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Japan Eyes Solar Station In Space

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the they're-gonna-need-a-gundam-to-defend-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "By 2030 [Japan] wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves. The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades."

7 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Good luck with that... by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not going to happen. No use writing why AGAIN, I think this reply to the original post is just fine:

    http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/here-we-go-again-with-the-spss/

    1. Re:Good luck with that... by TheKidWho · · Score: 4, Informative

      Your argument is a bit silly and is ignoring the economy of scale.

      The majority of the cost in Rocket development is in personnel and support. The actual physical materials and fuel used aren't nearly as expensive. With a large investment into capital and mass manufacturing of rockets, cost can be driven down significantly.

    2. Re:Good luck with that... by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 2, Informative

      > seems at least a few people are convinced enough to spen some serious money on this project

      I'm not so sure on that count... a few million here and there it seems.

      To put that in perspective, they're supposedly blowing $2 billion on a study for high speed trains between Toronto and Montreal (although I hope that's a typo in the newspaper!)

      Maury

    3. Re:Good luck with that... by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1, Informative

      And I've no doubt that's exactly what they want--less technology, back to nature Ludditism and, especially, enabling a socialist reworking of human civilization.

      God you americans are full of shit most of the time, WTF does energy production and technology have to do with capitalism and socialism? Oh right Socialists countries like France have 74.5% nuclear power (the rest is renewable)! If anything true socialism and even communism are more likely to succeed if there is better tech, if it makes manual jobs redundant the excessive labour that made life in the USSR hard would not be needed.

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
  2. Re:Threat? by 2.7182 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Godzilla's not the problem. He's the solution. Mothra is the problem.

  3. Re:Old news by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Losing 99% of the power? Why? You can beam the power down using wavelengths that are not absorbed by the atmosphere.

  4. Re:Threat? by jamstar7 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Dupezilla actually, from September 1.

    Pretty much, yeah...

    --
    Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.