[ExI] Space Based Solar Power vs. Nuclear Fission

[Stefano Vaj]

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 7:36 PM, hkhenson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
> The major problem is the cable.  It's obvious that nanotech would be
> up to building the cable, and there are other ways that might do it
> such as enzymatic dehydrating of tri-hydroxy-benzine or using iron as
> a solvent that offer a chance we could make 100,000 tons of strong
> enough nanotube cable even before the singularity.

I "hear" that carbon nanotubes come pretty close (actually,
dramatically closer than anything else), but that one or two last
orders of magnitude are still not there, and that there are no obvious
ways to overcome them, meaning that it would not be a matter of
manufacturing technology, but some more fundamental issue. In other
terms, a nanotube cable would work quite nicely, say, for a moon-based
space elevator...

> If you want rapid deployment, then rockets are the way to
> go.  800,000 tons per year is a gigantic project perhaps on a par
> with the Iraq war, but we can put numbers on it and they are within
> reason.

Personally, I would not be reluctant, but I remark that ITER is going
to cost two orders of magnitude less than such a sum, and wonder what
would be possible to do with that kind of resources in the fields of
tokamaks and inertial-contained fusion.

> Unless you are talking about exotic reactions, fusion has the same
> problem as fission; it generates neutrons.

> It's about a GW a day of new capacity.  I can make a case,
> even with rockets, for putting in a GW a day of solar power
> satellites.  As I recall, fusion plants are estimated in the 10 GW
> range.  Even if we knew how to make them, can you see starting up one
> every ten days?

Meaning that we could increase space-based solar energy collection and
transmission and distribution at such a rate and at a much lower cost
through rockets and earth-based receiving antennas able to output that
energy in the grid?

This is a serious question, because I do not really know the
accounting (and the externalities) related to such a scenario.

Stefano Vaj