Weeks after announcing plans to build the world's largest hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River in Tibet, with three times the capacity of the Three Gorges Dam, China has unveiled another ambitious project to harness solar energy.
Chinese rocket scientist Long Lehao has revealed a blueprint for a project to build a solar power plant in space using a super-heavy rocket, according to SCMP.
Accordingly, the ambitious plan is to use super-heavy rockets to build solar power plants in outer space, calling it an "extraterrestrial Three Gorges Dam project".
"We are working on this project. It is as important as moving the Three Gorges Dam into geostationary orbit 36,000 km above the Earth. This is an extraordinary project worth looking forward to," said Long Lehao, a rocket scientist and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).
The initiative involves deploying a giant 1-km-wide solar array in geostationary orbit, 36,000 km above Earth, to continuously collect solar energy.
"Imagine installing a solar panel about 1 km wide along a 36,000 km geostationary orbit," Long Lehao said at an event organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in October 2024.
"The energy this project will harvest in one year will be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth," Mr. Long Lehao added.
Space solar power plants collect energy from the Sun in Earth's orbit and transmit it to the ground, providing a continuous source of electricity.
SCMP said that this ambitious project is called by the international community as the "Manhattan Project" of the energy industry.
Solar power plants in space can collect energy without being affected by seasons or day-night cycles.
Besides, the energy density in space is much higher - about 10 times higher than the average density on the Earth's surface.
The scale of the Three Gorges Dam project in space requires the development and deployment of super-heavy space rockets. This means that China's space technology capabilities will have to make a huge leap forward in the coming years.
The Long March-9 (CZ-9) rocket - a reusable heavy-lift rocket developed by Long Lehao's team - is being promoted as the launch vehicle for the Three Gorges Dam project in space.
"CZ-9 will be 110 meters high. The main purpose of this rocket is to build solar power stations in space," he said.
China's CZ-9 space rocket can carry up to 150 tons of cargo and materials into low Earth orbit, surpassing NASA's Saturn V heavy-lift rocket and SLS space launch system - which are capable of carrying up to 130 tons.
The Three Gorges Dam in central China is the world's largest hydroelectric project. Located at the headwaters of the Yangtze River, China's longest river, the Three Gorges Dam has an annual generating capacity of about 100 billion kWh. The Three Gorges Dam is so massive that it slows down the Earth's rotation by 0.6 microseconds, according to NASA.
