Energy Crisis: Solution from Space
by Ralph Nansen. Apogee. 2009. 203 pages. $24.95.
An energy source that is nondepletable, available to everyone, environmentally clean, and in a form we can easily use—we have yet to find it on Earth, but it is there for the taking in space, argues space engineer Ralph Nansen. He presents a bold and far-reaching plan to deploy satellites that will capture solar radiation from the sun and beam it to earth for use in generating immense new quantities of electricity.
Plans for such satellites have been under way since the 1970s, he explains, relating the historical background of America’s space program and technical details of the structures that a hypothetical solar-satellite system would include. It would be a very long-term solution, he cautions: Government agencies and businesses would have to commit many years of development and huge initial investments. But if human beings muster the foresight to go through with it, the reward will be a new era of low-cost energy that the entire world can enjoy.
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