David Spain wrote:

On 6/6/2017 4:45 PM, wrote:
It's been a long time since I came by this group, but I did today.

If you are interested in power satellites, there is a Google group for that.


Are bad and dubious.....

But if you are interested in economical power, there are plenty of
terrestrial companies that will sell you cheap & reliable solar panels.


But that won't be particularly economical power unless you subsidize
the **** out of it.


Once coupled with sufficient battery technology this will make
compelling case for those who want to co-generate with the grid as
primarily backup power. Frankly I just don't see how SPS competes with
this. I really don't. 8 cents a kilowatt hour. Whatever your initial
investment & NRE that is the figure you have to be able to compete
against and win against with SPS. And remember, you have to beat that
figure against today's largely natural gas powered grid. With
terrestrial solar and/or large scale wind as a supplement that figure
will undoubtedly go lower still. If Telsa like technology goes full
scale folks might install solar just to fuel their cars and then realize
it can stretch to other uses as well.


Terrestrial solar and wind drive UP prices unless they are heavily
subsidized.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw