[ben_w]

You know how people sometimes dismiss PV by saying "what happens at night or in cloudy weather?"?

Well, what happens over the course of a year of night and clouds is that 1 TW-peak becomes an average of about 110 to 160 GW.

We're making ~1 TW-peak per year of PV right now.

[DoctorOetker]

but then you have answered the earlier question: solar panels in space pay themselves back ~7-8 times faster

[ben_w]

That wasn't the original question. The head of this thread was quoting Musk's claim, which I repeat here:

> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space

This is 500-1000 times as much as current global production.

Musk is talking about building on the Moon 500-1000 times as much factory capacity as currently exists in aggregate across all of Earth, and launching the products electromagnetically.

Given how long PV modules last, that much per year is enough to keep all of Earth's land area paved with contiguous PV. PV doesn't last as long in space, but likewise the Moon would be totally tiled in PV (and much darker as a consequence) at this production rate.

In fact, given it does tile the moon, I suspect Musk may have started from "tile moon with PV" and estimated the maximum productive output of that power supply being used to make more PV.

I mean, don't get me wrong, in the *long term* I buy that. It's just that by "long term" I mean Musk's likely to have buried (given him, in a cryogenic tube) for decades by the time that happens.

Even being optimistic, given the lack of literally any experience building a factory up there and how our lunar mining experience is little more than a dozen people and a handful of rovers picking up interesting looking rocks, versus given how much experience we need down here to get things right, even Musk's organisation skills and ability to enthuse people and raise capital has limits. But these are timescales where those skills don't last (even if he resolves his political toxicity that currently means the next Democrat administration will hate his guts and do what they can to remove most of his power), because he will have died of old age.

[DoctorOetker]

I wasn't referencing Elon's claim, but your reply to

> In fairness, solar cells can be about 5x more efficient in space (irradiance, uptime).

Clearly this person was referencing a financial efficiency predominantly through uptime.

Your other points: I agree :)

[ben_w]

> Clearly this person was referencing a financial efficiency predominantly through uptime.

I read the person you are quoting differently, as them misunderstanding and thinking that the current 1 TW-peak/year manufacturing was 1 TW-after-capacity-factor-losses/year.