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How can we get electricity from space?

Details: Written by northsouth; Category: Africa; Published: 18 June 2023; Hits: 511

LONDON - Solar power harvested by satellites and beamed to Earth is no longer ‘just science fiction’, say scientists.

The United Kingdom (UK) government has given the go-ahead for a £4.3 million project to harness the Sun’s rays via a “Bond-style” floating solar power station that could supply up to a quarter of the country’s electricity, writes Arion McNicoll in the London-Based publication The Week.

Grant Shapps this week announced a multimillion-pound package of support for a project being led by two universities. Cambridge University will develop ultra-lightweight solar panels that can survive the harsh environment of space, while Queen Mary, University of London will research the wireless transmission technology that would send the energy back to Earth.

The energy company EDF, meanwhile, will investigate how to get the power into the UK’s National Grid.

“It does sound like something out of a Bond movie,” Shapps, the energy security and net zero secretary, said in an interview with The Telegraph. “But solar panels in space have the advantage of getting 24 hours of sunlight, which we can’t do on Earth, so it’s definitely worth investing in.

“People thought it was impossible to land a man on the Moon, or impossible to split that atom. You follow the science and the impossible becomes possible.”

‘A near-limitless supply of power’

Earlier this week a prototype built by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) demonstrated that beaming power wirelessly from space towards Earth is possible.

A small but detectable amount of power was transmitted by a device known as the Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (Maple), which Space.com explained is “an array of flexible and lightweight microwave power transmitters”.

According to the space news website, the experiment proved “the viability of tapping into a near-limitless supply of power in the form of energy from the sun from space”.

Retrieving energy from space has numerous advantages, the site said. “Because solar energy in space isn’t subject to factors like day and night, obscuration by clouds, or weather on Earth, it is always available.” Consequently, “it is estimated that space-based harvesters could potentially yield eight times more power than solar panels at any location on the surface of the globe.”

‘Space solar power is inevitable’

Tapping into such a potentially vast and reliable power supply could not only boost Britain’s energy security, but will also reduce the need for fossil fuels and drive down household bills, Shapps said.

It is not just the UK that is interested in the technology. In late November, a top-level meeting of European science ministers will convene in Paris to discuss the next priorities for the European Space Agency (Esa). One item they will be considering is a project called Solaris, which proposes building commercial power stations in orbit.

The China Academy of Space Technology has announced plans for a similar system by 2028 and military labs in the US are reportedly experimenting with technology that could send power to remote bases or combat zones.

Generating power in space is not a new idea, said The Guardian. In fact it has been investigated every few decades since the beginning of the space race and “on every occasion, the story has been the same: the cost of launching such large satellites is prohibitive. But now, things are different.”

Reusable rockets are making the cost of sending equipment into orbit significantly cheaper, the newspaper said, citing John Mankins, a former Nasa physicist who is now president of Artemis Innovation Management Solutions.

Instead of costing about $1,000 to launch every kilogram into space, Mankins told The Guardian he expects prices soon to reach closer to $300 a kilogram. “That’s the holy grail for space solar power. It is not just possible someday – it’s inevitable in the next five or seven years,” he said.

“People are realising this isn’t just science fiction,” Ali Hajimiri, an electrical engineer at Caltech and one of the Maple project’s leaders, told The Wall Street Journal. “There may be a pathway to make this reality.”

‘An existential need’

Obstacles remain. One Solaris-funded report by the research firm Roland Berger noted that bringing space-based solar power to Earth will require not just a lot of satellites but plenty of antenna farms on the ground. Two gigawatts of beamed power would require about 25 square miles of receiver, the firm suggested.

Other potential dangers include everything from “impacts on health to sabotage”, the WSJ said. “And then there is the question of how much customers will have to pay for their space-based solar electricity.”

In its report, Roland Berger concluded that power from space could be “a cost-competitive renewable technology”, but that it still depends on how much it costs to send equipment into space and the cost of electronics generally.

Still, for Sergio Pellegrino, who also worked on Caltech’s project, the opportunities are clear. “There is an existential need for abundant clean power,” he said, “and this could help get us there.”

Over 38 children dead, others abducted in attack on Uganda school

Details: Written by northsouth; Category: Africa; Published: 17 June 2023; Hits: 529

KAMPALA - At least 38 pupils and three adults have been killed in an attack on a school in Uganda by a rebel group linked to Isis, according to local authorities.

The attack took place at Lhubiriha school in the Kasese district in western Uganda, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), police say.

The attackers burnt down a dormitory and looted food from the school’s stores, national police spokesperson Fred Enanga said.

Some of the children were burnt or hacked to death while many other pupils, mostly girls have been abducted by the group, Major General Dick Olum from the Ugandan army told the media.

The attack took place on Friday night and the death toll was initially put at 25. Officials said later on Saturday that 41 bodies had been recovered, including 38 schoolchildren, one guard and two members of the local community who were shot outside the school.

Authorities were still trying to extinguish the fire by Saturday morning local time, officials said, and they feared more dead bodies would be recovered.

Bodies were taken to Bwera Hospital, officials say. Eight people still remain in critical condition.

They have identified the attackers as being from a militant group called the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which has sworn allegiance to Isis.

The military was in “hot pursuit” of the attackers to rescue the abducted pupils, a spokesperson said. Officials believe the ADF attackers were headed towards the Virunga National Park, the major said.

The ADF has been responsible for several attacks in Congo in recent years including killing 30 soldiers and three civillians in 2021.

The group has been active since the 2000s and largely consists of local rebel fighters from DRC claiming responsibility for attacks using an Isis flag. It was first publicly recognised by Isis as an affiliate in late 2018 after an attack on the armed forces of the DRC, according to the US state department.

According to the United Nations, there are more than 100 armed groups operating in the DRC.

Over 200 bodies dug up amid Kenya cult case

Details: Written by northsouth; Category: Africa; Published: 13 May 2023; Hits: 561

NAIROBI - Kenyan police have exhumed the highest number of bodies in a single day from a forest in Kilifi, Kenya’s coastal region, which is linked to a controversial doomsday cult.

Twenty-nine more bodies were exhumed on Friday.

So far, over 200 people, believed to be members of the Good News International Church, are confirmed to have died either of starvation, strangulation or blunt force trauma.

The more forensic teams dig, the more bodies they find. One shallow grave had 12 bodies huddled together.

The Kenya Red Cross says 609 people who are reported to be members of the doomsday cult allegedly led by Paul Mackenzie are still missing.

Pastor Mackenzie said he closed down his church four years ago after nearly two decades of operation.

But the BBC has uncovered hundreds of his sermons still available online, some of which appear to have been recorded after this date.

In an interview with Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper a few weeks ago, Pastor Mackenzie also denied he had forced his followers to fast.

The number of missing cult members has tripled since the extensive rescue and exhumation operation began in late April.

Kenya’s Attorney General has admitted that the state failed to protect the alleged victims.

The cult leader is still in police custody. He is yet to be charged.

Sudan crisis forces South Sudanese refugees back to troubled home

Details: Written by northsouth; Category: Africa; Published: 08 May 2023; Hits: 548

By Denis Elamu

RENK, South Sudan - The last place Lina Mijok wanted to go as she fled fighting in Sudan was back to her own country, South Sudan, which she had left as civil war erupted in 2013.

But when Sudan's army started battling the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the streets around to her home last month, South Sudan was the only place she and her two young children could reach.

"I would not have come back to South Sudan. I would have gone anywhere, but I had no choice," the 26-year-old said.

She had managed to carve out a new life for herself as a housemaid in the city of Omdurman, across the River Nile from Sudan's capital Khartoum.

Then the shots started ringing out and her family had to pack up and leave that behind them - all of them apart from Mijok's husband.

He had to stay behind as they did not have enough money to pay for his place on the trucks and buses that carried Mijok, their son and their daughter to the border, a nerve-wracking two days on bush roads.

They are now among thousands camping out in South Sudan's Renk County, in a dilapidated university campus, its buildings pockmarked by bullets from fighting a decade ago.

The refugees have made basic shelters out of sticks and pieces of fabric. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, and other aid groups are distributing food, water, buckets, blankets and mats.

"The heat is killing us and some people have gone four days without eating, and there is no place to sleep, and the children are getting sick," Mijok said. She hopes the United Nations will help her move to another country.

'WHAT SHOULD WE DO? WE DON'T KNOW'

The fighting has turned the humanitarian situation on its head.

Up to last month, more than 800,000 South Sudanese refugees lived in Sudan, refugees from decades of conflict.

Since the fighting erupted in Khartoum, the UNHCR has registered more than 30,000 people crossing into South Sudan, more than 90% of them South Sudanese. The true number is likely much higher, it says.

Aid agencies fear the influx will worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis in South Sudan where more than 2 million people are displaced and three quarters of the 11-million-strong population need aid.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after two decades of north-south conflict. Civil war broke out there barely two years later, killing an estimated 400,000 people.

"South Sudan is one of UNHCR’s most underfunded crises already and we are now mobilising to support this new influx," agency spokesperson Charlotte Hallqvist said. "We urge the international community not to forget about South Sudan."

Like Mijok, Suzan William, 36, fled the civil war in 2013 and rebuilt her life in Sudan, working as a nurse in Khartoum. Now she is back in her homeland, camping in Renk with her four children.

"People say there is no stability in South Sudan, so we decided to build houses in Sudan. But now also there is no stability in Sudan. What should we do? We don’t know."