Could Space-based Satellites Power Remote Mines?

Many space-based technologies are still looking for their "killer app", which is the thing that they do better than anything else and makes them indispensable to anyone who needs that app to solve a problem. Most of the killer apps will be used to solve a problem on Earth. One of them is space-based solar power satellites.

They have the ability to fundamentally change the energy industry. They need a killer app to get people to invest in them. A group of researchers at the Colorado School of Mines looked at a potential use case for the power of remote mining sites. Even at those extremes, solar power satellites aren't economical enough to justify the investment

It would make sense for remote mines to be powered by a solar- power satellite. It would be too expensive to run electric lines directly to the power grid in many places. Diesel fuel costs up to ten times as much as electricity from a mine connected to the grid, which is why they truck it in. It is difficult to get to the mines in the more dangerous parts of the northern hemisphere, where they are only accessible by ice roads.

A power purchase agreement is a contract between a power provider and a mine that uses a certain amount of power. The intermittent nature of wind and solar makes them too unreliable to provide steady power at most mines. Many mine operators are open to alternatives.

It comes down to cost. In a best-case scenario, the price that a power satellite would have to be at least close to is the average cost of a mine. As a mine operator might want to look more "green" by not burning thousands of gallons of diesel fuel, so they might look at a power satellite that can provide energy at a slightly higher price.

How much does a satellite cost? The researchers used a proposal put forward by John Mankins called the SPS-ALPHA 18 system to arrive at their conclusions. The 18 MW of power is close to the average use case of a remote mine. An upcoming book and a paper written by Mankins explain an updated version. The calculations are based on the original satellite platform since that book wasn't released until after the paper was written.

Three different types of cost estimates are provided by Mankin in the paper to help put a price on the electricity supplied by the power satellite system. The first thing to be built is the various parts of the system. The other costs include the R&D and the ground station. Launch cost is the focal point of the commercial space flight industry and varies widely based on assumptions. In a best-case scenario, a flight with what was then known as the BFR, now known as Starship, can launch a small satellite for just over $600 million.

Around $2 billion is the cost to get a complete power satellite into the air. It is on the scale of some large-scale power plants. The ground-based power plants are designed to be tied into a power grid and produce more power than the SPS-ALPHA 18 could. Would that $2 billion investment be a good investment for a potential investor?

The easiest way to calculate the energy cost of a mine is to divide it by the life expectancy of the mine. The mine could use 18 MW of the SPS-ALPHA 18 annually. It takes thirty cents per kilowatt hour to spread out over 24 hours a day, and it adds up to over forty million dollars a year. The life span of a mine is about 25 years.

It would still lose money even in a best-case scenario. It is worse to an economist. They use a variable called the "discount rate", which is a way of calculating how much money is used to finance a project costs, which include things like inflation and opportunity cost. The risk of failure of the project itself is one of the main factors in determining the discount rate.

The average discount rate for the remote mining industry is 12%. The revenue from the project is worth less each year than it was a year ago. The revenue from the first year would only be worth $26.84 million in today's money if there weren't any actual revenue for the next five years.

The total revenue at the end of the project only counts for about $2.78 million today. The NPV is the number of the economic calculation. When investors look at that number, they try to figure out if a project is investable.

The net present value of using the most thought of space power platform designed at the time of writing the paper to power a remote mine is -$1.8 billion. Even for the most space-minded billionaire, that is a challenge.

There isn't much of a business case for a space power satellite to power remote mines. It will take a long time before space power becomes profitable. If some of the parts for the satellite are made in space, the whole calculation changes dramatically. There is a point in the future where the price may eventually become competitive. There will be a lot of investment at a very negative NPV.

You can learn more.

The feasibility of space solar power for mining operations.

UT is a practical use for space based power beaming. The power is being sent to the satellites.

The Navy is testing beaming solar power in space.

Astronomers and satellites can co-exist with better communication.