Energy from space: a new potential application of interval computations

Abstract

The sun is a practically limitless source of energy. In some areas, solar cells enable us to use this source. In many places on Earth, however, clouds prevent us from tapping into solar energy. To use this energy, researchers have proposed placing solar cells on a satellite and beaming the collected energy down to the Earth.The problem with this solution is that the resulting high-energy beam is highly dangerous. Instead of using a single beam, we propose to use several beams from different satellites; this configuration will enable us to beam the energy to practically any location on Earth without endangering other locations. Since errors can be extremely dangerous, we need verified computations (i.e., interval computations) to compute the parameters of the beams. Thus, interval computations are useful for transmitting energy from space.