On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 10:00 AM, Ellen S. wrote:
(Keith)
>> Working on a similar article for much higher circulation outlet.
http://theenergycollective.com/keith-henson/362181/dollar-gallon-gasoline
>
> Alright, now I'm feeling pretty hopeful about what power satellites
> can do for us. Thanks for sharing!
>
> I'm less optimistic about the chance of convincing politicians
> in the West to support something like this. Fossil fuel companies
> would probably oppose such a plan vociferously.
For coal probably yes, for oil producers, probably yes. For big oil
companies maybe not.
Couple of years ago I talked to the guy who is head of strategic
planning for ExxonMobile. Really cheap electrical power would be a
godsend for them. They know how to combine electrolytic hydrogen and
CO2 in the Fisher/Tropsch reaction to make synthetic oil. They could
sell gasoline forever without worrying about pumping oil from
unfriendly places.
> The best chance
> might be to persuade government people in a developing country
> that has more to lose from climate change.
It's too big for all but a few developing countries.
> That's not to say it couldn't be done... look at the Chinese
> government, investing far more in wind power than the United
> States in spite of their dependence on coal.
About a year and a half ago, the Chinese government proposed to
jointly build power satellites with the Indians. How serious they are
is hard to judge.
> I wonder how much support could be gained from companies that
> foresee a future in space tourism or asteroid mining?
Not much would be my guess. In spite of the hype, space tourism is a
hard business. Asteroid mining is even harder.
http://htyp.org/Mining_Asteroids
> Does the National Space Society have any plans to try to pitch
> this to anybody?
Not that I know about.
What might be of interest to this group is science fiction stories
written around power satellites. There are any number of stories that
could be written around construction or diverting a propulsion laser
for military use. There is also the mother of all disaster stories
where the earth has become dependent on power satellites and the lot
of them were knocked out by a gamma ray burst similar to the one that
hit the earth in 774 or 775.
Keith
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