SSPS still viable?

--- In spacesettlers@y..., "Dr. Omni" wrote:
> From: "John Frazer"
> To:
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 5:05 PM
> Subject: [spacesettlers] SSPS still viable?
>
> [snikt]
> > Query: What other energy source (not to mention large scale
resource
> > access) can we dream up that can support our civilization into the
> > future of possibly thousands (millions?) of years? Which we can
start
> > building anytime we decide to?
> [snikt]
>
> There are still the ocean thermal-energy converters and the Carson
towers.
> However, they have the same problem of SPS: the investment to build
one of
> those things is BIG (many hundreds of millions of dollars, in a
rough
> estimate) and therefore no investor nowadays would put his money on
that
> instead of investing in some cheaper and/or proven technology.
Sometimes I
> think that we will have to wait for the exhaustion of all fossil
fuels and
> the building of all economically viable dams in order to see an
OTEC or a
> SPS being built...
>
> By the way, on the way for getting information on Carson Towers I
found this
> interesting article comparing a lot of potential energy sources:
> http://www.newaus.com.au/news134court.html .
>
> Lucio