Comment by rob74
4 days ago
Actually you don't want the transmission process to be 100% efficient. If you really captured all the fusion energy transmitted (or even just the small part of it reaching Earth), all sorts of people would complain, trust me! But fortunately that fusion reactor has more than enough power to go around...
If only it were smaller and closer. We could make it smaller by using a force other than gravity to compress the matter. Perhaps a very strong magnetic field? If it was strong enough you’d only need a fraction of the matter.
OTOH, the concept proposed by OP is already implemented and has been working reliably for billions of years with trillions of successful deployments, while this newfangled technology you are proposing still has to be demonstrated to work...
Unfortunately the original developers left long ago taking the source with them, and none of them are reachable to provide an explanation even through exotic means of communication.
You’re not looking at the entire cost. What are the end of life procedures when fuel is exhausted?
3 replies →
Trillions of deployments that are all subject to the inverse square law at a distance of 100 million miles. It's hard to comprehend how bad that efficiency is.
> But fortunately that fusion reactor has more than enough power to go around...
"All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."
"Not forever,"
Insufficient data for a meaningful answer.
They wouldn't complain for long though