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by chrisweekly 1704 days ago
Presumably, laser beams to heat terrestrial mountains of salt. What could possibly go wrong?

/jk

Seriously, I'm curious about this too.

Edit: a quick search shows I was close: https://earthsky.org/earth/space-based-solar-energy-power-ge...

1 comments

If you want to place solar panels in a hostile and distant environment to triple their efficiency, we have the Sahara Desert for that.

That article does not mention inefficiency of space that microwave transmission, it is going to wreck that 7x advantage.

Also lifting a solar panel from Earth will cost more energy than it will ever generate You have to have cities and factories in space before any solar collector could even be considered.