SPS doubts

TangoMan-

Welcome back from vacation!

One of the problems with the issue of political energy analysis is it
covers so many fields and specific technologies it is hard for someone
to be expert in them all. So many consolidators of such information may
embrace some junk science if they are not physicists or engineers. We're
probably all guilty of that here to some percentage (about what, and how
big or small the significance we might and do debate).

Clearly, talking about power cables from the moon is silly from a
conventional physics standpoint. (Just to be contrary, maybe Earth and
Moon power conducting skyhooks with a vast number of spokes like
superconductors maintained actively against gravitational tidal forces
on station in orbit between earth and moon with beamed power at the
joints would qualify as physically possible physical cabling? Not that
it might make much economic sense compsred to beAming the power. :-)

However, if a web page is essentially a synthesis of the literature with
one bad idea in it, it doesn't mean the rest is all trash. I don't think
you can condemn an entire organization on a single glaring error. Having
said that, misunderstanding the physics of cables or microwaves in space
is disturbing, and you can from there legitimately raise the question of
whether their grasp of physics as an institution is weak and whether
that effects everything they do and to what extent.

Frankly, I don't think I had especially heard of Solstice or Repp before
the discussion with you (names I remember are from a dozen years ago) --
they mainly come up as convenient google links that generally outline
many of the positives about renewables. Even on the page you cite to
blast them, much of the other information seems generally correct from a
casual glance (e.g the rough estimates of PV system purchase costs,
links to other (reputable) organizations, etc.). Still, from what I read
in other sources it still seems like the page I cite is in general a
generally fairly accurate representation about what is going on related
to local PV and other local renewables (as opposed to space based
renewables :-) in countries besides the USA.

--Paul Fernhout