quite a few folks who have felt that this so probably could not be done and we're hoping to prove them wrong tube and the kitchen to Vicki miles the microwave transmitters must pick me a line or the single beam will not form still pointing all eight of them in a straight line at the big island is a painstaking process the measure of the invisible beam battle will put himself literally in the line of fire is planning to use a helicopter is a flying receiver to monitor the size and intensity of the beam at different this is the microwave antenna position console decibels GPS on there as well so this system will tell me everything about the microwave being so we can analyze it based on bazil's incoming reports Jennifer will plot the path of the microwave including its length with and strengthen what to prove make in technology could really work would be mad also travel and be measurable at a distance of 60 Mi and all the way across the 10 miles 20 miles 30 40 50 60 how do I know if anyone after use it's a simple task of a radical new technology will it work or not at stake is the chance to strike at the heart of global warming with a beam cleaner from the top of a dormant Hawaiian volcano a high-tech chance to free the world from its dependence on fossil fuels could begin with the flick of a switch permission to fire a microwave across 60 miles of Base the thickness of our atmosphere if the checks exceed the team will prove that John making plans are being solar power from space could work that could provide an endless supply of clean energy number two times more powerful than today's conventional Earthbound solar technology right now we have Babble up in the helicopter getting into position soon as he ready we can turn on our transmitters here transmitted to microwave Beam at that point time he's going to play along the beam taking measurements at 1 mile 5 miles 10 miles reporting back to us the strength of the microwave transmitter the team have two challenges the first is keeping the bean focused sending it at least 60 miles Basile will take his first measurement one mile from the estimated time of arrival 2 minutes the helicopter will be in position in 2 minutes we want to get everything on so that when they fly through with a full power on the beach from his helicopter Dazzle will map the strength and focus of the bean flying directly across the path of the beam no uses on-board antenna to relay the data to a computer if we were we are going to switch on now Talking Stick on solar power sign at the cross at the bean a graph should begin to block the strength of the microwave on monitor OK Google any movement in Space the bean have to travel 60 miles down to work so far the graph shows no trace of a bean just a mile away from the transmission 24 bazil's beginning to wonder if there's a transmitter breakdown microwave pillows are we transmitting we are still transmitting rain he'll find the bean bike riding is mostly good while the focus of the beans both for its intensity read that 50% of its strength when it left the transmitter higher level than expected all right go out to five miles make the Run don't let me know what your fuel status is at 5 miles out still detecting a strong signal what we need two sides to check the beans Focus he hits a problem the team is hoping to see a single unified beam but that'll data shows that the beam losing its focus and starting to spread out that we don't have a very concentrated Focus be proving that this being is out there Bears Niners we have to continue on determining what intensity is it further and further distance the team decides to have vaginal tract the strongest part of the beam to the 10-mile mark come on 67 Jerome Lane 10 mile 65 getting very encouraged by what kind of Grants are you doing across the spoken signal strength still remain strong if you find the bean could succeed in meeting the challenge of the test but Kevin worried about the time fuel it could take to find out the results still at 80 miles an hour cuz I'm just watching the time hearing is taking a long time to do these runs you were only a ten-mile fuels time light red Basile the problem now is that we're starting to lose light but the most important part of his experiment is that we actually get a reading some strong microwave reading at that distance because if we don't at that we can never make it through the atmosphere Zazzle believe the experiment come too far to give up he's got just enough fuel to make it to the 60 mile marker and decide to go for it if you find the microwave are the data will help Advance the dream sending solar energy from space to Earth on the back of a bean Hawaii the Discovery Channel team scientists from Japan and the United States through the air before the proof will only come in microwave. we don't have a lot of time and we have no idea what the signals going to do at that distance if they can't find anything we might try and bring them back in and try and and find a stronger signal but we're plotting everything is go to make sure we can keep them on track lyrics atmosphere keep the team Canal transmit power it possible to 10 solar energy from the ground what are you doing crocodile reading -8.01 call Michael McLaughlin what's the number play I need you to head back in the latest that is a success that's laughing for you Bethel aesthetic graduation it feels fantastic a long day tough to get everything set up get everything working I and we did it we got the solid reading that the 60 miles out graduation honestly I'm completely untrue did actually get success this late in the day in the amazing the team has proved it possible power as a microwave beam through the depth of our atmosphere they've also discovered that a tiny fresnel lens array focusing the sun on a solar cell is the most efficient way to generate power is it really demonstrates that the pieces of this technology are the kind of thing that we could in fact proven space within 3 4 5 years for some Mankins idea raise a serious question power with Channel through a single who would control the energy supply for the entire plant hands of a very small number of individuals centralized Energy System have political, people fight War over centralized energy I think there are few political challenges about who gets to benefit from the energy times of what corporations are government control access to it those Technologies they're only going to get deployed once we've got the social backbone that can actually not just do the research on the Technologies but can actually implemented to play them in a way that's going to be socially acceptable but John Mankins International politics of geoengineering solution can and must be overcome if we're ever going to get at the root of global warming our dependence on fossil fuels energy can be dispatched a very effectively and owned in a very distributed way and it's only this kind of solution that will allow us to offset the extremely large scale combustion of fossil fuels like coal on which we now depend as we work to cut back on our use of fossil fuel shouldn't we also be exploring what we're going to replace them with it's time to look at all the option even if they take us to the edge of space

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