[Spaceships] [UT] Orbital Power Plants, Beamed Power and Cost of Energy

[Anaraxes]

Mirrors also don't work as well in atmo or far from the sun.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Mirrors also don't work as well in atmo or far from the sun.

Sure, but they don't cost 1½ times as much as nuclear plants. A mirror/boiler pair costs $600k when a nuke is $3M and a solar is $5M.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, solar panels are a walking disaster in comparison. (Cost more than fission, are external, and don't work as good in atmo or far from sun.)

Fission is something like two orders of magnitude too cheap. Solar is merely one order of magnitude too cheap.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, solar panels are a walking disaster in comparison. (Cost more than fission, are external, and don't work as good in atmo or far from sun.)

They are both horribly optimistic. The industrial systems are particularly bad. They have an obscene rate of return, or amount of production. A lot of stuff in spaceships is horribly optimistic. I'm reasonably certain that if you compare launch costs in spaceships with in the real world the spaceships ones will be much, much cheaper. (The cost in spaceships is about 300$/lb assuming three stage, chemical rockets, and ten hanger slots on the final stage for whatever you wanted to carry up. The cost is just the first two stages.)