Green Options

The Japanese space agency has unveiled an incredible new plan to start collecting solar power in space, and zap it down to Earth via microwaves or laser beams.

Under the plan, known as the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), floating photovoltaic dishes several square miles across would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth’s atmosphere as soon as 2030.

According to a researcher at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, “Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming. The sun’s rays abound in space.” (Another picture after the jump).

This week at ZapRoot: The Strandbeest behemoth (which we featured here on CleanTechnica) is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Ice in both poles is melting. Totally Useless Crap is back!

Did you know that over the course of a year, a microwave operating in standby mode will use about the same amount of electricity as it would if it ran on HIGH for 24 hours? Frightening, isn’t it? In fact, the average American home has 20-40 appliances plugged in at any given time, and in a year those appliances will together use what is equivalent to one month of electricity for the entire household - just sitting there. This great [...]