The future is solar. This has been clear for years. Solar simply has too many advantages. Plummetting prices, no moving parts, the only form of direct power gen

The future is solar. This has been clear for years. Solar simply has too many advantages. Plummetting prices, no moving parts, the only form of direct power generation, it can be done anywhere including otherwise unusable land and flexible installation, everything from a window sill to a giant solar farm in the desert. And of course China is leading this transformation by miles. They're also discovering a whole bunch of secondary benefits too. For example, you need water to clean the solar panels. In desert areas that combination of shade and water has halted or even rolled back desertification. And in places they're feeding livestock on these plants to control their growth. Orbital data centers make no sense but you know what does make sense? Orbital solar power collectors. I've seen estimates that because of the essentially 24 hour sunlight, no weather and no atmosphere an orbital solar panel can generate around ~7 times the power of a terrestial panel, even factoring in transmission loss from beaming power to the ground. We will reach a point where launch costs are sufficiently low that this will make economic sense.