IN WHAT could be the most audacious idea of all time, Japanese engineers have revealed plans showing how they want to build a giant solar panel belt around the moon using robots.

As reported by The Independent (UK), civil construction company Shimizu wants to install a Luna Ring - a belt of solar cells that stretch 11,000km around the moon's equator and is 400km in width - in a bid to solve Earth's finite energy sources.

The vision sees construction being carried out by a number of robots on the moon's surface supported by a team of astronauts.

As the moon's equator is exposed to a constant amount of sunlight there's a "virtually inexhaustible, nonpolluting solar energy is the ultimate source of green energy that brings prosperity to nature as well as our lives," says Shimizu.

The Luna Ring would collect energy from the sun's light and send it back to conversion facilities floating in our oceans here on Earth in the form of microwaves and lasers where it would then be turned into electricity for us all to enjoy. According to Shimizu's calculations it could yield as much energy as a nuclear reactor.

Despite sounding like a grand plan, scientists don't think so. One professor at the University of Liverpool said: "doing this in space is not a good idea because it is fantastically expensive and you probably never recover the energy you have to invest."

But this hasn't put Shimizu off as it plans to have a demonstration by 2020 and to start construction by 2035. The cost of this project hasn't been revealed but you can safely assume it will be out-of-this-world.