Yunus Emre InstituteYunus Emre Institute in London was delighted to host a talk by Dr Onur Çelik, on his fascinating and prescient work surrounding space technologies and their use in tackling the climate emergency. The talk, ‘It’s always sunny in space: How can satellites help supply clean energy’, took place on Wednesday 18th May 2022.
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The event started with a talk by Dr Çelik and will be followed by a Q&A session. Home-made traditional Turkish food to be served after the event.
Amid the climate emergency, there is an ever-growing interest in alternative technologies to reach the carbon net-zero targets set by different states. Among those are space technologies, which dominantly remain as a source of data, but that could soon see a shift towards physical resources as well. The UK government has recently released a report on the feasibility of harvesting solar energy from space and beaming that back to the Earth via Solar Power Satellite (SPS), whereas the US and Japan have a long-term interest in such a technology. Moreover, alternative technologies such as orbiting solar reflectors (OSR) could further complement the SPS to supply clean energy globally. Space-based solar energy solutions can then help increase the market share of solar energy in electricity generation, which is currently limited to daylight hours only.
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In this talk, Dr Onur Çelik gave a general overview of space technologies that can help tackle the climate emergency. A particular focus will then be given to space-based solar energy solutions. Starting his talk by discussing the invention of these satellites which can be found to originate in popular culture, his fascinating talk touched on the Solar Power Satellites and Mirror Satellites. He comparatively discussed the technologies, including a brief historical overview, technical details for a general audience, and potential regulatory issues that come with the employment of space-based solar energy solutions.
For more information on the event please visit our website: https://yeelondon.org.uk/ or email at londra@yee.org.tr.
The event can be watched back on the Institute’s YouTube channel, @yeelondra:
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About the Speaker:
Dr Onur Çelik is currently a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow, conducting research on the orbital dynamics of solar reflectors in a European Research Council-funded project. After receiving his BSc degree from Istanbul Technical University, Dr Çelik spent research time in various European countries, the US, and Japan throughout his master’s and PhD studies, and completed his PhD degree in Japan in collaboration with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Dr Çelik is the recipient of the Japanese government and the European Union scholarships and was named an “Emerging Space Leader” by the International Astronautical Federation in 2018. He is also the translator of two popular science books.