re: #161 SixDegrees

Building solar panels isn’t too much of a problem, although they’re still dismally inefficient. But even assuming efficiencies improve dramatically, there’s the problem of getting them into orbit, which is horrendously expensive. Not to mention the carbon footprint of the huge number of rocket launches it would take to get them up there.

There are a lot of other problems as well, but hauling all that mass a couple hundred miles (or more) up is a real showstopper.

Over the next ten to twenty years, all sorts of things that are actually affordable and immediately workable can be done to improve the energy situation. Orbiting solar panels may have a place someday, but the cost/benefit ratio is simply too high for the moment.

How much does it cost to build a power plant? I don’t think money enters into it at this point. Do you think they stopped and figured the cost/benefit ration before the Manhattan project?

I doubt there is anything you can say that would convince me that this isn’t a good idea. I firmly believe that we could supply cheaper electricity to the world with this technology then building power plants all over the globe. I remember my first Texas Instuments calculator and how cool I thought it was…and it was a dinosaur.