[ExI] Trying for a minimum technical comment

[Adrian Tymes]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:57 PM, Andrew Mckee <andymck35 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe I haven't been lurking around here long enough, but I'm having a hard
> time understanding why it's necessary to put a large photo-voltaic array in
> outer space when for far less money we could float a pair of hydrogen filled
> rafts in the stratosphere over each of the earth's poles.
> Not at the same time of course, but with one enjoying 6 months of 24/7
> sunlight the other can be moved towards the equator and at least be on a
> day-night cycle.

Keith should have some good answers to this, but as I understand
it, the benefit of solar sats over this is distribution: the power
arrives at the ground where you want it, within whatever grid you're
tied to.

That said, if we're going on a cost basis, far more extensive ground
solar with some kind of power storage mechanism - possibly siting
ground solar with the most energy-intensive operations that don't
run 24/7 (for instance, desalination plants) - would be cheaper and
faster to deploy.