A moderate-scale demonstration would “only” cost tens of billion of dollars.
Reuters reports,
The sun’s abundant energy, if harvested in space, could provide a cost-effective way to meet global power needs in as little as 30 years with seed money from governments, according to a study by an international scientific group.
But critics say,
Skeptics deem the concept a nonstarter, at least until the cost of putting a commercial power plant into orbit drops by a factor of 10 or more. Other hurdles include space debris, a lack of focused market studies and high development costs.
Since our climate is alledgedly so knife edge balanced, I am wondering how they are going to ignore the not insignificant atmospheric heating from those huge microwave beams!!! Probably warm us as much as that evil CO2 does!!
8>)
I thought this was done by the north Koreans in a bond movie and he blew it up. 007 destroys new energy source, sacked and villified by greenies !
I thought the Japanese favoured solar panels circling the moon’s equator.
What happens to anything that passes into the energy transport beam from space to Earth ?
Does anyone wish to live next door to the ground station that is receiving this gigawatt beam of energy. Everybody who does want to please raise your hand. Anyone? Anyone? Ah yes, I thought not.
Ideas like this have been floated for decades.
After a little more thought, the advocates become less noisy when they realize what a great weapon beaming down gigawatts of power can provide. Zap!!!
This is science fiction. Of course, 20 years ago, so was a videophone, much less a data-pad like on Star Trek which you can now buy for less than $500.
I’m not condemning it. There are a lot of hurdles to be overcome, but if they can be, it could be a valuable technology providing good benefits. However, I would not consider it a safe or reasonable investment for government, and I wouldn’t put any stock into a company researching it.
Bouncing ideas around? The theory sounds good… just how practical would it really be?