Space Colonies and Cultural and Biological Diversity

> Beamed power on the
> other hand has a multi trillion dollar market, near
> zero transmission costs, and is best produced in
> space.
>
> Therefore the economy of space colonists is being
> self
> sufficient and generating power for the earth.

I often hear the argument of infinite amount of beamed
power making lots of money. However, assuming massive
SPS (10-100s of kms) are put in orbit around the earth
and the energy is beamed back to earth and the
colonies, will there be a point where supply is so
abundant that its price comes down to near nothing, if
not eventually free?

Also, to expand a little further on money in space,
assuming colonies eventually become more and more self
sufficient, will they turn away from a monetary system
in general and move to a more trade based economy?

A reason I bring this up is that currently money is
backed by some kind of resource (often times gold).
Now in space it is possible to find large amounts of
any given resource. The one I've heard most often
sited on this listserv is platinum in the asteroid
belt. Or better yet diamonds that can be mined from
Uranus.

Would this not eventually devaluate the value of a
resource backed currency thus making it obsolete? Or
will another, more practical resource like water
become the resource which backs monetary exchanges?

Ryan Z