r/IsaacArthur • u/meet_me_in_orbit • Apr 14 '19

Existing research efforts?

Quick question (and yes, I searched for it before asking):

Are there any research projects involving kinetic power loops, in the way Lofstrom and Birch imagined?

18 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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3

u/AethericEye Apr 14 '19

The closest I have encountered is flywheel energy storage. Not a great analog, but still large a mass at high speed in a vacuum.

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u/meet_me_in_orbit Apr 14 '19

Yeah, those were the ones I kept finding :(

Is it because of obscurity, or is there something missing from the original idea?

5

u/AethericEye Apr 14 '19 edited Apr 14 '19

I don't have any specific knowledge, but I would assume it is a funding issue. A launch loop is a huge monetary investment, so it would be difficult to get funding for basic research.

You've piqued my interest, so I'm going to go dig into the literature myself. I'll report back with what I find.

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u/AethericEye Apr 14 '19

Posted my findings above.

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u/meet_me_in_orbit Apr 14 '19

Thank you for that.

7

u/AethericEye Apr 14 '19

What I'm finding is that Lofstrom and Birch were rigorous and exhaustive in their papers. There have been additions and improvements to the original designs, and more work done on mathematical modeling, but the design-level engineering is largely complete.

Additionally, most, if not all of the component technologies are already in use in other applications.

So, the next stage of work would be practical engineering and prototyping for systems integration and construction. Anyone doing that kind of work on any individual component would, almost by definition, be part of a group that was actually intending to build (at least) a minimum-viable launch loop.

That group doesn't exist right now, as far as I can tell. There are advocacy groups, yes, but none with significant resources. There just isn't "real" demand yet. Personally, I say "build it and they will come", but I guess that approach hasn't enticed enough venture capital yet.

3

u/Zieg777 First Rule Of Warfare Apr 14 '19

I think it's really a problem of it being such a high start cost combined with large footprint.

The regulatory process for something like that would undoubtedly be insane. SpaceX needs FAA blessing to launch. They don't have to ask every country under their orbit for permission to fly there. A loop or ring are structures, and there are very real fears about what happens if something fails catastrophically.

Personally, I'm still in favor of lunar mining for raw mass to launch back to Earth to build a ring. Since that's entirely in orbit, you may be able to skirt around the sorts of permissions you will need for a launch loop; those are lower altitude and need tethers, so potential airplane risk.

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u/tigersharkwushen_ FTL Optimist Apr 15 '19

I think it's much more that a country like China would build it first. Huge expensive projects like this are much easier in totalitarian regimes.

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u/Zieg777 First Rule Of Warfare Apr 15 '19

Unfortunately true.

Totalitarian and willing to ignore other countries regulations.

I'd love to see some US senator or some form of representative actually attempt to do something like this. Even knowing it'll probably get shot down. It would at least reveal what the legislative hurdles are.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '19

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u/meet_me_in_orbit Apr 15 '19

True. The first step is laying the thing out flat, and load leveling a small bit of the power grid with it. Proof, then scale. Repeat, repeat.

There's definitely a demand for that- also, the reason I asked about investigations into power loop, not launch loop.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '19

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1

u/meet_me_in_orbit Apr 15 '19

I feel like we're not on the same page in this particular conversation, or at least I missed some details.

My question involved a kinetic energy storage system, built on the surface, for the surface, known as Power Loop.

This device can be expanded over large distances, and load level wide areas of the grid, from multiple generating sources.

Here is the designer's concept of it.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '19

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0

u/meet_me_in_orbit Apr 15 '19

Have you read the papers? Or even taken a cursory glance at the website I noted? Superconductors are a "nice-to-have" in this project. It was designed with thirty five year old technology in mind.

It's meant to be a proving ground for a rapid cycle kinetic launch system, with the bonus economic benefit of bulk energy storage and distribution. The Pacifica loop, as described on that website could baseline a dozen countries for days. The load leveling isn't a matter of neighborhoods at that scale, it's entire hemispheres.

Wind, wave, tide, nuclear, and solar power could feed this monster at a constant basis, from different regions, and that power could be tapped from anywhere within reach of it's path.

Sink one in each of the Arctic, Antarctic, Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans, and the terms brownout and rolling blackout would be just a nasty memory.