[ExI] Power sats and propulsion laser response

[Keith Henson]

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/rosemary-randall-climate-change-psychoanalysis/?utm_source=Aeon+newsletter&utm_campaign=0c0a772648-EditorsPicks07Dec&utm_medium=email

There seems to be a way to get off fossil fuels and the carbon they
contribute to the climate problem in less than 20 years.  Really
pushed, the majority of the carbon could be displaced in 15 years.

At great expense and effort, we build one solar power satellite in
geosynchronous orbit and equip it with propulsion lasers.  Rockets
powered by laser have vastly improved performance in payload over
chemical rockets, so much that the reduced cost allows energy from
power satellites to displace fossil fuel by costing half as much (or
even less).

The huge profits from supplying energy this way allows fast growth in
the new energy source, completely displacing more expensive fossil
fuels rapidly.  In fact, energy becomes so inexpensive that it can be
used to capture existing CO2 out of the atmosphere or oceans and
sequester it.

This proposal is in for peer review so it's not certain, but a number
of highly qualified people have looked at it and say the physics is
sound.

All of this was understood for years, the only new part is the one
stage of bootstrapping with the propulsion lasers in GEO to get the
cost down.