[ExI] Written for another list

[John Clark]

On Sun, Jul 29, 2012  Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

> The energy payback from power satellites is short, two months


I think that's a pretty useless figure because the problem is not the high
cost of rocket fuel. In fact even if the launch cost to geosynchronous
orbit were zero I'm not at all sure power satellites would be economically
viable.  I think liquid fluoride thorium reactors are a much better bet and
we already have the technology or nearly so, we've had most of it since the
1960's, and that is pretty amazing considering the tiny amount of money
spent developing the concept.  About half a century ago we made a blunder
and turned to solid fuel uranium reactors and not to liquid fuel thorium
reactors and we've been paying a huge price for that mistake ever since.

  John K Clark
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