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Originally Posted by yvanleterrible
He was the person who told me that the best source of energy should come from a source other than our planet. That makes sense, a lot of sense. The closest source is the sun.
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If there were a way to beam energy (electricity, or some other viable form), even if it were relatively in-efficient, could we not put solar "furnaces" up in near space that could collect the sun's energy directly and beam it back to the planet. So what if we lose 40% or so, it's not like we had to burn something to get it in the first place.
If I recall correctly, Tesla had notions about this too, and the notional tech has made appearances in some of David Weber's work. They're getting fairly close to being able to do some of this sort of thing on the micro-scale (a few feet), and while it's grossly inefficient, it does seem to be somewhat viable. How long before somebody follows this sort of approach on the macro-scale?