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IXICIXI t1_ixere31 wrote

Reply to comment by adoughoskins in The ESA aims to make 24/7 space-based solar energy harvesting a reality | Solaris program will study space-based solar power amid rising energy concerns by chrisdh79

Layman here — but this is not like a microwave oven appliance. The appliance doesn’t exactly produce heat to warm food. It fires microwaves at a finely tuned frequency to excite the water molecules in your food which makes them hot (correct me if I’m wrong here please). So I’m assuming the microwaves used in this project would be tuned differently so as not to excite our atmosphere.

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rocketsocks t1_ixh263o wrote

Ultimately it doesn't matter how the transfer is made, it's the question of usage. Importing energy to Earth then using it would technically generate heat. But it's such a tiny amount compared to global warming heating that it's not worth worrying about at the current scale.

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IXICIXI t1_ixijgjs wrote

Is this a matter of adding more energy to the system than there otherwise would have been without intervention?

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rocketsocks t1_ixj39uk wrote

Yep. But whether it happens with burning coal that was buried forever or using sunlight that wouldn't have landed on Earth the result is the same. Replacing fossil fuel power generation with space based solar is net neutral with regard to direct heat production but avoids the generation of greenhouse gases which result in orders of magnitude more heating of the Earth (due to trapping heat that would otherwise have escaped), so it would be a huge win in that case.

Compared to where we are now, worrying about the impact of direct heating from human activities would count as a "nice problem to have".

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IXICIXI t1_ixk32r6 wrote

I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for the response.

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