Global Rural Electrification: A Different Race Initiative

Abstract

“Perhaps the single greatest contribution that could be made to environmental conservation would be the invention of a satisfactory fuel‐wood substitute” for developing nations. Providing electric power from orbit under a program of energy as foreign aid to developing nations will benefit the local and global environment and people living on the margins of existence, and it will provide technically challenging jobs to the engineers and scientists of all the nations that undertake such a massive project. Civil engineers can, if they and their professional societies so choose, play a significant, if not integral, role in using the resources of Earth and its surroundings for the benefit of mankind under a program of energy from space. This paper extends the concepts from a previous work by the writer to global rural electrification based on electric power from power stations, built in geosynchronous orbit out of lunar materials, distributed to individual villages and rural electric cooperatives via microwaves for a cost of between 6 cents and 45 cents per kilowatt‐hour. Power would be available in modular increments of 25–100 kilowatts with an average capital cost as low as $5,000 per kilowatt. The goals of the program for global rural electrification are twofold: to provide electric power from space at competitive costs, relative to current costs, to rural and agricultural areas, and to divert resources from weapons development to infrastructure development. The potential for involvement by civil engineers is limited only by their own lack of vision and daring.