Could a Lunar Solar Array Power the Entire Earth?

Although it’s been decades since man has set foot on lunar soil, a Japanese firm hopes to build a massive solar array on the moon, beaming the power back to Earth.

Dubbed the Luna Ring, the project is “a large scale concept [looking] to create a new form of energy infrastructure”.  As imagined by the Shimizu Corporation, the Luna Ring would be composed of thousands of solar panels arrayed along a 400km (250 mile) stretch on the Moon’s 11,000km (6,800 mile) equator.

Using microwaves and laser light, the Luna ring would beam power back to Earth in a continuous stream, creating an “almost inexhaustible amount of energy.” 

According to the Shimizu Corporation, if their Luna Ring project were built on the side of the moon that consistently faces the Sun the entire system could generate around 13,000 terawatts (TW) of power.  For the sake of scale, global power consumption reached 16 TW in 2006, meaning the Luna Ring could provide over 800 times more energy than we currently consume.

While the Luna Ring is obviously an ambitious, if not ludicrous project, engineers at the Shimizu Corporation believe the project can be pulled off beginning in 2030.

Using native lunar material and robot construction equipment, a large swath of the Moon would be leveled and made ready for the solar arrays. Cable-laden tunnels dug beneath the lunar soil would carry collected energy to centralized power stations where it could then be beamed to large microwave collection depots on Earth. All in all, Shimizu believes it could finish the project in 30 years.  

How power generated on the Moon would be distributed worldwide is still a mystery too. Given that the Moon is legally considered the “province of all mankind,” it might take a good deal of legal cajoling to begin construction of such a large-scale project, regardless of how noble the intention.

Although Shimizu’s utopian vision is unlikely to be realized, dreaming up projects of this magnitude and studying their feasibility is what engineering is all about. My hat goes off to the wild dreamers at Shimizu Corporation.

Images and Video Courtesy of Shimizu Corporation