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Power plant in space soon
Former president of India, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on Monday said the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) were actively pursuing research in various technologies to bring down the cost of access to space to make the vision to set up a space-based power plant at an economically viable cost.
Inaugurating the six-day Space Festival 2012 at Bharathiar University (BU) here, Dr Kalam said, The cost of space-based power plant would be very high given the current technologies, that is, ranging somewhere between $10 billion and $100 billion for an average plant size. To make the plant economically sustainable, the cost must be reduced.
There were three major focus areas in the space-based solar power plant. First component was the space-based solar power plant. The second was the earth-based collection system and, finally, the medium of transmission from space to earth.
A multi-pronged approach was required to reduce the cost, Dr Kalam said, and suggested that by smart designing of the material used for solar power plant, the weight of solar panels could be brought down to 1 kg per KW from the existing 20 kg per KW.
At present, the cost of placing the solar power station in orbit was $20,000 per kg, but it would be brought down to less than $2,000 per kg with hyper planes.
Also, the efficiency of solar collection needs to be enhanced using nanotechnologies. For transmission of energy, nano packets need to be evolved, Dr Kalam said, and added that the space agencies across the world should work to make this project economically viable.
Indicating the significance of the project, Kalam pointed out that the Sun radiates about 10 trillion times of energy that humans consume across the world. If we are able to extract a small portion of the energy, it will be sufficient to secure the energy demands of the future, he said.
The former president of India also urged the world space community to evolve a World Space Vision 2050, which should contain three major components large-scale societal missions and low-cost access to space, comprehensive space security and space exploration and current application missions.
Additional chief secretary of higher education T.S. Sridhar, vice-chancellor of BU, Prof C. Swaminathan, and many others were also present.
Former president of India, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on Monday said the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) were actively pursuing research in various technologies to bring down the cost of access to space to make the vision to set up a space-based power plant at an economically viable cost.
Inaugurating the six-day Space Festival 2012 at Bharathiar University (BU) here, Dr Kalam said, The cost of space-based power plant would be very high given the current technologies, that is, ranging somewhere between $10 billion and $100 billion for an average plant size. To make the plant economically sustainable, the cost must be reduced.
There were three major focus areas in the space-based solar power plant. First component was the space-based solar power plant. The second was the earth-based collection system and, finally, the medium of transmission from space to earth.
A multi-pronged approach was required to reduce the cost, Dr Kalam said, and suggested that by smart designing of the material used for solar power plant, the weight of solar panels could be brought down to 1 kg per KW from the existing 20 kg per KW.
At present, the cost of placing the solar power station in orbit was $20,000 per kg, but it would be brought down to less than $2,000 per kg with hyper planes.
Also, the efficiency of solar collection needs to be enhanced using nanotechnologies. For transmission of energy, nano packets need to be evolved, Dr Kalam said, and added that the space agencies across the world should work to make this project economically viable.
Indicating the significance of the project, Kalam pointed out that the Sun radiates about 10 trillion times of energy that humans consume across the world. If we are able to extract a small portion of the energy, it will be sufficient to secure the energy demands of the future, he said.
The former president of India also urged the world space community to evolve a World Space Vision 2050, which should contain three major components large-scale societal missions and low-cost access to space, comprehensive space security and space exploration and current application missions.
Additional chief secretary of higher education T.S. Sridhar, vice-chancellor of BU, Prof C. Swaminathan, and many others were also present.
