Wall Street Pit:  For forty years now, Dr. David Criswell — retired physicist from the University of Houston — has been advocating the use of sunlight on the moon as a source of electricity. In short, he wants the moon to be turned into one giant solar power station (referred to as lunar-based solar power or LSP). And while he has yet to gain the support needed to set things into motion, maybe more people will take his idea more seriously now, especially in light of the world’s energy crisis which can only be solved by a clean and renewable power source.

The main idea is to build solar collectors — stations that would collect sunlight and convert part of that solar power into electricity, which will then be transmitted wirelessly to Earth via microwave beams.

In contrast with Earth-based solar power, LSP will not be constrained by time or weather; it will work 24/7 because in space, the sun is always shining. And because microwave beams can penetrate through clouds with minimal energy loss, receiving stations on Earth will be able to receive the incoming beams regardless of time or weather conditions. This also implies that with a perpetual energy source, there would be no need for storage devices because there would be no need to store collected energy.

According to Dr. Criswell, the moon contains all the materials required to build some kind of LSP system, from solar power collectors to microwave generators and transmission equipment. He estimates that while the project would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, it will be able to generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, and it will mean huge savings for consumers too. Instead of paying about 12 cents per kilowatt hour, the cost would be reduced to 0.001 cents per kilowatt hour.  Full Article: