[ExI] Obama Transition Team Examining Space Solar Power

[Kevin H]

Yeah, I was excited to see this.  One of the commenters on Slashdot linked
to this article by the Economist giving a rather sobering account of the
economics of space solar power:
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12673299

It seems like *someone* in the transition team has looked at this, but no
indication if a serious look has been given to it or not.  I added to
Keith's wiki my question about opportunity cost: whether the same money for
space solar power we might be better off instead investing in terrestrial
sources of power.  While it true that space satellites would be able
to receive five times as much solar energy as on the earth, would it be
cheaper just to produce five times as many solar panels on the earth with
the same amount of money?  Or investing in wind farms or nuclear power
plants?

Kevin

On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 7:54 PM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:

> Obama Transition Team Examining Space Solar Power
>
> http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/20/219209
>
> "President-elect Obama's transition team has published for public
> comment a white paper entitled Space Solar Power (SSP) — A Solution
> for Energy Independence & Climate Change. The paper was prepared and
> submitted by the Space Frontier Foundation and other citizen space
> advocates, and calls for the new Administration to make development of
> Space Solar Power a national priority. The SSP white paper was among
> the first ten released by the Obama transition team. It is the first
> and only space-related white paper released by the team to date. With
> 145 comments thus far, it is already among the top five most-discussed
> of the 20-some white papers on Change.gov."
>
>
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/8736849/Space-Solar-Power-SSP-A-Solution-for-Energy-Independence-Climate-Change
>
> http://change.gov/open_government/entry/space_solar_power_ssp_a_solution_for_energy_independence_climate_change/
>
> --
> Emlyn
>
> http://emlynoregan.com - my home
> http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related
> http://point7.wordpress.com - downshifting and ranting
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