> It's just far more efficient to build solar PV arrays on the ground, and to keep power on 24/7, build enough to store the energy for later use at night and in

> It's just far more efficient to build solar PV arrays on the ground, and to keep power on 24/7, build enough to store the energy for later use at night and in the winter. Throwing all that mass into orbit, even if in low-Earth orbit where decay and burnup in the atmosphere is guaranteed over time for the debris issue, is just a massive waste of resources, plus the energy loss over 100 km or so would undoubtedly very high. That argument makes perfect economic sense ... now. The same way that burning fuel still makes economic sense in quite a few cases. But environment anxiety is not only about burning fossil fuels, it is about deforestation, farting cows, the use of land for human activities, and well, basically every industrial economic activity. There is environmental anxiety about solar and about wind energy production, and about nuclear power. And it is often an-out-of-the-blue spurt for something that happens in another continent[^1]. We are slowly but surely channeling that anxiety by taxing "Earth use". Here is a thought experiment: try to imagine a world where human environmental footprint is bound in a way that satisfies even the most extreme environmentalists today, who--as anxiety raises--are going to be your average bread-and-butter (self-)conscious citizen of tomorrow. How does it look? How many of us? I wish we come upon a time when we decide to have space-based solar power and space-based living. The alternative is disquieting. [^1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cjyykdwmw58t https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cjyykdwmw58t