Can energy be transferred ?

[jersincl]

I was wondering if we have the ability to transfer heat and light from the sun through energy absorbing techniques back to the earth? If so, why have'nt their been any satellite crafts doing this? I was thinking of possibly using radiowaves and then converting that back to energy for a possible power generating force. Just a layman thinking of stupid stuff. Thanks for any repiles.

Edited April 21, 2009 by jersincl
spelling

[Sisyphus]

Sunlight that the Earth itself intercepts is the original source of most of the energy we use, so yes, it's possible. There are also ideas to put solar collectors in space and beam the energy to ground-based collectors via lasers, which would be consistent clean energy. There hasn't been anything like that so far because of technical issues and, even more, because of the huge costs of sending stuff into space. However, I recently heard that there is at least one company (called Solaren) that plans to do exactly that in the next few years, although it remains to be seen whether they can actually do it.

[stereologist]

It's true that there have been plans for years to build devices to collect energy and beam them down to earth. This is not without peril as mentioned in I thin it was Robocop in which a satellite beaming down energy kills off huge numbers in Southern Cal including 3 ex-presidents.