И при 1000 долл./кг за вывод на орбиту элементов КСЭ цена электроэнергии составит 18 центов/кВт-ч
Low-Cost Launches May Boost Chances For Space Solar Power
Like California-based SpaceX, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is conducting research into reusable launch as a way to cut the cost of space launch drastically. Japan is the only nation that has made beaming solar power collected in space back to Earth a goal of its space policy, and JAXA engineers calculate reusable launch is one way to reduce the up-front investment needed to put gigawatt-class power stations in geostationary orbit.
“We need a reusable launch system,” says Susumu Sasaki of Tokyo City University, a professor emeritus at JAXA who has studied the relationship between launch costs and the cost of power delivered from space.
Using a 2003 JAXA reference model with a 1-gigawatt station weighing 10,000 tons, Sasaki says power would cost a prohibitive $1.12/kwh at a launch cost to low Earth orbit (LEO) of $10,000 per kilogram. That is in the ballpark of what space launch costs today. Cut that to $1,000 a kilogram-in the ballpark for a reusable launch vehicle (RLV)-and electricity from space drops to 18 cents/kwh.
Источник.
РЕЗЮМЕ: При сокращении цен вывода грузов в космос до $ 1000 за килограмм, цена электроэнергии из космоса падает до 18 центов/кВт-ч. Таким образом, демо-версии системы Orbitron способны окупаться и приносить прибыль, необходимую для последущего развития за счет самофинансирования проекта до достижения цены доставки в $ 100-200 за килограмм.
UPD. Укрощение сестер Катрины:
Isabelle Dicaire, a physicist with the European Space Agency, outlined studies that show both microwaves and lasers from space could literally weaken dangerous hurricanes and other tropical cyclones by heating the water in them with microwave radiation to change the thermal dynamics or by using lasers to seed rainfall in a storm’s outer walls to weaken the strength of its rapidly rotating eye. Given the $100 billion cost of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, she said, the cost of a system that could mitigate cyclones and provide a space-based power source might be more acceptable.
UPD-2. Слайд из доклада Иннокентия Андреева по системному кризису на программе Global Challenges, проводимой Открытым университетом Сколково.
Источник: http://www.slideshare.net/ssuserc0559a/c-54471369