[ExI] Fwd: Help Us Reimagine Energy for the DoD!

[Adrian Tymes]

On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 2:43 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Keith: might you be interested in writing up your understanding of how to
> do solar power satellites for these guys?  The US Department of Defense
> drops billions on projects like nobody else.
>
> Unfortunately, I don't have a solution.  For microwave optice reasons,
> the size of a power satellite optimizes around 5 GW.  The demand of a
> big forward base is around 5 MW, so we are talking about a scale
> mismatch of around 1000 to one.
>

So they want something that is technically inefficient.  It is possible to
make something technically inefficient if that is what the customer will
pay for, no?

No protests about "but it is inefficient".  Is it possible, or is it not
possible, to make a less-than-optimally-efficient 5 MW power satellite?
Because that is what they want, inefficiency and all.

The military pays for many things that are inefficient, or even of negative
efficiency.  Why not divert funds that would go into something even less
efficient?  (You know they will if you take no action here.)


> Perhaps one approach would be to install a full scale power satellite
> and rectenna and sell any power the forward base could not use to the
> locals.  Make a profit center out of a forward base.
>

That is an option too.  But I suspect they would prefer a
less-than-optimally-efficient 5 MW power satellite.
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