As of last April, there seems to be a solution to the energy/carbon/climate problems, even water. Relatively cheap, less than ten dollars a person.
It's long been understood that solar power from space gets around the limitations on the Earth. The problem has always been the high cost of lifting solar power satellite parts to GEO. It looks like a combination of Skylon, a project being developed in the UK and big propulsion lasers will get the cost to under $100/kg to GEO. Due to a clever idea by Steve Nixon, investment cost could be around $60 B, the break even point from selling power satellite around 8 years, and the ten year return on investment 500%. The cost of electric power from space would rapidly fall to 2 cents per kWh or less. That's cheap enough to make synthetic gasoline from CO2 out of the air for a dollar a gallon. Energy this cheap will allow sea water to be turned into fresh at low cost and permit recycling just about everything. $60 B is smaller than a number of exiting energy project, and only twice what the Chinese spent to build Three Gorges dam. Eye candy: Laser powered Skylon near the end of acceleration to LEO on hydrogen heated by 3 GW of lasers located in GEO http://www.htyp.org/File:SkylonLaser.jpg _______________________________________________ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
