The Luxembourg-based startup Maana Electric aims to send small warehouse container-style boxes to the deserts of the earth to help combat climate change. These boxes can use only electricity and sand to build solar panels.
An Inverse report explained that if this goes according to plan, the company hopes to break the final boundary by sending their boxes to the moon, Mars and beyond, to help future space colonies meet their energy needs.
The process of the company’s product Terrabox seems too simple and unbelievable. As Maana Electric explains on its website, Terrabox “is a fully automated factory capable of producing solar panels using only sand and electricity as input.”
The micro-factories are installed in containers, which means they can be transported to remote desert areas, where they can produce the solar panels needed to collect clean solar energy. In addition to helping combat climate change, this potentially revolutionary product can also help reduce the reliance of renewable energy operators on China, which manufactures most of the world’s photovoltaic solar panels.
Maana Electric stated that it will test its technology on Earth in 2022, while also developing a lunar version of its Terrabox, which aims to convert the lunar weathering layer into high-purity silicon. In theory, this should allow it to produce 1 MW of solar panels per year. The manufacturing process of solar panels will also release oxygen as a by-product, and future astronauts can use oxygen to create a breathable environment in space.
Maana Electric’s space Terrabox is designed to be lighter so that it can be easily transported outside the earth. The company’s CEO Joost van Oorschot told Inverse that Terrabox made for the earth and Terrabox made for space share approximately 60% of the same technology.
With NASA’s Artemis and Lunar Gateway missions to establish a human presence on the moon starting in 2024, Maana Electric’s technology can help establish a human presence on our nearest celestial neighbor.
According to the German solar company Desertec, just covering a small area of the Sahara Desert with solar panels can provide enough energy for the entire planet-so imagine what would be achieved if a large solar farm was built on the moon . If the plans of companies such as NASA and Maana Electric are successful, the energy-rich moon in the future can become a springboard for human beings to truly call themselves a space civilization.
