On Nov 16, 2:41*pm, bob haller wrote:
On Nov 16, 2:53*pm, Doug Freyburger wrote:









Brian Thorn wrote:

a) But it will take many years longer to get Space Solar Power up and
running compared to putting solar tiles on your roof. Rooftop solar
can provide power next week. Space Solar Power is ten years away at
best. If the roof solar provides 8 hours of power a day, that's 29,200
hours of electricity from your roof before Space Solar Power provides
one hour. And then Space Solar Power only narrows the gap at the rate
of 16 hrs/day.

There's also the fact that solar cell manufacturing is a rapidly
advancing technology. *In a decade or two the price is likely to drop to
the point that anyone putting a new roof on their house will want to do
it with solar cells. *At that point the incentive for space based solar
will go down because of the ground availability. *But also that's the
point when the economics of space based power begin to work out.

b) Solar Power (and wind) won't replace all power on Earth. It can't,
not from orbit and not from the ground. But solar can take a large
part of the load during the day and let traditional power (oil,
natural gas, etc.) handle the night and periods of calm winds.

Space based power can supplement base load. *Ground based solar can't..
Neither will be able to replace hydroelectric, nuclear, coal and so on.

This is enormously more efficient than Space Solar Power, and probably
will be no matter how low you get the cost of space launch.

Until there is a mining and launching facilty on the Moon as suggested
by O'Neil and many others.

what percentage of homes nationwide have good roofs for solar panels?

most arent orientated properly, or have site obstructions like trees
or buildings *etc etc etc.

the vast makority of homes wouldnt be useful for solar panels

Good point. The housing stock is awful. Underinsulated, often poorly
ventilated, poorly built with pitched roofs in the wrong directions,
trees in the wrong places, bad materials, etc.

There would be a north south divide thing as well. The winter
night get long in the northern States.
A better grid would help I suppose.

For the top one percent this barely matters as long as
the 99 percent don't kill them.

Housing for the low income, a plastic coated cardboard box with
a shared clovis malstrum and trucked water provided they
can pay for it.............welcome to Grover's world............Trig