Ethanol From Waste Straw

I have never been a fan of laser power beaming for these reasons:

Primarily, the risk of eye damage.

I was involved in certifying some laser equipment for NASA some years
ago, and the regulations are very strict, properly so. An exposure
for a fraction of a second to a moderately powerful beam
will damage your retina and blind you for life.

No thanks.

Also, lasers cannot penetrate clouds, an awful lot is lost. And the
efficiencies of conversion equipment is lower than for microwaves.

> O'Neill wrote favorably about powering passenger aircraft in this
> manner, but I think the argument here was that even if the power
which
> could be delivered at high altitudes was comparable to the power of
> several jet engines, there'd be considerably less of that power
getting
> delivered to the ground, even if one misses momentarily on a clear
day.
> Plus, the beam would be sweeping along the ground at several hundred
> miles an hour, and wouldn't stay in any one place long enough to
even
> light a fire.
>

1) That assumes everything is working properly. When the tracking
mechanism fails (and it will sooner or later), then the beam will be
stuck illuminating a fixed point.

2) Fire is a straw man argument, sorry. The real risk is eye
damage, which can occur at relatively low levels in a very brief time.

Let's stick to microwaves.

Thanks,

Charles F. Radley