Natural Gas Power Replacing Coal Power in Urban Areas Means Significant Declines in Urban Air Pollution

 

     An article in the Global Energy Center’s new newsletter Power Play by senior fellow Joseph Webster showed with data and graphics that Beijing air quality has been improving steadily since 2013 while 6GW of natural gas were added to the grid and 2GW of coal were retired from the grid during the same time period. The very same thing has happened in other cities, including New York City, and there is much potential for more urban switching from coal to gas around the world to improve air quality. Lower urban pollution means better health outcomes, better quality of life, and relief for children who suffer from asthma.

     If natural gas can be produced and delivered responsibly, with reductions in venting and flaring and with more carbon capture and other decarbonization measures, it can improve air quality while also mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Webster notes that this should be part of the discussions at this year’s COP 28:

 

“Ahead of COP28 discussions this year, the United States, China, and other countries should encourage responsible natural gas production as a solution for reducing global emissions and urban air pollution.”

 

Of course, the biggest greenhouse gas emissions reductions occur simply when natural gas replaces coal and fuel oil. The decarbonization measures are additional reductions on top of that.

     In New York City it was No.4 and No. 6 fuel oil burned in about 10,000 NYC buildings in 2012 that was a main culprit for bad air quality. Then mayor Michael Bloomberg embarked on a plan to switch out those dirty fuel oils for cleaner No. 2 fuel oil and natural gas. With about $100 million in financing the plan was to reduce PM2.5 by 50% by 2013, an overly ambitious goal. NYC did manage to reduce PM2.5 by 30% by 2016 and it has remained at about that level since then. It could have been reduced significantly further at great cost advantage, but the anti-natural gas sentiment has stalled those efforts.

 

New York City. Particulate Matter 2.5 Weighted Annual Mean 2000-2022. Data Source: U.S. EPA

     Of course, as Webster points out, there were additional reasons for improvement of Beijing’s air quality: coal-fired plants were moved away from cities which moved the pollution to more rural areas, emissions control system implementation at coal plants, new emissions regulations, and elimination of coal-based heating and cooking by replacing them with gas as new natural gas pipeline and distribution infrastructure was built out as well as district heating and electrical heating. Public concern and health risk were clear motivations for China’s efforts to improve air quality.

 

Beijing’s average annual Air Quality Index (lower scores indicate less pollution)(Source: U.S. State Department, author Joseph Webster’s calculations)

     Webster also notes natural gas greenhouse gas emissions intensity differ considerably by source. Gas pipelined from Central Asia makes up about 34% of Chinese natural gas imports. Most of that gas comes from Turkmenistan which has the highest greenhouse gas emissions intensity in the world. While pipelined gas is usually less emissions intense than LNG, if a new 30BCM line from Turkmenistan is built it would mean that the total pipelined gas from Turkmenistan to China would have a higher GHG emissions intensity than the total of U.S. LNG annual exports (150BCM). An important question is whether Turkmenistan will move to lower the emissions intensity of its natural gas exports. The country’s gas industry is plagued by aging infrastructure and lack of concern by the government which is run by a reclusive dictator.

     There is a clear opportunity for further improvements in air quality. What stand in the way of that have been mentioned here: 1) not replacing coal and fuel oil with natural gas, 2) making no efforts to decrease emissions intensity of certain supplies (ie. Turkmenistan), and 3) banning natural gas and its delivery (in the case of NYC and a few other cities) in an ill-conceived push for green energy. This opportunity will continue around the world.

 

References:

Natural gas reduced China’s urban air pollution. Can it be a global climate solution? Joseph Webster, June 6, 2023. Natural gas reduced China’s urban air pollution. Can it be a global climate solution? - Atlantic Council

Beijing’s air quality meets national standards: a major milestone in China’s war on smog. Laura Myllyvirta. Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. January 5, 2022. Beijing's air quality meets national standards: a major milestone in China's war on smog – Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air

Why Is NYC Swapping Residential Heating Oil for Natural Gas? Scientific American. August 1, 2012. Why Is NYC Swapping Residential Heating Oil for Natural Gas? - Scientific American

Turkmenistan Faces Unprecedented Calls to Clean Up Methane Leaks. Bloomberg. April 27, 2023. Global Climate Talks Target Reclusive Turkmenistan Over Methane - Bloomberg  

Scientific Article Review: ‘Land-use intensity of electricity production and tomorrow’s energy landscape’

 

     This article by Jessica Lovering, Marian Swain, Linus Blomqvist, and Rebecca R. Hernandez, was published in June 2022 in the journal of the Public Library of Science (PLOS). In a lot of ways this paper just confirms what we already know, that some energy sources like wind, solar, and biomass are very high in land-use per unit of energy produced. The metric used in the paper is land-use intensity of energy (LUIE) – “(measured as hectares occupied per terawatt-hour of electricity generated in a given year [ha/TWh/y]) for real-world electricity generation–not hypothetical or modeled electricity generation–across all major sources of electricity and a broad geographic distribution.” This study aimed for more accuracy than previous studies, citing methodological weaknesses in those previous studies.

     Global electricity use is set to continue rising as developing countries grow their economies and modernize. The authors note that the current land-use for energy around the world amounts to 0.4% of ice-free land, compared to agriculture at 30-38% of ice-free land. Agricultural land-use has been dropping in recent years as agricultural intensification grows more food with less land. Energy land use is set to rise drastically, especially as more wind, solar, and biomass are added to the grid.

     The authors distinguish between direct land use intensity and indirect land use intensity. This varies considerably between resources. In addition to this, dual use capabilities vary between resources. While it is true that wind has a much lower energy density and takes up much more space than, say, natural gas, it is also true that both of those resources can accommodate agriculture for dual land use. With agrovoltaics, growing certain crops under solar panels, solar can accommodate some, but much less agricultural “co-generation.” The main issue with wind is the land required to accommodate spaced wind. In order for the wind resource to be optimally available the turbines must be spaced a certain distance apart, typically thousands of feet apart, or about 5 per square mile. Thus, the spacing footprint for wind is vastly larger than the actual land footprint for wind.

     The authors of the paper rightly distinguish between land footprint and spacing footprint. However, the much larger spacing footprint for wind presents other problems: people don’t want to live within a wind farm and often don’t want to live on the border of one either. There have been many complaints about the flashing lights, noises, and vibrations. Much more land must be leased per unit of energy produced for wind projects than for drilling or pipeline projects. Wind can only produce about 10 MW per square mile. Of course, that resource can last for thousands or even millions of years while the natural gas will deplete in decades to a century. That means it takes about 100 square miles of wind turbines to equal the amount of energy produced at a 1000 MW natural gas plant and that energy is intermittent and unpredictable while the gas energy is predictable and always available.

 

Note: This is on logarithmic scale. The same data is plotted with a few notes below on a linear scale.

     For both wind and natural gas, the authors used two different metrics: footprint and spacing. Footprint is the actual footprint of the facilities. Spacing includes all the land between facilities. In the case of wind that means the land between turbines and substations but for natural gas that means the land between wells, access roads, and pipelines. Both wind and natural gas require spacing. Natural gas requires it to optimally produce the resources without interference between wells. Wind requires it for a similar reason since harnessing wind changes local wind characteristics. One might even say as I have noted before that harnessing wind is a form of geoengineering. That spacing requirement is a hard limit for wind. An issue likely not accounted for is that in the subsurface there may be natural gas reservoirs at different depths from different reservoirs, additional resources that may be tapped from the same or near locations in the future. In terms of energy density, natural gas has a much higher energy density than wind. In the analysis given here it is about six times more energy dense than wind. They also note that natural gas LUIE with spacing is nearly that of ground-mounted solar PV. This is misleading since ground-mounted solar PV takes up all of that land while spaced natural gas just takes up a fraction of it. One could say the same for wind, which also takes up a fraction of actual land than does solar.  

     Since most decarbonization scenarios rely on huge increases of onshore wind and solar which both have very high LUIE it stands to reason that land use is on the rise for these facilities and calls for acceleration mean corresponding land use acceleration. A 2018 study find that 35% of onshore wind developments face opposition of some sort. Energy writer Robert Bryce has kept a database of wind and solar opposition that shows it is very strong and not likely to slow. These developments will no doubt decrease and fragment natural habitats much more than fossil fuel facilities. Offshore wind and floating solar do not require land except for transmission and rooftop solar does not require land.

     Compared to other land use studies, the conclusions here show natural gas as having a much higher LUIE than other studies have shown. Their analysis shows natural gas LUIE as 12-58 times that of Vaclav Smil’s 2010 study. That concerns me regarding overall accuracy. They explain that away poorly by simply noting that Smil probably based his estimates on land-efficient natural gas operations. I believe most current natural gas ops aim to be as land efficient as possible as land footprint is a key ESG metric. LUIE values for natural gas have no doubt been decreasing drastically in recent years due to longer well laterals, more wells per pad, higher production per well and pad, and stacked plays which allow closer well spacing. Very significant production improvements have also led to a much-increased amount of energy produced per unit of land. They do not really address this rather huge discrepancy between their results for natural gas and Smil’s.

However, even with that questionable discrepancy, they note:

“Our results suggest that production of electricity to meet decarbonization goals could become a significant new driver of land-use and land-cover change with implications for habitat and biodiversity loss, food security, and other environmental and social priorities. An expanding footprint is not inevitable: the LUIE for integrated PV, nuclear, the footprint of wind, and geothermal are each less than coal or natural gas, which together, currently generate more than 60% of the world’s electricity.”

     I think that statement is misleading since it suggests, or rather says outright that the LUIE of “the footprint of wind” and “integrated PV” is less than coal or natural gas, which is technically true but incomplete. It requires the leasing of much more land per unit of energy produced. It takes a certain amount of space for wind, much more than for natural gas, regardless of the actual land footprint of facilities. It is the “space” required between turbines that is at issue. That is a hard limit. Natural gas has some spacing limits but not the hard limit that wind has. The spacing requirement for wind means that according to their data it is neatly 100 times that of the turbine footprint but for natural gas it is less than 5 times from footprint to spacing. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that for replacing natural gas with wind an expanding footprint is indeed inevitable, directly contradicting the conclusion in the statement, since the energy density of coal and natural gas is much higher than that of wind and solar. It is already coming to pass as large wind farms and solar farms are built. Other future footprints not considered include the additional mining and land use for the needed expansion of the transmission system. According to some estimates, the transmission system would be needed to be expanded by 2 or 3 times what it is today to accommodate high levels of wind and solar as intermittent resources.  

 

References:

Land-use intensity of electricity production and tomorrow’s energy landscape. Jessica Lovering, Marian Swain, Linus Blomqvist, Rebecca R. Hernandez. Public Library of Science (PLOS One).  Land-use intensity of electricity production and tomorrow’s energy landscape | PLOS ONE

 

We Need Fossil Fuels but We Can Decarbonize Them: Two Headlines/Two Posts in a Day Reveal

 

     On June 15, 2023, I saw one headline and two posts that pointed out different approaches to decarbonization. Another headline reminded that fossil fuel demand remains high.

     The first headline was UN chief Antonio Guterres saying that fossil fuels are incompatible with human survival. He has repeatedly put forth that sort of rhetoric against fossil fuels. The other headline I saw was that the largest natural gas field in Europe, the Groningen Field in the Netherlands is expected to be shut down prematurely later this year due to increased induced seismicity, small earthquakes caused by producing the gas that have damaged homes, quite uncommon among gas fields but long a problem with this field. The market reacted to the news with a 30% increase in European natural gas prices. The price signal shows that fossil fuel natural gas is in strong demand. Here we see that something that the UN chief says is incompatible with human survival is in such strong demand that a shortage of it means we will pay more to get it. I should mention that the price spike is also a result of extended outages in some Norwegian fields this summer. Groningen was expected to shut down in 2024 anyway – the big reason is a large earthquake in 2018 – however in January 2022 gas production from the field was doubled to increase EU supply after a cold 2021-2022 winter left EU supplies low. Now it is set to be mainly shut-in and perhaps held in some reserve, just as the EU heating season begins.

     The two posts were by CEOs, one of a company that is the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. and one of a company that measures, reports, and verifies, methane emissions from the oil and gas companies. Natural gas producer EQT CEO Toby Rice posted from Berlin, Germany, representing the Partnership to Address Global Emissions (PAGE) in a quick video where he said that decarbonized U.S. LNG is ready to be exported to more places in the world (or will be as more LNG export facilities are readied) to address energy security with low carbon supply. He also noted that NET Power’s new low carbon supercritical CO2/oxyfuel combustion natural gas plants with carbon capture can now be built around the world to lower life cycle carbon emissions significantly further, closer to zero carbon. The second post was by emissions measurement, reporting, and verification company Project Canary CEO Chris Romm, who stated simply and directly that we should “cut the crap” and decarbonize with certified responsibly sourced gas and LNG.

     Both Guterres and the CEOs are offering solutions. The U.N. chief has said many times we need to stop producing fossil fuels. That is, of course, entirely impractical and unfeasible. The CEOs offer a partial but highly practical and feasible solution: decarbonize fossil fuels. Natural is the least carbon intense fossil fuel. If we use it to replace coal, the most carbon intense fossil fuel, there is up to 60% or more decrease in life cycle carbon emissions. With the addition of certified RSG that goes up a few more percent and with the efficiency improvements of both new more efficient combined cycle natural gas turbines and the NET Power sCO2 Cycle natural gas plants and other carbon capture projects, the needle can be moved further. I argued in my book Natural Gas and Decarbonization that this incremental decarbonization is likely to continue to add improvements here and there as these industries mature. But right now, they offer quite enough decarbonization.

     I’m sure the U.N. chief has good motives, but I wish he would stop the demonization rhetoric. As they say, the perfect is the enemy of the good. We simply can’t stop producing fossil fuels as they are in high demand throughout the world. But we can partially decarbonize more of them. If these technologies get help from governments and industries, which they are, they can be implemented faster. Permit reform will also be helpful.

     Guterres calls for a fossil fuel phase-out and "credible exit strategy." He has been complaining all year about the 2022 profits for fossil fuel producers: gas, oil, and coal, were all affected, and prices rose all over the world but especially in the EU – all due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Many companies profited but low prices now are cutting into those profits. Some were taxed like the UK windfall profits tax, which slowed U.K North Sea investment subsequently. We see from the Groningen news that potential supply disruptions in the future will likely result in price spikes, as happened in 2022. Nothing that drastic is precited but we see that markets are ready to react. He did elucidate a bit more to say that big oil and gas companies are not spending enough on clean energy investment. Of course, there will be some natural resistance to spending more money on something not inherently profitable. Nonetheless, his argument that the industry should spend more is not without merit.   

     In addition to that, developing countries need affordable energy and if they have domestic fossil fuel supplies, including coal, they should be expected to produce them for domestic consumption rather than being encouraged (coerced through unavailability of international financing?) to abandon them. Those countries could then further benefit from the new decarbonization technologies which are maturing in developed countries. Many of us believe that those countries’ needs for affordable energy to modernize electricity and industry are more important for survival and prosperity than faster reduction of carbon emissions in the near-term.

 

References:

Delivering big bold energy solutions to the world. EQT/Toby Rice. June 15, 2023. (6) Post | Feed | LinkedIn

Project Canary CEO: ‘Cut the Crap’ on Energy Transition, Fossil Fuels [WATCH]. Jordan Blum. Hart Energy. June 9, 2023. Project Canary CEO: ‘Cut the Crap’ on Energy Transition, Fossil Fuels [WATCH] | Hart Energy

UN chief says fossil fuels are ‘incompatible with human survival,’ calls for credible exit strategy. Frank Jordans. AP. June 15, 2023. UN chief says fossil fuels are ‘incompatible with human survival,’ calls for credible exit strategy | PBS NewsHour

European natural gas prices soar 30% as key source to close permanently after hundreds of earthquakes. Filip De Mott. Market Insider, June 15, 2023. Europe's Biggest Gas Field to Close After Hundreds of Earthquakes (businessinsider.com)

Climate Reductionisms: A Big Picture View Gives Context, Including Complex Social Contexts

 

     Climate change is not a simple problem with simple answers. It is a global issue. Scientifically, it is beyond global since it involves the atmosphere, energy from the sun, and is influenced by planetary phenomena. The science of climatology is in many ways a predictive science. General trends and averages can be successfully predicted but individual events often only come into view when they are about to occur. Sometimes, weather is not easy to predict, but in today’s connected society with instantaneous availability of data, weather predictions are often spot on. However, with things like rain the best we can often do is give a percent chance of rain from 0% to 100%. As is often said. ‘weather is not climate.’ Weather is generally predictable but specifically unpredictable. It is predictable in the short-term, but quite unpredictable in longer time periods. We don’t know at all what the weather will be on a day 30 days from now, but we do know that it is summer in the Midwest U.S. and that it is likely to be hot – we know the avg. temperature and moisture ranges for a particular area and can generally predict. Climate is similar in that it is a statistical concept based on averages, trends, and cycles.

     As a global system, climate is influenced by many variables. There are many chemical cycles in the atmosphere. There are many sinks taking up carbon, including the ocean, plants, and the atmosphere. There are forcings and feedbacks. There are several changing planetary and solar influences. There are various oscillation cycles and regional cycles like El Ninos and La Ninas. There are natural phenomena that produce CO2 and aerosol particles such as erupting volcanoes. There are also myriad human influences: CO2, methane, CFC’s and HFC’s, nitrous oxides, aerosols from particulates (that can give temporary colling effects), the multiple effects of wildfire smoke (half of wildfires are sparked by humans) which include CO2, aerosols, and particulates that land on glacial snow and darken it, making it a little easier to melt. Scientists plug all these variables and many more into models and attempt to predict what will happen. We also look into the past to determine what ranges of atmospheric CO2, temperature, moisture, and other variables occurred in the past. Now we have very good data around the world, but that good data does not go very far back in time. As time goes on, we get more data, and this has and should continue to improve the models. The bottom line is that climate change is a complex problem with many variables and many systems not fully understood. As author Stephen Koontz notes, it is not a settled science. There are yet considerable uncertainties.

 

 

Climate Reductionism(s)

 

     As a global problem with potential consequences that are suspected but not fully known, climate change as an issue, a social issue or a political issue, is wrought with the potential to be exploited by those who want to advance their own ways to solve the problem. Lisa Reyes Mason and Jonathan Rigg are scientists and editors of a book, People and Climate Change. Mason has a Ph. D. in Social Work. Rigg has a Ph. D. in Geography. They note in a 2019 article from Oxford University Press Blog that the climate change problem is often oversimplified due to not appreciating the contexts of the problem. They point out that there are five climate reductionisms that support this oversimplification.

     The first is disciplinary reductionism. We tend to think that the specialist scientists that identified these problems will solve them. However, they note that climate change is not merely a natural problem, but a social and cultural issue as well. In addition, it can be an economic issue and a political issue. We are sometime affected by it, and we are presented with various opinions and views of what we need to do about it. If someone’s livelihood is directly affected by it, say with droughts – which are a result of both natural and anthropogenic climate change without a means to determine how strong is the anthropogenic influence, then they are likely to want to solve the problem as quickly as possible. People living on islands being inundated by rising seal levels have a tendency to blame anthropogenic change and yet sea levels have been rising since the last ice age as that ice continues to melt. The unknown is exactly how much seal level rise can really be attributed to humans, or by what amount has anthropogenic CO2 accelerated seal level rise. One key to solving several climate change problems is getting a true understanding of climate sensitivity. The range for climate sensitivity given by scientists has not changed since 1979. If it is in the low part of the range, then the problem is overblown. If it is in the high part of the range, then the problem is even worse than we think. However, a more specific value for climate sensitivity has not been agreed by scientists. That is the basis of much uncertainty.

     The second reductionism given is participatory reductionism. Here, they are referring to the tendency to leave everything to the experts. They argue that non-experts need to participate and develop views and opinions. Of course, we should all become as informed as we can about the climate science and the plethora of arguments being presented. They argue that active participation is required to ensure just outcomes. Of course, we should rely on experts as much as we can while also noting that different experts have different levels of certainty and that scientific experts are not policy experts. I am not sure of this one. Do we really need to actively participate as citizens who may not be well-informed about the subject? I think that we should study the issue from a variety of points of view and become better informed. If that is active participation, then I’m all for it. If what they mean by active participation that we should exert our less informed views on others – promoting active participation sounds a little like promoting activism, especially when paired with the idea of justice. Such activism has a long history of loudly proclaiming views that are sometimes quite uninformed. I am not for that.

     The third reductionism given is experiential reductionism. This refers to the way scientists and policymakers see the issues from their own professional concerns and interests without considering the hierarchy of concerns regular people might have. Other more immediate and more problematic issues certainly take precedence over climate change, especially in a short time frame. Basic needs outweigh concerns further into the future for many and most people. This is the same argument that others have made that environmental concern, while a public good, is less important than the more basic needs that would be lower on psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. They say that to ignore these basic needs, which include affordability, is to stray from the idea of climate justice. I agree with this. Keeping things such as food and energy affordable certainly feels more just and fairer to someone with less financial means.

     The fourth one given is teleological reductionism. In describing this they ask the question, “How will the future look?” Since climate science is predictive and based on models rather than just direct data it is less certain and can create narratives that can be considered catastrophism. Even though the IPCC and climate scientists and policymakers give various levels of confidence for their conclusions, the authors seem to suggest here that catastrophistic narratives seem to have become prevailing narratives and this might become some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy and that alternative narratives should also be considered. We should not be confined or reduced to one prevailing narrative. They seem to be saying here that what we imagine can become what we get and thus we should perhaps focus on more optimistic narratives. I tend to agree.

     The fifth and final one given is what they call species reductionism of the global. Here they refer to “the tendency to view a global problem as a global experience.” Each of us responds differently to the perceived threat of climate change. How the threat is perceived is known as risk perception and has many influences. I wrote about it here.

     In conclusion they write:

 

     “Together, these reductionisms make climate change a matter of justice. Who is hurt by climate change? And compared with who is to “blame”? Why are some groups affected more than others? And how do we respond in tailored ways that take people’s lived experiences, needs, and knowledge into account? By challenging these reductionisms—by widening our lens—we contextualize climate change and increase our chance of achieving meaningful, sustainable change.”

 

Two Fallacies About the Relationship Between Climate and Society: Climate Determinism and Climate Indeterminism

 

     Mike Hulme in 2011 wrote that climate discourse has moved from a role of climate determinism, a variety of environmental determinism, to one of climate reductionism. I think he means that climate went from “a” determining influence to outcomes to “the” determining influence of outcomes, that climate was reduced from one of many influences to the chief one worth considering. He defined this change as climate reductionism. He posits that:

 

“the new climate reductionism is driven by the hegemony exercised by the predictive natural sciences over contingent, imaginative, and humanistic accounts of social life and visions of the future. It is a hegemony that lends disproportionate power in political and social discourse to model-based descriptions of putative future climates.”

 

     Hulme postulated two common fallacies around the relationship between climate and society:

 

“The first is that of ‘climate determinism’ in which climate is elevated to become a – if not the - universal predictor (and cause) of individual physiology and psychology and of collective social organisation and behaviour. The second fallacy is that of ‘climate indeterminism’ in which climate is relegated to a footnote in human affairs and stripped of any explanatory power. Geographers have at times been most guilty of the former fallacy; historians at times most guilty of the latter.”

 

     One might consider these the two extremes: that climate is a strong determinant of outcomes or that it does not influence outcomes. The truth is, of course, somewhere in between. His point can be readily seen in news headlines from that time period (2011) where headlines spouted out that climate change causes wars and the now familiar term “climate refugees.” Social scientists and others began to calculate and predict how many people would become climate refugees in the future and new hot spots for climate wars. Most of these predictions have been way off so far – no real climate wars and less people that could really be considered climate refugees.

     Hulme contends that it is “the enterprise of climate prediction” based on simulations and models that led to the narrowing of climate determinism to climate reductionism. There are many examples of this. I have written about them in my book, Sensible Decarbonization. When governors of Western U.S. states call wildfires “climate fires” they are guilty of practicing climate reductionism. One could just as easily or better define them as “human carelessness fires,” “inadequate power line maintenance fires,” “inadequate forest maintenance fires”, or “inadequate control of flammable invasive species fires.” However, “climate fires” is by far what we hear reported.

     The history of climate determinism is wrought with some very wrong assumptions. Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I have read and reviewed years ago, noted that it was often geographical boundaries and climate that advantaged some people and disadvantages others, and that is certainly true to a point. However, that is likely an oversimplification, or as Hulme says an instance of climate reductionism. Hulme noted that others have said that Diamond’s book is an example of the climate determinism fallacy. Perhaps, but it was a good and fascinating book, nonetheless. A Climatology textbook with editions from 1931-1965 still had in its 1953 edition the statement “The enervating monotonous climates of much of the tropical zone ... produce a lazy and indolent people.” Thus, he suggests that reactions against such “excesses” in considering climate determinism helped to set the stage for climate reductionism. With the advent of seeking to understand and mitigate anthropogenic climate change came the search for more and more causal relationships between climate and outcomes, so much so that interest in these relationships has dominated other factors that influence outcomes. The goal of reductionism is that it seeks to simplify something that is inherently complex. There are a huge number of examples of climate reductionism and Hulme gives several. Hulme suggests that climate reductionism “distorts and over-emphasises the causative role of climate in shaping the future prospects of society and the well-being of individuals’” Climate reductionism elevates the predictions from the models over other influences so much so that climate modelers become social, political, economic, and political analysts. As anthropogenic climate change emerged as a concern, he says, there were three developments: “the retreat of the social sciences, and geography in particular, from working at the nature-culture interface; the emergence of a new epistemic community of global climate modellers; and the asymmetrical incorporation of climate change and social change into envisaged futures.” When the IPCC and others began doing climate impact assessments they were and are in essence predicting the future based on models.

 

 

Figure 1: Schematics of impact and interactive models are highly simplified graphic depictions of types of study methodologies. It was the more reductionist “impact model” which predominated in most impacts studies. [Source: Kates et al., 1985]

     

 

     In these predictions, Hulme notes that the “impact model” came to predominate, ignoring the “interaction model” which takes into account things like technological, social, cultural, and political improvements which allow us to better adapt to climate change impacts. He says this ignoring led to the predominance of climate reductionism in climate impact assessments of the IPCC and others. Even the IPCC acknowledged this in their Third Assessment: “Future socioeconomic ... changes have not been represented satisfactorily in many recent impact studies” and “... many impact studies fail to consider adequately uncertainties embedded in the scenarios they adopt.” He also noted that some scientists have adjusted to these failures, noting ideas like climate resiliency and climate impact vulnerability approaches. It is the prediction of the future that has been reduced to climate above other important factors. He goes on to say: “I suggest that the climate reductionism I have described here is nurtured by elements of a Western cultural pessimism which promote the pathologies of vulnerability, fatalism and fear. It is these dimensions of the contemporary cultural mood which has offered the milieu within which this particular form of neo-determinism has emerged. By handing the future over to inexorable non-human powers, climate reductionism offers a rationalisation, even if a poor one, of the West’s loss of confidence in the future.” I think his bottom line is that climate reductionism is an inadequate, limited, and deficient way to envision the future and serves to overly dramatize the risks we face.

 

Climate Change and Home Runs: An Example of the Silliness of Climate Reductionism

 

     Roger Pielke Jr.’s article points out in the title that some are ‘making everything about climate change.’ Climate change is the scapegoat, the demon to curse, but if humans are responsible for most of it, then we are the demon behind the mask. An important consideration for an individual person, family, community, business, government, or other institution is then what should they do about it. Down to the individual person we are ‘nudged’ to develop a strategy and policy for dealing with climate change. A key question is who is doing the nudging? Climate scientists? The IPCC? Highly biased activists? First off, most people would agree that we shouldn’t waste energy. But sometimes there are trade-offs. Flaring natural gas at oil wells is an example. That problem is being addressed successfully but not as fast or as much as some hope. Another example is mitigation of methane leaks in oil and gas facilities, landfills, farms and agriculture, and sewage treatment plants. This seems to be progressing faster than expected with room to keep going. Efficiency improvements are always low-hanging fruit. Technology improvements often result in better efficiency and less wasting of energy. If we can all agree that wasting energy is undesirable, then we should all be able to agree that tech and efficiency improvements are desirable. New technologies in fossil fuel extraction like horizontal drilling, fracking, and enhanced oil recovery, have led to much lower emissions intensity, emissions per unit of energy produced. Such improvements lower emissions significantly but not to the desired degree.

 

 

Incentives to Reduce Everything to Climate?

 

     Looking at everything through the lens of climate change can be problematic and sometimes even downright silly. Case in point is a recent article reported on by NPR and others positing a causal relationship between climate change and the amount of home runs in Major League Baseball. Any possible relationship is quite tiny at best but as is often the case the various article headlines suggest a discernible relationship that is much greater than it is. Roger Pielke Jr. addressed this through dialogue with the authors in his piece on Substack. He first pointed out that readily available data from other baseball leagues- Japan, AAA, and NCAA – did not corroborate those results. He then points out that another researcher concluded that only about 5% of the increase in MLB home runs can be attributed to climate change. Pielke Jr writes: “Thus, a more accurate reading of the paper’s quantitative conclusions is that climate change is a tiny, even insignificant, factor in MLB home run trends, easily swamped by everything else that can affect home runs.” However, the story was carried and spread by many media outlets including NPR, CNN, AP News, NBC, and Fox with the headlines noting the influence of climate change on home runs. He claims there is an incentive to reduce everything to climate, in science, science promotion, and journalism. Even though there are many other variables to unravel what influences home runs (and wildfires, droughts, floods, extreme weather, etc.) it is climate change that gets the spotlight. News people rarely forget to ask about the influence of climate change on, well everything. Pielke Jr. writes: “These incentives help us to understand what gets published, promoted and clicked. These incentives are also incredibly distorting to both journalism and, increasingly, to research. Baseball and climate might seem like a silly topic, but these dynamics can be found on far more important issues involving climate.”

 

References:

The trouble with how we talk about climate change. Lisa Reyes Mason and Jonathan Rigg. OUP Blog. June 17, 2019. The trouble with how we talk about climate change | OUPblog

Climate Change Causes Home Runs: What we can learn from making everything about climate. Roger Pielke Jr. The Honest Broker. April 12, 2023. Substack. Climate Change Causes Home Runs - by Roger Pielke Jr. (substack.com)

Reducing the Future to Climate: a Story of Climate Determinism and Reductionism. Mike Hulme. 2011. Hulme-Osiris-revised.pdf (mikehulme.org)

Global Warming, Home Runs, and the Future of America’s Pastime. Christopher W. Callahan, Nathaniel J. Dominy, Jeremy M. DeSilva, and Justin S. Mankin. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Volume 104: Issue 5. May 1, 2023. Global Warming, Home Runs, and the Future of America’s Pastime in: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Volume 104 Issue 5 (2023) (ametsoc.org)

Bill Gates and Bjorn Lomborg: UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Behind Schedule and in Need of Prioritization

 

     Bill Gates and economist Bjorn Lomborg recently posted on Linked In that we are behind on the global goals set out in 2016 by the U.N. known as sustainable development goals. These are 17 goals pointed out by the UN as the world’s most pressing problems and proposed pathways for achieving them. The goals have a 2030 timeline for completion. We are now halfway there and notably behind on many of those goals. The 17 goals also have 169 targets, or sub-goals. That is quite a lot.

     The main issue with the lack of ability to meet the goals is simply the financial investment required to meet those goals. A Reuters article in September 2022 noted that it would take a whopping $176 trillion to meet those goal in time, rising 25% in 2022 with the higher costs of goods and services due to inflation and energy costs. That has likely dropped a little since then, but the costs are quite daunting. Gates and Lomborg think we will be short by $10-15 trillion per year, or about $70-100 trillion short. They note that there is no way we can meet those financial goals, so we need to prioritize to get the most bang for the buck by funding the investments that will do the most good.

     Lomborg, in his new book, Best Things First, identified 12 policies that can deliver the most beneficial and efficient ways to solve some of these global problems. Gates and Lomborg write:

 

“In all, the project found that the 12 policies would save more than 4 million lives a year by 2030 and generate annual economic benefits worth $1.1 trillion for low- and lower-middle income countries. At a cost of about $35 billion per year (in 2023 dollars) between now and 2030, that’s a return of roughly 52 times the investment.”

 

Investments in safe birthing and newborn care, agricultural R&D for the poor to help defeat malnutrition and help farmers in poor countries produce more food, disease prevention (mainly malaria and TB), immunization, education, and the strengthening of land ownership rights should be some of the priorities that can give the most benefits the fastest.

 

I just ordered Lomborg’s book to delve deeper into these issues. I will likely offer a review of it here on this blog. I read and mostly agreed with his previous book, False Alarm, about toning down climate catastrophism and approaching the problem more realistically.

 

A commenter on the post notes: “The 17 goals are ranked hierarchically according to the results of a worldwide survey conducted by the United Nations. The first is to eradicate poverty, the second is to eradicate hunger, in third and fourth place are health and education, and so on until, in fourteenth place is climate action.” The commenter then asks why so many resources are going to goal 14, climate action, when other issues are clearly more pressing. Good question.

 

References:

 

We’re not reaching the Global Goals. What now? Bill Gates and Bjorn Lomborg. Gates Notes – Blog of Bill Gates. Linked In. June 1, 2023. (23) We’re not reaching the Global Goals. What now? | LinkedIn

 

Cost to hit U.N. sustainability goals rises to $176 trillion – report. Simon Jessop. September 8, 2022. Reuters. Cost to hit U.N. sustainability goals rises to $176 trillion - report | Reuters

Four Interesting Energy Graphics: Offshore Wind, Natural Gas Prices, Energy Transition Hype, and Innovation Cycles

 

Here are four graphics that popped up on my LinkedIn feed yesterday that I found interesting.

 

1)     Graphic 1: Offshore Wind Components, Varieties, and Configurations. This comes from Dan Swenson and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

 

 

 

2)     Graphic 2: This one is from S&P Global and shows the drastic differences in natural gas prices between 2022 and 2023 in the PJM Interconnection region of the U.S. Northeast and Midwest. The region has an abundance of natural gas due to the reserves of the Appalachian region’s Marcellus and Utica Shale formations. Gas pricing in 2022 was following global gas pricing and did not really reflect the supply-demand issues in the region.

 

 

 

 

 

3)     Graphic 3: Energy Transition Hype. This graph by Enverus attempts to compare different energy transition technologies by showing which ones are more feasible and which ones are relying more on hype. The technologies on the left have more uncertainty and those on the right have less uncertainty and are at or closer to full commercialization. The technologies further to the left will likely see more scrutiny from investors before they are proved up as commercially feasible.

 

 

4)     Graphic 4: Innovation Cycles. This one is from MIT Economics and is based on the work of economist Joseph Schumpeter from the 1940’s. The graphic refers to waves of business innovation cycles initiated by groups of new technologies.    

Space Solar: Orbital Solar Panels on Satellites Beaming Energy to Earth Via Microwaves: Japan Plans to Deploy an Orbital Solar Array By 2025 and Caltech Demonstrates Wireless Power Transfer from Space to Earth

 

     Space solar has yet to be fully demonstrated at scale in space but successful experiments have been conducted on Earth and wireless power transfer from space to Earth has very recently been demonstrated. Space solar has long been seen as technically feasible but economically unfeasible and uncompetitive. With advances in solar technology, robotics, and “large, low cost, reusable launch vehicles such as SpaceX’s Starship”, deploying the tech can get cheaper. Like many technologies, with modularity in construction and economies of scale the tech could get cheap enough in the future to be competitive.

     Space solar systems require three main components: solar collectors in space, a way to transmit the energy to Earth (microwaves), and a receiver deployed on Earth to receive the microwaves. Solar panels work very well in space without clouds and other atmospheric interference, without seasonal variations, and without night, which means 24-hour availability. Solar panels power space missions to other planets, moons, and asteroids. They also power the International Space Station. “Sandwich” modules with solar collectors facing the sun, electronic in the center, and microwave transmitters facing the earth are the emerging model. Individual cells the size of pizza boxes is the most promising configuration.

     There are several downsides to space solar that need to be mitigated. Some are: the cost per kg of transporting stuff to space, the technical difficulties of folding out large arrays that are folded in transport, the difficulties of maintenance and replacement of components, and efficiency limitations of amplifiers and photovoltaic cells. Another issue is the time required for demonstrating and deploying the technology. Realistically, it could be generations, or at least several decades before space solar begins deployment at scales that could make an impact.  

 

 

Spaced Based Solar Power System (SBPS). Raja Vignesh. C.R. August 2017. (PDF) SPACE BASED SOLAR POWER SYSTEM (SBSP) (researchgate.net)

  

History of Space Solar

From Wikipedia –

 

“In 1941, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published the science fiction short story "Reason", in which a space station transmits energy collected from the Sun to various planets using microwave beams. The SBSP concept, originally known as satellite solar-power system (SSPS), was first described in November 1968. In 1973 Peter Glaser was granted U.S. patent number 3,781,647 for his method of transmitting power over long distances (e.g. from an SPS to Earth's surface) using microwaves from a very large antenna (up to one square kilometer) on the satellite to a much larger one, now known as a rectenna, on the ground.”

 

     Glaser later worked with NASA but high costs of deployment and lack of experience in space construction were the big hurdles. Further research was found to be merited. Between 1978 and 1986 the U.S. Congress authorized the Department of Energy to work on the idea. As a result, the Satellite Power System Concept Development and Evaluation Program was formed with $50 million in spending total. Some engineering feasibility studies were done but the idea was scrapped in 1980 by the new Reagan administration, citing the high risk and many unknowns. NASA did a “fresh-look” at the technology in 1997, pointing out that what was needed to make the tech potentially competitive was a large lowering of costs of earth-to-orbit transportation. In 2012 China and India expressed an interest in collaborating on space-based solar. In 1999, NASA initiated the Space Solar Power Exploratory Research and Technology program (SERT) to explore feasibility and design concepts. The goal was to one day develop a system bringing 1 Gigawatt of power to Earth. NASA concluded that “Launch costs in the range of $100–$200 per kilogram of payload from low Earth orbit to Geosynchronous orbit are needed if SPS is to be economically viable.”

 

 

NASA’s Solar Power Satellite by means of Arbitrarily Large Phased Array (SPS-ALPHA)

 

     In 2011-2012 NASA announced their space solar research idea, the Solar Power Satellite by means of Arbitrarily Large Phased Array (SPS-ALPHA). This represented a different approach, utilizing biologically inspired architecture. It also envisioned mirrors, or reflectors, to concentrate solar power and a thermal management system. This satellite system could also be used to beam power to other spacecraft or space stations. Former NASA researcher John C. Mankins of Artemis Innovation Management Solutions, who worked on the project, described it in a 2013 article: “SPS-ALPHA involves three major functional elements: (1) a large primary array that is nadir pointing; (2) a very large sunlight-intercepting reflector system involving a large number of reflectors that act as individually pointing “heliostats,” mounted on a non-moving structure (the “bowl” of the goblet in the figure); and (3) a truss structure that connects those two. As conceived, SPS-ALPHA is not a traditional three-axis stabilized satellite with one or more solar arrays; rather, SPS-ALPHA entails bodymounted (non-moving) solar power generation on a gravity-gradient stabilized satellite, with an axi-symmetric physical configuration.” SPS ALPHA was a preliminary Phase 1 study and represented a unique hyper-modular approach to space solar.

     Clean Technica reported in 2022 that the US Air Force Research Lab is involved in power beaming experiments for the purpose of powering remote military operations. A test mission is expected by 2024.

 

 

Japan’s JAXA Moving Forward

 

     The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) began researching space solar in the 2000’s. Wiki notes: “JAXA announced on 12 March 2015 that they wirelessly beamed 1.8 kilowatts 50 meters to a small receiver by converting electricity to microwaves and then back to electricity. This is the standard plan for this type of power. On 12 March 2015 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries demonstrated transmission of 10 kilowatts (kW) of power to a receiver unit located at a distance of 500 meters (m) away.” JAXA had a goal of 1GW of space solar by 2031. JAXA first announced in 2022, then reiterated in May 2023 that they will attempt to beam power from space to Earth in 2025. It is not known how much power they plan to transfer with their first deployment. It was noted that deploying an array capable of producing 1 Gigawatt of power, comparable to a nuclear reactor or other large thermal power plant, would cost about $7 billion at present.

 

 

Cal Tech’s Endowment, Their Space Solar Power Project, and Recent Success of Their Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (MAPLE)

 

     The California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) got a huge boost in Space Solar R&D in 2011 as philanthropist Donald Bren, a wealthy businessman and member of Cal Tech’s Board of Trustees, agreed to donate through time $100 million toward the development of space solar. Northrop Grumman Corporation also donated $12.5 million to the project. Cal Tech launched the Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) in January 2023 on a Momentus Vigoride spacecraft aboard a SpaceX rocket on the Transporter-6 mission. The 50kg SSPP includes three experiments. The first, the Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (MAPLE) is the one that is collecting solar electricity, converting it to microwaves, and sending it to receiving antennas on Earth. The second experiment is the Deployable on-Orbit ultraLight Composite Experiment (DOLCE), a six feet by six feet structure demonstrating the “architecture, packaging scheme, and deployment mechanisms of the modular spacecraft.” The third experiment is called ALBA and involves testing 32 different kinds of photovoltaic cells to assess their durability and functionability in the harsh environment of space. As of June 1, 2023, the MAPLE has successfully demonstrated wireless power transfer from space to Earth, DOLCE has yet to deploy, and ALBA is ongoing. Cal Tech notes: “Individual SSPP units will fold up into packages about 1 cubic meter in volume and then unfurl into flat squares about 50 meters per side, with solar cells on one side facing toward the sun and wireless power transmitters on the other side facing toward Earth.” A video of Cal Tech’s space solar power demo can be found here. The unfolding of the DOLCE components is expected to be a delicate maneuver, not unlike the unfolding of the James Webb Space Telescope, which was successfully deployed in January 2022. According to a January 2023 article in Interesting Engineering the DOLCE experiment was planned to be the first to deploy, within days of launch, so it is not known why Cal Tech has not deployed it yet. In a 2021 article in IEEE Spectrum, Cal Tech researchers noted that launch costs had dropped from 1kg per square meter to about 100-200 kg/square meter with a roadmap to 10-20kg/m². Components like lightweight gallium-arsenide PV cells and design features like modularity are the means to lower the mass which also lowers the cost to transport it.

 

 

China’s Orb-Shape Membrane Energy Gathering Array (OMEGA) at Xidian University: Demonstrated Wireless Power Transfer Through Microwaves 180 ft in 2022

 

     China’s Orb-Shaped Membrane Energy Gathering Array was first proposed by Chinese engineer, Duan Bayoan, at Xidian University in 2014. The idea was based on NASA’s Solar Power Satellite via Arbitrarily Large Phased Array (SPS-ALPHA) proposed a few years before that. On June 5, 2022, it was announced that researchers successfully tested the “world’s first full-link and full-system solar power plant” consisting of a 246-ft (75 meter) tall steel structure with five different subsystems involved in the development of space solar power production. It has also been reported that China plans to launch a space solar satellite by 2028.

 

The European Space Agency and Aerospace Firm Airbus: The Munich Demo Wirelessly Transmits 2KW 36 Meters in 2022

 

     In 2022 the European Space Agency (ESA) and Aerospace Firm Airbus successfully demonstrated wireless transfer of 2kW of power across 36 meters. Although the efficiency was just a mere 5% overall, they noted that if it can be increased to 20% efficiency it can compete with existing solar power systems. That should be achievable in time. The U.S. Air Force’s Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) experimental space plane has reached 8% efficiency in converting solar power to microwaves but does not transmit them to Earth. Researchers at the NRL noted: “current transmitters and receivers lose half their input power. For space solar, power beaming needs 75% efficiency, “ideally 90%.” Most researchers around the world think that if these engineering problems can be solved, then space solar can eventually compete with other forms of energy production.

     The ESA also noted on their website: “By coming “close to the theoretical transmission efficiencies via electromagnetic waves (50–60%) … we could produce around 400 W of electricity per square meter on Earth receivers, which is about two to three times the amount we could receive from the same area of terrestrial PV panels.”

     

 

Wireless Power Transfer Basics

 

     Basically, the two most currently feasible ways by which energy may be transmitted wirelessly are microwaves and lasers, both far-field techniques.  Overall, microwave transmission is cheaper and better than lasers. Wireless energy transmission has the downside of energy losses during transmission, and this is another of the main economic hurdles to space solar. Other methods of Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) utilize solar cells and electromagnetic wave resonance. Electromagnetic fields have different characteristics depending on relative positions of power sources and receiving antennae. These different “regions” are divided into the near-field or non-radiative region (within one wavelength of the antenna) and the far-field or radiative region (beyond one wavelength of the antenna). Near-field techniques include inductive coupling, resonant inductive coupling, capacitive coupling, resonant capacitive coupling, and magnetodynamic coupling. The main far-field techniques are microwaves and lasers. Shorter EM wavelengths make microwaves the long-distance power transmission technique with the best conversion efficiency, up to 95%. The microwaves are converted back to electricity by rectifying antennae, or rectennae. Experiments are also ongoing to beam power by this method to spacecraft leaving orbit. The technique has also been demonstrated to power helicopters, airplanes, rovers, balloons, and cars. Rectennae were invented in 1964 as the first experiment confirmed the power conversion. In 1975 the U.S. Jet Propulsion Laboratory beamed 30kW of power from a 26m diameter parabolic dish to a rectenna 1.54 km away with 85% efficiency. Lasers have several huge drawbacks including the ability to blind and kill humans and animals, the need for a direct line of sight, atmospheric absorption and clouds can cause up to 100% losses, and the conversion efficiency between light (laser is in the light spectrum) and electricity is only 40-50%.

     As noted, Japan’s JAXA successfully demonstrated wireless energy transfer in 2015– 10kW to a receiver 500ft away and they demonstrated conversion of electricity to microwaves then back to electricity. On June 1, 2023, Cal Tech announced that they successfully transmitted power from their space solar demo satellite launched in January 2023 to Earth.

     The ability to transfer power at a distance relies on the concept of energy interference. Constructive interference, where waves amplify one another (rather than cancel one another out as in destructive interference) is utilized to concentrate and direct the energy to receiving points. Cal Tech has a video about it here.

 

 

Basic Space Solar Concept

 

     The Earth’s geosynchronous orbit is located in space 22,236 miles up where a satellite can keep a single spot on Earth in steady view all day, every day. That is where the best solar energy can be collected without clouds, winter, or twilight, with 24-hour availability except for about 44 hours per year near the eclipses. The downsides of space solar are cost, the difficulty and unknowns of maintenance, launch costs, and conversion losses. Launch costs are dropping with the advent of private satellite launch providers like SpaceX. Advances in robotics may lead to the biggest drop in costs as designs can be built out and unfolded in space. Use of lightweight composite materials can help lower payloads. Space solar satellites will also require an electric propulsion system with thrusters. These electric thrusters rely on a propellant, typically Xenon. The rectennas deployed on Earth will need to be very large, likely over 1 km to a few kilometers in diameter, to receive microwaves from a space solar deployment at scale. This will require real estate. However, the land use required will be much less than for equivalent earth-based solar energy production.

    

 

Source: A Review of Space Based Solar Power. Shubham S. Gosavi, Hrishikesh G. Mane, Asiya S. Pendhari, Aditya P. Magdum, Sangram Deshpande, Aditya Baraskar, Mandar Jadhav, Avesahemad Husainy. Journal of Thermal Energy System. Volume-6, Issue-1 (January-April, 2021). AReviewonSpaceBasedSolarPower.pdf

References:

 

Japan will try to beam solar power from space by 2025. Igor Bonifacic. Engadget. May 28, 2023. Japan will try to beam solar power from space by 2025 | Engadget

Japan to demonstrate space solar power by 2025. Steven Gislam. January 2022. Industry Europe. Japan to demonstrate space solar power by 2025 - Industry Europe

Space-Based Solar Power. Wikipedia. Space-based solar power - Wikipedia

Space-based solar power: How it works, and why it's being considered now. ABC Science. James Purtill. December 19, 2022. Space-based solar power: How it works, and why it's being considered now - ABC News

A Review of Space Based Solar Power. Shubham S. Gosavi, Hrishikesh G. Mane, Asiya S. Pendhari, Aditya P. Magdum, Sangram Deshpande, Aditya Baraskar, Mandar Jadhav, Avesahemad Husainy. Journal of Thermal Energy System. Volume-6, Issue-1 (January-April, 2021). AReviewonSpaceBasedSolarPower.pdf

Spaced Based Solar Power System (SBPS). Raja Vignesh. C.R. August 2017. (PDF) SPACE BASED SOLAR POWER SYSTEM (SBSP) (researchgate.net)

Solar Power from Space? Caltech’s $100 Million Gambit. Ned Potter. August 11, 2021. IEEE Spectrum. Solar Power from Space? Caltech’s $100 Million Gambit - IEEE Spectrum

Space-based solar power is getting serious – can it solve Earth’s energy woes? Daniel Clery. October 19, 2022. Science, Vol 378, Issue 6617. Space-based solar power is getting serious—can it solve Earth’s energy woes? | Science | AAAS

Scientists Successfully Transmit Space-Based Solar Power to Earth for the First Time. Kevin Hurler. Gizmodo. June 2, 2023. Scientists Beam Space-Based Solar Power to Earth for First Time (gizmodo.com)

In a First, Caltech's Space Solar Power Demonstrator Wirelessly Transmits Power in Space. June 1, 2023. California Institute of Technology. In a First, Caltech's Space Solar Power Demonstrator Wirelessly Transmits Power in Space | www.caltech.edu

We're about to get our first demonstration of space-based solar power. John Loeffler. Interesting Engineering. January 2, 2023. Space-based solar power gets its first real test this month (interestingengineering.com)

New Tower in China Brings Us a Step Closer to Space-Based Solar Power. Kevin Hurler. June 14, 2022. Gizmodo. New Tower in China Brings Us a Step Closer to Space-Based Solar Power (gizmodo.com)

SPS-ALPHA: A Novel Approach to Space Solar Power. John C. Mankins. Ad Astra, Volume 25 Number 1, Spring 2013. SPS-ALPHA: A Novel Approach to Space Solar Power - National Space Society (nss.org)

We're about to get our first demonstration of space-based solar power. John Loeffler. Interesting Engineering. January 2, 2023. Space-based solar power gets its first real test this month (interestingengineering.com)

Space-Based Solar Power Is Back On The Table. Steve Hanley. Clean Technica. June 8, 2022. Space-Based Solar Power Is Back On The Table - CleanTechnica