[expenses3]

I was talking about having mass in orbit from mined asteroids (or the moon), like the grandparent comment. This survey is based entirely on launched SBSP:

> This study assessed lifecycle cost and emissions based on the following scenario: SBSP systems are developed on the ground in the 2030s and launched to low-Earth orbit (LEO), and then transferred to and assembled in geostationary orbit (GEO) in the 2040s.

Furthermore, one main benefit of SBSP over nuclear is that the receivers don't need to be connected to the grid; each household or piece of infrastructure can have one. This would help manage situations like the power outage in Spain earlier this year or the situation at the start of KSR's Ministry for the Future where a deadly heatwave in India is made 10x worse by coinciding power outages.

[sorcerer-mar]

I see -- so we're going to build an end-to-end solar panel/reflector factory in space, from initial mined materials through to operational energy production and transmission. Color me skeptical.

> This would help manage situations like...

Aren't these situations trivially solvable with batteries if there were political will to be prepared for them?