[byearthithatius]

So what are the other things? You said he glossed over them and didn't mention a single one.

[aorloff]

Reliably and efficiently transport energy generated in space back to earth, for starters

Or let me guess, its going to be profitable to mine crypto in space (thereby solving the problem of transporting the "work" back to earth)

[mlindner]

It's always better to generate electricity on the ground than attempt to beam it to the ground from space. The efficiency loss of beamed power is huge.

[brd529]

Overview energy has done interesting work in this area.

[mkull]

Why would you transfer the energy to earth? The energy powers ai compute = $

[SergeAx]

If we (as in "civilization") were able to produce that many solar panels, we should cover all the deserts with them. It will also shift the local climate balance towards a more habitable ecosystem, enabling first vegetation and then slowly growing the rest of the food chain.

[throw0101a]

> It will also shift the local climate balance towards a more habitable ecosystem, enabling first vegetation and then slowly growing the rest of the food chain.

Depends on the deserts in question and knock-on effects: Saharan Dust Feeds Amazon’s Plants.

* https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/nasa-sat...

Helping vegetation in one place to grow may hinder it somewhere else. How important this is still appears to be an open question:

* https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00071-w

I'm not sure if humans are wise enough yet to try 'geo-hacking' (we're already messing things up: see carbon dumping).

[DoctorOetker]

for solar panels that are say 25% efficient, that means 75% of optical energy is turned into heat, whereas the sand had a relatively high albedo, its going to significantly heat up the local environment!