12. CASE STUDY: SAHARA DESERT TO LONDON
$150 BILLION $250 MILLION
Transmission Line ReBeam
13. ENERGINEERS
Jordi BasAlex ParisGadhadar Reddy
Aerospace EngineeringRenewable energy
& Climate change
Lean Start-up, Carbon Nanotubes &
SPACE BASED SOLAR
POWER
We live an a world with an unequal distribution of energy.
509M Africa & 713M South Asia have no access to electricity
That’s 2 out of 10 people in the region
Most of the energy produced in the developed world is from coal and nuclear power. Due to the dangers of climate change we have an urgent need to transition to clean energy sources.
Energy also plays a major rule in Human Development Index. If people had access to 4000kWhr of energy per year; their living condition would be on par with the developed world. This is the goal of the Human Development Program of the United Nations.
Do we have a shortage of energy? Do we need a new energy source to achieve this?
NO! A small part of the Sahara; A square with a size of 250Km receives the same amount of energy as the entire world consumes.
This is not just limited to the Sahara. There are several areas on the planet that have high energy production capability. All the areas highlighted in Yellow are similar to the Sahara in energy density. We have an enormous amount of energy; the problem is not that of finding a new source but of distributing energy across the planet economically. This is the problem we’ve solved with our Power Relay concept; ReBeam.
ReBeam is a is a power relay satellite concept. In this system; large solar farms are retrofitted with a Microwave transmitter and the energy generated is transmistted to a Space based reflector/mesh. The microwaves are received on another solar farm that has a rectenna to convert energy. The system is very efficient and has been studied extensively since 1970! System technical feasibility proven beyond doubt and experts agree on the efficiency between 50-90%!
So we wanted to find why this hasn’t happened inspite of being an excellent solution to move energy around?
We found that it has had to do with 2 factors. 1st Coal , oil and gas have always been cheap and there has been no real initiative to move away from them.
And historically people have had unfounded fear of microwaves. More than 60% of Power Relay Satellite funding has been spent on Environment. There were even tests with birds flying in a microwave beam and the EPA determined it to be perfectly safe!
For the first time in History, we live in a world that is scared to lose access to their microwave devices.
The exponential drop in solar panel prices have led to large solar farms. This is a critical factor in the rebirth of Power Relay Satellites. At sizes above 500MW, the power relay satellite becomes very efficient and incredibly economical.
Development in Solar sails have led to construction of light weight efficient reflectors of large size. Currently they are built with Mylar coated with aluminum or gold. When built with Carbon Nanotubes; we can expect a further 250x reduction in mass allowing for massive power relay satellites being built at no additional launch cost.
We did a case study to see how much it would cost to send nergy from Sahara to London. A conventional tranmission line would cost 150Billion Dollars while Rebeam would cost just $250M including launch.
That translates to a 600x price advantage.
We are the Energineers making Rebeam happen.
I am gadhadar, I speacialize in Carbon Nanotubes and ultra lean management. I have been passionate about Space Solar power and won the 4th International Space Solar Power Competition.
Alex is an expert in Renewable energy. He works for the UN and is very passionate about climate change. He worked on the Paris climate change treaty. And is working on the regulatory front and bringing UN support for the project due to its global ramifications.
Jordi is an Areospace Engineer with expertise in Drones, Robotics and System engineering. He has worked for DLR, the german space agency and is engineering Rebeam.
While at Singularity; we’ve been working on a prototype to showcase energy beaming. There is nothing like an experiment. Here’s a short video showcasing energy reflection.
We’ve a uW tx, Rx and reflector. As soon as we turn on the microwaves beam; it is reflected only when we have the reflector in place showcasing the basic principle.
We are ReBeam. We ARE solving the world energy distribution problem.
