Solar panels in space are a clean energy dream.
Beaming electricity down to Earth from solar panels in space has been a clean energy dream for decades. Even though the technology still has a long way to go before it can keep the lights on at home, there’s more hype than ever that space-based solar power stations could actually work.
A major milestone was announced this month when researchers at Caltech said that a prototype launched into space was able to beam a small amount of power to Earth. It was an important first for the nascent technology, and other researchers around the world are racing to make similar progress with funding from governments trying to reach their climate goals.In space, solar panels can soak up unfiltered sunlight around the clock with no setting sun.
“I have a hard time not letting my imagination run wild when I start looking at this. It has a strange seductiveness like that,” Nikolai Joseph, a senior technology analyst at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, tellsHow feasible it is to turn those dreams into reality anytime soon is the subject of a study Joseph is working on with colleagues for NASA. Caltech’s demonstration was a game-changer, he says.
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