[ExI] cost of SBSP and thorium

Stephen Van Sickle sjv2006 at gmail.com
Sat Aug 18 21:34:04 UTC 2012


Keith wrote:

Going from none to 30,000 one GW
> thorium burners is as much of a boggle factor going from none to 30 TW
> of power sats.  Or so it seems to me.
>

I'm not so sure.  The airline industry has ~15,000 airliners in service,
with technical complexities, power densities and levels, and safety needs
comparable to those needed for power reactors. Power reactors are
physically larger, but not very mass restricted.  Global airline revenues
are ~633 billion dollars/year, the energy industry is about 5 trillion a
year.  This all suggests to me that, if reactors (or major sub assemblies)
can be built to standard designs in controlled factory conditions (as
airliners are), they are a practical energy alternative for the next few
centuries at any rate (assuming a fairly static but prosperous world)
without the need to develop any major new technologies.

The airline industry serves as an existence proof of a comparable industry
within an order of magnitude what is need.  Your approach to power sats
requires lasers, solar generators, mass to orbit, and orbital construction
at *least* three or four orders of magnitude larger than anything attempted
so far, and is not nearly as well suited to incremental investment.

Now, I personally would much prefer power sats, since it also brings with a
the ability to create a robust space-based civilization and far larger
energy generation than is possible on Earth, both things we will need if we
are to become something more than "puny humans".  It is a better solution
for the long run.  But I also think the business and technological risk is
far less for nuclear.  I'm pretty sure which risk any investor, government
or private, would prefer.

The only thing that might change this balance is the political and military
risks/benefits, or disruptive technological change (small s singularity).

--steve vs
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