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Comment by snickmy | Hacker News Reader

For a while I thought you would need too much energy, then I realized I don't know well enough the physics of how a laser works.

[Warning, very stupid idea ahead]: Since I don't know well enough the topic, why wouldn't be possible to use a satellite to collect solar energy (because outside the atmosphere you can collect ~40% more (edited) the solar energy due to lack of atmospheric filtering effect),and then transmit that energy back to earth via some sort of wireless energy distribution mechanism (laser?). I guess a YoYo satellite with real tens of KM of wire to earth has a lot of reasons for not be feasible.

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It's not 40x more, it's barely 40% more. [1]

> Average annual solar radiation arriving at the top of the Earth's atmosphere is roughly 1361 W/m^2. The Sun's rays are attenuated as they pass through the atmosphere, leaving maximum normal surface irradiance at approximately 1000 W /m^2 at sea level on a clear day.

There are practical challenges, but otherwise, yes, it should work.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#Irradiance_on...

Thank you for the pointer! I've updated the original comment, and my knowledge base too :)

It's actually not a terrible idea and it's been considered in depth before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power.

Like so many things it's got a few unsolved technical difficulties thought that make it not-quite feasible.

Search "Solar power satellites". Lots of research, some unsolved problems, downlink is typically microwaves to a rectenna.

I think its not that crazy an idea. The biggest issue ( based on my very limited knowledge reading online articles ), is that the transmission without a physical medium leaves a lot to be desired. Secondly, waste heat disposal is enough of a problem in space, but when your craft is designed to accept as much radiation as possible, it becomes even more so.

I do think that its certainly going to be one of the ways humanity powers themselves going into the future. As our power needs increase, we will inevitably look to more efficently use the power eminating from our star and one of the first steps in doing that is by harnessing it without the atmospheric effects.

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