My hope is that all of the knowledge of our age can be preserved for future generations. Knowing what is coming upon us, I have proposed, for example; placing microwave reflectors (ultra-thin wire mesh, basically) in geosynchronous orbit and using ground based microwave technology to distribute renewably-produced energy around the world as needed. This is existent technology. This setup would also provide for a global internet to continue to exist and link all of humanity into a densely-interconnected whole.  Its backbone would be sun powered and 23,400 miles above Earth's equator. Once established it could easily function for a thousand years without maintenance while humanity sorted out its affairs below. Everyone would benefit from, and be dependent upon, the global sharing of energy and information that this would make possible.  Shrinking away from technology at this point would be foolish in the utmost extreme!

I have had several inquiries from readers as to how this would actually work. So to more fully address these questions, I have adapted a section on this topic from my book The Path Through Infinity’s Rainbow.
 

There is technology presently available that could safely provide a world-spanning power-sharing network that could make the ultimate difference between total collapse into an unending Dark Age, or survival with an open ended future for a complex human society during the coming years of global crisis and chaos as we reap the consequences of our indifference to climate change and energy resource depletion (peak oil). It would allow for the most efficient usage of renewably generated electrical energy by efficiently transmitting surpluses in one region (such as wind power generated on the night side of the planet) to peak energy demands in another (such as high-demand usage on the day side of the planet).               

This energy-sharing system would link together globally distant communities into an integral whole. It would facilitate the emergence of deep group core values of sharing and understanding that all individuals are parts of their communities, which in their turn are parts of a greater, global whole. Because the energy would come from the Earth’s natural systems, a civilization with moderate energy requirements would be inherently attuned to and in harmony with those natural systems—and with nature itself. Furthermore, a global network of separate, distinct, societies would be knitted together into an integral global system founded upon sharing and caring—not just because it is a good thing to do, but because it facilitates survival itself. For these communities, life itself depends upon sharing.

Adapting to the mounting energy and environmental crises will facilitate rapid memetic evolution in these communities. Sharing, caring, and understanding that one is a part of a nested system of systems will emerge as survival values.

The single most difficult challenge for any energy production and distribution network is storage. There is no effective way to store large amounts of power. Additionally, the greatest disadvantage of solar and wind power systems is that they cannot operate continuously—the sun does not always shine, and the wind does not always blow. Further, power consumption is greatest during the day and minimal during the post-midnight hours. Seasons also affect these power sources considerably.

Global distribution of renewable power addresses all of these problems. Power would not need to be stored, at least not in great quantities. Wind power from the night side of the world can be sent to the day side where it is most needed. Excess solar power gathered in the summer hemisphere can be sent to augment the weaker intake in the winter hemisphere. Wind power from areas where the wind is blowing can pick up the slack for those that are becalmed.

Additionally, by facilitating Internet communications between numerous cooperative communities scattered across the planet, this world-spanning network would allow for rapid information sharing. No one would have to reinvent the wheel. Once a common problem was solved anywhere, it would be solved everywhere and for everyone. A new culture—a new global civilization—founded upon an intuitive understanding of systems theory and cooperation would emerge. Certainly, the chances of survival for these interlinked communities would be much enhanced, as would quality of life for all.

And this greatly enhanced probability of survival just might allow for enough of the very best of our old civilization—its science, art, philosophy, history, and so forth—to survive. It would provide historical and technological continuity with the crisis-evolved, wiser, and more humane successor civilization that might emerge from the global crises of the coming years, decades and centuries. And that new civilization may someday be able to bootstrap itself into the solar system again.

All of the technological obstacles to this kind of project were resolved during the 1970s and 1980s.[151, 152, 153] The near future’s significantly lowered cost per pound for access to space may make it feasible in both economic and EROEI terms for large microwave reflectors to be strategically deployed in geosynchronous orbit. These reflectors could allow for renewable power facilities to be built in remote places—wind farms in the Australian Outback or Patagonia, for example, where wind blows strongly and often continuously, but where there are very few people.

The power generated would be beamed up to an orbiting microwave reflector and then beamed back down to an array on Earth called a “rectenna” (rectifying antenna) that is located near a populated area that is experiencing peak daytime power demand. The reflectors would facilitate energy sharing between geographically distant human communities.

An even more ambitious power agenda would involve capturing sunlight directly in space (where, of course, the sun never sets) using very large but lightweight satellites located in geosynchronous orbit. [154] Construction and materials costs could be massively reduced by essentially catapulting raw materials for construction from the surface of the moon where these materials would be mined, as was first proposed in the 1970s by the late Princeton University physics professor Gerard K. O’Neil in his book The High Frontier. [155]

Although such an extremely ambitious project may not be feasible in our energy constrained near future; I believe that there does remain sufficient time to develop and deploy a network of microwave reflectors in geosynchronous orbit that will allow for renewable energy generated on Earth to be efficiently distributed around the world.

These reflectors are basically just strategically positioned wire mesh. The reflector produces its own operating power with solar panels. Yet, simple as it is, a network of these microwave reflectors could allow for efficient sharing and distribution of renewably produced energy throughout a network of cooperating communities located across the entire planet.

This is not to say that the technological challenges are not significant—they are. Nothing so large has been put into orbit before. The reflective antennas could be as large as one kilometer (nearly two-thirds of a mile) in diameter. However, they would be extremely thin, and so they would weigh only several tens of tons each. The design would allow for an entire antenna to be launched by a heavy-lift cargo rocket folded in one piece and to subsequently unfolded to its full size in space. Only about a dozen reflectors would be required. Thus, with a dozen launches the entire system would be in place.

Because microwaves are invisible, there is no need for these objects to be reflective at optical wavelengths of light. The microwave frequency used to beam power to and from these reflectors would be 2.45 gigahertz (2450 MHz, or 2.45 billion cycles per second). This frequency is called the S Band (2 to 4 gigahertz) and it is commonly used for search radars because it passes unimpeded through clouds and rain. All components for such a radar system are standardized and are mass manufactured, so costs are kept very low.

I further note that the 2.4 gigahertz frequency—very close to that used for power transmission—is currently being employed for industry-standardized Wi-Fi 802.11b and g wireless Internet transmission. One benefit of using this frequency is that this band is unaffected by weather. With miniscule additional investment and little additional complexity, a global Internet linking all cooperating communities together can be designed into the power relay system!

Can such a radar system operate continuously for long periods of time? It certainly can. For example, the largest weather radar in Canada is the McGill S-Band Radar. It began operations in 1968 and has operated continuously ever since except during maintenance periods and periodic upgrades. It transmits 700 kilowatts of power. This provides proof of the concept that an intermittently operating 500 kilowatt to 500 megawatt radar transmitter could provide reliable operation for decades. It also clarifies that such a ground transmission system could be built by survival communities using inexpensive off-the-shelf components.[156]

Is beamed power safe? One researcher has noted that:

The peak intensity of the microwave beam would be 23 milliwatts
per square centimeter (148 milliwatts per square inch).
The US standard for industrial exposure to microwaves is 10
milliwatts per square centimeter, while up to 5 milliwatts per
square centimeter are allowed to leak from microwave ovens.
US standards are based on heating effects. Stricter standards
are in effect in some countries. So far, no non-thermal health
effects of low-level microwave exposure have been proven,
although the issue remains controversial. Nevertheless, even
the peak of the beam is not exactly a death ray. Underneath the
rectenna, microwave levels are practically nil. [157]

 
The ground-based rectenna arrays would contain most of the technical complexity for such a system. And they would be quite simple; basically just a lot of short, cheap dipole antennas connected together by diodes, mounted on supporting scaffolding, and spread out across several acres. Each antenna would be just over seven inches in length, according to my calculations for a standard three-half-wavelength wave-dipole antenna. [158] Crops could be grown safely on the land around the rectenna scaffolding.

Beaming renewably produced power to an orbiting reflector would involve using simple technology not very different from a high-power radar, which is decades-old technology. Speaking as a former guided-missile fire-control technician in the U.S. Navy, I know from personal experience that bright teenagers can become competent at operating, maintaining, and troubleshooting this type of technology in a matter of months. This experience demonstrates that the ground-based portions of my proposed power-sharing system could certainly be maintained during chaotic years of upheaval which might predictably result from environmental and energy collapse.

This is a relatively small investment with a potentially big payoff. It allows for the full power of between-group cooperation to be employed on a global scale, even during the darkest days of this coming period. Much ground-breaking research on the topic of microwave beaming of power has been conducted by Dr. Gregory Benford. [159, 160 ](For the record, Benford was the out-of-department member of my Ph.D. Committee at UC Irvine.)

Decades ago, visionary futurist R. Buckminster Fuller proposed the creation of a world energy grid. This grid would use land lines to link together the energy grids of all six of the planet’s inhabited continents. The advantages of doing this were very clear to Fuller:

Within the crises times immediately ahead—into which we

have already entered—the computer is soon to respond. We

must integrate the world’s electrical-energy networks. We must

be able to continually integrate the progressive night-into day

and day into-night hemispheres of our revolving planet.

With all the world’s electric energy needs being supplied by

a twenty-four-hour-around, omni-integrated network, all of

yesterday’s, one-half-the-time-unemployed, standby generators

will be usable all the time, thus swiftly doubling the operating

capacity of the world’s electrical energy grid. [161]

There is simply no reason that a space-based system for worldwide power sharing could not put into place within a decade, or perhaps even sooner. Doing this would increase our chances of survival and would actively facilitate the emergence of a new post-crisis civilization that would possess the learning, and the technology, and the wisdom necessary to someday move forward to space again.

It is important to understand that only a high-energy, high-technology civilization is capable of making its way into the solar system. There it can harnessthe vast resources of raw materials and energy resources found in the asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt, the Oort Cloud, the atmospheres of the gas giants (for hydrogen in particular), and the endless supply of energetic sunlight that radiates outward ceaselessly from our sun.

However, such a civilization has only a very narrow window of opportunity in which to transition from a civilization wholly dependent upon planetary energy and material resources to one able to utilize the thousand-fold greater resources of the entire solar system. This is because of the rapid onset of peak oil and global climate change, which in turn swiftly terminates high-energy planetary civilization.

Once such a civilization falls, it can never be restarted again, as the easily exploitable hydrocarbon resources and necessary metals and minerals will be gone. Our civilization appears to have passed the point of no return; however, I believe that by deploying the microwave reflector satellites I’ve described above, it may be possible to revisit that option after our existential crises have passed.

This is not a “pie in the sky” boondoggle. Rather, since humanity has always been a tool-using species, it amounts to using our advanced scientific knowledge and capabilities to promote both the survival and the evolution of our species in the direction of environmental sustainability, while at least leaving open the possibility of post-Collapse expansion into the solar system and beyond.

Individuals, groups, an enlightened Foundation, could come together to make it happen.

Let’s call it “Pi in the sky.”

Notes

151 Wikipedia, The Free Online Encyclopedia, Solar Power Satellites,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite (accessed June 15, 2006).

152 Space Daily.com, The Case for Solar Power Satellites, Aug. 11, 2003,

www.spacedaily.com/news/ssp-03b.html.

153 Brown, W. C. 1984. The History of Power Transmission by Radio Waves.

Microwave Theory and Techniques. Vol. 32: 1230–1242. ieeexplore.ieee.org/

xpl/abs_free.jsp?arNumber=1132833.

154 Industrial Physicist, Solar Power via the Moon, Reproduced from American

Institute of Physics, Rutgers.edu, April/May, 2002., Volume 8, Number 2, PS 12-

15, http://www.tipmagazine.com/tip/INPHFA/vol-8/iss-2/p12.pdf.

155 O’Neil, Gerard K. The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space. 3rd ed.

Wheaton, IL: Apogee Books, 2000.

156 McGill S Band Radar, http://www.radar.mcgill.ca/s_band.html.

157 Potter, Seth, Solar Power Satellites: An Idea Whose Time has Come,

www.freemars.org/history/sps.html.

158 Radio Electronics.com, The dipole antenna, www.radio-electronics.

com/info/antennas/dipole/dipole.php.

159 Benford, James, Gregory Benford, et al., Microwave Beam Driven Sail Flight

Experiments, home.earthlink.net/~jbenford/Microwave_Beam_Driven.

pdf.

160 Science’s Compass Review: Engineering, Advanced Technology Paths to

Global Climate Stability: Energy for a Greenhouse Planet, www.people.fas.

harvard.edu/~bielicki/HEJCAttic/Papers/Hoffert.pdf.

161 Global Energy Network Institute (GENI): Library R. Buckminster Fuller,

What is the Planet’s Critical Path?—Quotes, www.geni.org/globalenergy/

library/buckminster_fuller/criticalpath.shtml.