Re: Bill Moyers Reports: Earth on Edge

[Adam C. Lipscomb]

Jeroen wrote:

*snip*

> A footprint of .63 meters squared isn't that much: you can fit several of
> those panels on the roof of your house. Admittedly, that solution is not
> going to work in areas with a lot of high-rise buildings, but to provide
> those areas with solar power, you could set up large fields of solar
panels
> in uninhabited areas. IIRC, Arizona is mostly desert -- might as well make
> use of it.

Umm, I would like to point out that, while, yes, Arizona does have a lot of
desert, that desert is home to hundreds, if not thousands, of unique
lifeforms evolved specifically for that environment.  *If* we're talking
about shifting to solar power to preserve the Earth, wouldn't covering
thousands of square miles of desert have *more* impact than, say, 3 or 4
fission plants?

What's the viability of using microwave transmission to beam
orbitally-collected solar power back to Earth?  I know that's been proposed
in the past, but I haven't heard anything about it lately.

Adam C. Lipscomb
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