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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse

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To: Wharf Rat who wrote (4179)	5/23/2006 10:06:31 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (3) of 24210

Solar energy harvested on the moon would be sent back to Earth Web Posted: 05/23/2006 12:00 AM CDT Cindy Tumiel San Antonio Express-News As the price of oil hovers at $70 a barrel, a Texas scientist claims to have a surefire way to deflate the escalating cost of energy and ease the political vise-grip that oil-producing nations hold on the rest of the world. David Criswell, a professor at the University of Houston, says there is a source of power out there bountiful enough to light every household on Earth for the next 4 billion years, end worries about greenhouse gas emissions and set OPEC on its ear. There is a catch, though. You have to fly to the moon to get it. Energy from the sun is 30 percent stronger on the moon because it has no atmosphere to shield it or kick up weather events that interfere with the solar rays hitting it with full force. So while some earthbound thinkers are trying to turn wind, corn, household waste and cow dung into consumable energy, a small group of far-reaching physicists and engineers has already spent years testing the theories and working on the practicalities of tapping into solar power that abounds in outer space. Some say the moon is the perfect place to set up shop, but others think humans don't need to go nearly that far. Their idea is to float satellites full of solar collectors in an orbit where the devices would face the sun 24 hours a day, capture the energy and transmit it back to Earth. Criswell's vision calls for establishing lunar mining camps populated with human prospectors who would work six-month shifts building and operating the gear that harvests solar power and sends it streaming 240,000 miles back to Earth. They would fly to the moon with the equipment they need and use raw materials already on the moon to build thin sheets of silicon-based solar collectors and microwave converters. Receivers on Earth would catch the microwaves, turn them into electricity and feed the energy into the global power grid. more mysanantonio.com

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