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by vel0city 20 days ago
If solar+batteries are so cheap and viable to power giant 100 megawatt datacenters in space, why not do the same on Earth instead of using natural gas generators?
1 comments

Solar panels on surface get ~70% less energy than in space once you factor in atmosphere absorption, day/night, weather, etc. Solar + battery on the surface is not economically viable versus nat gas generators (excluding externalities)
Sounds like the solution is to actually price the externalities of running on-site natural gas generation and suddenly we don't actually need to go to orbit.