The danger of coal - need SPS

Let's see if I can address your concerns adequately...

1) Yes, the promises of SPS have a lot in common with
those of nuclear power of the 50's and 60's. Notice
how nulcear power is comming back into consideration
as renuables have this unfortunate problem of
consistency. Nuclear is not going to go away and
neither are the costs associated with it. This makes
SPS look like a bargain if you figure out a way to use
lunar materials. Again the permission for this will
be decided at the governmental level with private
enterprise waiting without a mandate until then.

2) The fossil fuel energy supplies of the world are
questionable in the face of ever rising global demand.
This means that over time energy will become
progressively more expensive as competition heats up
for a scarce resource. SPS is something that grows
the supply and thus slows down or eliminates this
senario in the long run. In the end all of the oil
gets burnt unless it is outlawed to do so. The price
will always be a function of demand in some way or
another.

3) In a 30 year time window looking back, PC's were
barely though of let alone existant. By the same
logic SPS technology could be well worked out with
only a small investment over a long period of time.
More concerning is that the global climate has a risk
of being unstable (see the pentagon report) and any
significant deviation would demand massive outlays of
power and resources to accomodate. Being energy rich
is a very desirable strategic objective. Being
dependant on coal, nuclear is not so bad if you ignore
the pollution. Being addicted to low cost oil is the
worst.

4) During WW2 the US and european allies poured
immense sums into reseach and development. The
obvious results were the atom bomb, radar, rocket
technology, etc. This investement program continues
to this day in some form or another and the resultant
innovations trickle into industry. This model didn't
work very well prior to the information age as the
state was little interested in funding technology.
Now it is an essential part of the world economy and
has enabled a standard of living that was scarcely
immaginable when Bessemer was firing up his furnaces.
I realize that this is a very condensed view and
leaves out a lot of details. Still things are very
different now than they were 30 years ago.

5) Where does business fit in? I haven't figured this
out yet either so you have company. It is easier to
make money selling global warming abatement plans than
raising the hundreds of billions for SPS and then
putting it to work. China is much more dependent on
future energy sources so may go forth on an Lunar
Solar Panel like plan if I understand their strategy
right. They know it is dangerous to spend people in
to space so they will be busily perfecting the robots
that will be needed to get the cost down. Until there
are enough voters outraged that China is ahead of the
US in application of technology, little is going to
change. Still when it does there will be many
business opportunites to those that want to pursue
them.

Hope this helps...

Cheers, Thor

--- In ssi_list@... Bill

But this is the dream that nuclear power advocates
preached in the 50s and 60s. Electricity so cheap its
not worth monitoring. The reality
was that there were cost in nuclear energy that were
ignored.

I see no reason to believe that SPS electricty will be
any cheaper than the present base load system. Even if
it is, I see no reason why
an electricity cartel won't keep prices high enough
for all the players in the game.

Even if the prices decided to drop by an order of
magnitude over night (instead of over fifty years),
the rest of the economy could easily
have a twenty to thirty year lag. It takes time and
money to gear up to produce a billion gallons of
bio-fuel if it is even physically
possible. GM and Ford take five to ten years to go
from design to the first car coming off the assembly
line and this is with a product that
they have decades of experience with not with
something fundementally different. Hydrogen if it
became cheap enough has its own problems.
Add the cost for the infrastructure to distribute and
store hydrogen.

This is one of the biggest problems I have seen on
this list. People assume that given the magic bullet
(in this case ultra cheap
electricity) everything else will fall into place.

A similar discussion about lower launch costs has also
occurred.

Historically the major technological revolution
followed after the industry was up and running and
making money. In England it was only
after the cottage industry for spinning was profitable
that the spinning jenny showed up. In Germany only
when demand for steel
raised the prices did the bessemer furnace showed up.

In America it was the electric light and later radio
that gave
impetious to build the electrical network.

So what reason as a businessman would I have to invest
in space? What can be done cheaper better or faster
there that will give me reason to
part with a billion or two of my money? What are the
revenue streams if any, what are th products (real
products) or services.

These are the questions that have to be answered.
Space industrialization does not have to happen. It
isn't something that
will spontenously form fully formed an functional like
Athena from Zues' head. It is something that must be
built.

--- In ssi_list@... "Arthur P. Smith"
> All energy is, to one degree or another,
interchangeable. If our major
> energy source becomes SPS rather than oil and coal,
electric cars will
> likely have advantages; bio-fuels (ethanol,
bio-diesel) fertilized by
> electrically generated fertilizers could fill in for
those still tied
> to internal combustion. In principle eletrically
generated hydrogen
> could work, but in practice it looks like other
options will be more
> efficient and less expensive.
>
> Arthur
>
> > Perhaps I'm missed something here, but how exactly
is SPS going to