[ExI] Written for another list

[Adrian Tymes]

Demonstrate it at lower cost with existing technology
first, even if you have to accept a much, much slower
rate of payback at first.

If what you say is true, then it should be possible to
achieve profitability in several years with chemical
propulsion alone, even assuming the amount you're
squirreling away for R&D on the better-cheaper laser
propulsion gets wasted.

If it is not, then the rest of your model is probably bogus.

That is what most investors will tell you.

On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 8:51 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> But I though it might interest a few people here.
>
> As most of you know, I have worked for a number of years on solutions
> to the carbon and energy problems.  Less than six months ago, it
> occurred to me that there was a solution, one offering power on the
> scale of tens of TW and cost down into the 1-2 cents per kWh.
>
> It's based on on old idea, power satellites, and a new "Black Swan"
> development from electronics, high efficiency solid state lasers.
>
> If we had one power satellite equipped with propulsion lasers, it
> would lower the cost of raising parts to GEO for more satellites to
> under $100/kg.  At that price, the cost of power from space falls to
> under 2 cents per kWh.  That would allow making synthetic liquid
> transportation fuels for $1-2 per gallon.
>
> The problem is building the first power satellite without cheap laser
> propulsion.  However, it is so valuable in the role of laser
> propulsion that an economic model shows it would be paid off in a few
> years from the profits of selling relatively low cost power plants
> even if we have to build the first one with relatively conventional
> rockets.
>
> The energy payback from power satellites is short, two months, and the
> profit is so high that an initial 100 GW/year business could triple in
> capacity every year with only ten percent of production invested in
> more laser capacity.
>
> The model might not be correct, but if it is, then it looks like
> humanity could painlessly quit using fossil fuels in no more than two
> decades.  If we still have warming problems, either CO2 could be
> removed from the air and stored as synthetic oil back in the ground or
> sunshades at L2 can be used to block as much sunlight as desired.
>
> Amazing what grown up versions of the tiny laser diodes in CD players can do.
>
> Keith
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat