Power from space? Pentagon likes the idea

Alan Boyle Science editor • Profile • E-mail

A new Pentagon study lays out the roadmap for a multibillion-dollar push to the final frontier of energy: a satellite system that collects gigawatts’ worth of solar power and beams it down to Earth.

The military itself could become the “anchor tenant” for such a power source, due to the current high cost of fueling combat operations abroad, the study says.

The 75-page report, released Wednesday, says new economic incentives would have to be put in place to “close the business case” for space-based solar power systems — but it suggests that the technology could be tested in orbit by as early as 2012.

"I think we have found the killer application that we have been looking for to tie everything together that we're doing in space," Air Force Col. Michael V. "Coyote" Smith, who initiated the study for the Defense Department's National Security Space Office, told msnbc.com on Thursday.

Space advocacy groups immediately seized on the idea and formed a new alliance to push the plan. But a representative of the solar-power industry was doubtful that space solar power would move from the realm of science fiction into reality anytime soon.

"You've got a lot of technology breakthroughs that you have to make," Mike Taylor, technical services manager for the Solar Electric Power Association, told msnbc.com.

Charles Miller, president of Space Policy Consulting as well as president and chief executive officer of Constellation Services International, said the key to the plan's success has more to do with economics than physics.

"The issue here is not technology, OK?" said Miller, who was a contributor to the study. "You could figure out how to do space solar power in the '70s. [But] you couldn't close the business case in the '70s. You couldn't close it in the '90s. How do you close the business case? That is the No. 1 question to be answered."

Economic equation is changing
The report — which was done on an unfunded basis and took advantage of online collaboration with outside contributors — notes that several factors have changed in the decade since NASA took its most recent in-depth look at the space power concept (PDF file). Today's best solar cells are about three times as efficient as they were in 1997, while crude-oil prices are roughly three times as high. And in the post-9/11 era, energy security has taken on far more importance.

"The technology has advanced vastly, and the security situation has changed quite a bit, as well as the economic situation," Marine Lt. Col. Paul Damphousse, who took over the study from Smith last month, told msnbc.com. "Those things warranted another look."

Those factors still don't make space solar power attractive for commercial users, but a better case could be made for the Defense Department. The U.S. military pays a premium for its power in the battlefield, when you consider the cost of shipping oil out of the Middle East, refining it, then shipping the fuel back to the combat zone and burning it in electrical generators, Miller said. All that brings the current power price tag to $1 or more per killowatt-hour, compared with 5 to 10 cents on the domestic market, the report says.

Even then, the economic equation still doesn't add up, due primarily to the high cost of launching payloads to orbit. But in the near future, the U.S. military could become a potential "anchor tenant customer" for space-generated power, the report says.

"The business case may close in the near future with appropriate technology investment and risk-reduction efforts by the U.S. government, and with appropriate financial incentives to industry," the report says.

Smith said the military would prefer to buy its power from a commercial space provider, rather than operating the system itself. "It is our goal to move this entire project out of DOD [the Department of Defense] as quickly as possible," he said. "Energy is not our business. We want to be a customer."

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