[ExI] pentagon wants orbiting solar power stations

[John K Clark]

"Eugen Leitl" <eugen at leitl.org>

> I'm not dissing solar satellites. Far from it. But that's not how you get
> away from burning dead dinos. Small and cheap and DIY is the ticket.

And I'm not dissing insulation or solar heating or getting rid of
incandescent light bulbs, but as you say all these things are very small
and if you want to get away from dead dinosaurs somebody is going to
have find something HUGE. It would take 84 square miles of photovoltaic
cells to equal the energy of one gas station according to the CEO of Exxon.
In the USA alone there are about 20,000 gas stations.

It seems to me that the only technology able to take a significant chunk out
of oil right now is nuclear fission. Fusion maybe someday, although from
the 1950's it's always been 30 years away.

John K Clark