[extropy-chat] [Bulk] Re: Forbes Magazine on Robotics

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 10:23:51PM -0400, Keith Henson wrote:

> Relative to earth, space is benign.  I would expect a power satellite to 
> sit in orbit with little maintenance for decades

Current PV arrays are already warranted for 20-25 years weathering,
and they don't require to be launched, and produce power where it's 
consumed. PV is already economic off the grid, and will probably
break-even with fossil within a decade, depending on how robust
nonrenewable energy price development is.
 
> > > I think you are not including the rapid increase in China's consumption.
> >
> >No, those predictions include the growth of China's and India's populations.
> 
> Consumption is growing much faster than population.

I agree that China alone is going to get quite problematic, what little
I know of the problem set there from a few pages from Diamond's "Collapse".
 
> >Switching to renewable energy,
> 
> Satellite solar power is renewable and offers the prospect that it will be 
> *much* less expensive than current or projected sources.

I agree that a launch cost drop to LEO by an order of magnitude would
make solar satellite power cost-effective. But launch costs are far more
unyielding than new PV technologies to reduce PV price by an order of
magnitude (less, IIRC 2-3x would do). Installation costs are not relevant
for new stuctures, designed around energy production by double duty.
 
> You might consider that I have been in this business for over 30 years 
> now.  Had we done power sats starting back then, the US would be a major 
> energy exporter and we have no reason to be concerned about oil producers.

The economics of it doesn't work even now, and it would have looked
even worse 30 years ago.
 
> We didn't.  We are not likely to do anything useful about the energy 
> problems unless someone can see huge profits to be made.

Efficient burners (recently, pellet burners), house insulation, 
efficient light ICEs, thermal and PV solar and wind is doing very 
well here. If you remove the fossil volatility by a tax ratchet the
market will do the rest quite efficiently, starting with the
small end, but eventually arriving at the top end (solar power
satellites).

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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