Space Island’s Solar Solution to Energy Alternative

A dramatic but realistic proposal by the Space Island Group (SIG) for space-based solar energy fields has caught the eye of Time Warner’s Business 2.0 (B20) magazine. The national publication’s March 2006 issue highlights SIG’s plan as part of its cover story, “An Entrepreneur’s Guide to the Galaxy,” (attached) which reviews the exploding number of private sector space projects.

According to B20, early in the next decade SIG will begin placing huge, mile-wide sheets of solar cells in earth orbit. These NASA-designed structures, called solar power satellites, will convert sunlight into electricity, then use weak, pollution-free, environmentally safe microwave beams to send that energy down to simple antennas anywhere on Earth. The antennas will convert the beams back into electricity and feed it into standard existing power grids at an extremely low cost. The system will operate 24/7 overcoming the drawback of rooftop solar cells and windmills.

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