Solar power sats without colonies...

I haven't checked out the details at all, but relatively small-scale
SPS without colonies sounds plausible at first glance. (By
relatively small scale, I mean compared to the terawatts of global
demand.)

But first SPS has to beat ground-based solar. I'm dubious that the
factor of four gained from full-strength sunlight 24-7 is enough to
outweigh launch costs, unless we can get by with launching only a
small fraction of the mass and using space resources for the rest.
The amount of area on the ground isn't a real problem in the medium
term: it's less than we already have paved.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Ian Woollard
wrote:
>
> I did some maths a few months back. I got some answers that
surprised
> me. I then checked out the Fresh Look study for SPS, and there were
> some notes that agreed with my analysis.
>
> It looks like Solar Power Sats are actually economic, with no need
for
> lunar launch infrastructure.
>
> Basically, I took a Falcon I, and asked- how often could I launch
it?
> Then I did the maths, and extrapolated the economies of scale on
the
> hardware and launch infrastructure of the Falcon I.
>
> The launch costs fell below about $500/kg which is reckoned to be
the
> breakeven cost for SPS to be viable.
>
> I then did a similar thing for solar panels.
>
> Result: Energy costs of about $0.05/kWh for 4 4GW SPS; dropping
lower
> if you build multiple stations.
>
> This assumes very high launch rates however- dozens of launches per
> day. Analysis of the Falcon I suggests that it may be possible
(it's
> not dissimilar to a V2 in size, and the Germans managed quite a
lot of
> launches per day; so it's not totally without precedent and it
seems
> likely the same techniques would work for the Falcon I.)
>
> The economics get even better if you use Russian launchers or
> something (Chinese :-) or Indian labour); because the cost of
labour
> is much lower...
>
> The downside is that it doesn't involve launching any people at
all.
> The upside is that it would cause the launch costs to plummet and
that
> in itself can open space.
>
> --
> -Ian Woollard
>
> "People are brilliantly stupid, and stupidly brilliant"-Robin
Abrahams