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‘Luna Ring’ promises unlimited clean energy for humanity’s future

A passenger aircraft, with the full "Harvest Moon" seen behind, makes its final approach to landing at Heathrow Airport in west London, September 19, 2013. REUTERS/Toby Melville

Japan's Shimizu Corporation has some pretty lofty dreams for the future, but their latest plan, called 'Luna Ring' is an out-of-this-world solution to the Earth's energy needs.

With proposals to bring water to the deserts, to reorganize urban centres to be more efficient and to expand where humanity lives and works with floating cities, space hotels and moon bases, Shimizu is always thinking big. Luna Ring is their biggest idea yet, though, and rightly-so, since it would solve one of humanity's biggest problems — our growing need for clean, efficient, renewable energy.

With the moon's surface continuously receiving roughly the same amount of solar energy as Earth's surface, half of a 400-kilometre wide ring of solar panels around the moon's equator would continuously receive about 3,000 terawatts of power. If only 20 per cent of that were converted to usable electricity (in line with current commercial solar panels), that's more than 30 times the electricity the world uses, right now, per year. Beaming the energy back to Earth via lasers and microwaves might mean another drop in efficiency, but that still gives us plenty of power to deal with and with further advances in solar panel technology, Luna Ring could provide even more.

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Luna ring isn't just about making sure that we have enough electricity, though. It would put an end to air pollution, especially greenhouse gases, emitted due to power generation. With the resources, technology and labour needed to put it together, it would bring the world together on a tremendous undertaking, which is exactly the kind of 'big thinking' the human race needs right now.

(Image courtesy: Shimizu Corporation)

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