I doubt Thales, when divvying up the world into opposites—fire/water, earth/sky, day/night, hidden/obvious, etc/atc.—ever considered the opposite of faith. Thales looked to nature for data, to reason for answers. When looking to nature I doubt faith ever crossed his mind: Nature doesn’t ask to be believed in, it asks to be explained. Everything he saw, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted created an opportunity for learning, and in the mind of a rational man everything requires study. Understanding requires study and the integrity to acknowledge truth.
While I’m sure Thales had his doubts about the gods, twenty-six centuries ago questioning them publicly was not a healthy choice. Then, like today, it wasn’t the gods who punished the non-believer…it’s the believers right here on Earth who make sure the wrath of their gods is felt. Across the globe, presently, it is still not safe for the rational to speak their minds. In the Muslim world they risk death or imprisonment. In the United States, vocal opponents of irrationalism risk unemployment, ostracism, ridicule, and abuse.
For three years such abuse took place in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2005, where the area school board had been hijacked by a few Christian zealots determined to turn the clocks in Dover back to a day before science, a day before the Bill of Rights, when teachers led their classes in Christian prayers and bible readings. Their leader, Board Curriculum Chairman William Buckingham, was raised believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible, including its first book, the Book of Genesis. Apparently, he thought everybody else’s kids should be educated so well. “This country wasn’t founded on Muslim beliefs or evolution,” Buckingham told Dover parents. “This country was founded on Christianity and our students should be taught as such.”
Problem was, public prayer and bible reading and teaching creationism in public schools is illegal. Bill Buckingham had a problem. How does a man of faith manage to solve a problem of this sort? What would Jesus do?
At the trial, Bill’s victims—his fellow board members!—testified that they had been cornered and questioned, asked if they were Born Again, ridiculed and called un-Christian if they answered incorrectly or refused to answer, bullied into voting for the anti-science, biology curriculum Buckingham and his friends at the Bible Science Association [BSA] and the Foundation for Thought and Ethics [FTE] endorsed. On at least one occasion, a board member was compelled to resign. Dover High School science teachers testified that they were forced to accept an irrational, anti-science textbook to supplement their biology curriculum. The teachers were required to accept the text, Of Pandas and People, or lose funding for the text they had ordered, Biology. Conscientious science teachers actually had to walk out of their classrooms, leaving their students to board stooges appointed to read an anti-science message at the onset of the unit on the origins of life.
In addition to his utter lack of integrity when dealing with co-workers and constituency, Apostle Bill demonstrated a complete incompetence regarding the facts, not only of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, but of the “alternative theory” he championed, Intelligent Design. Here’s Bill answering questions at the trial:
QUESTION: I'm just trying to understand so we can have a working understanding here of what intelligent design is if we can. Do you have an understanding in very simple terms of what intelligent design stands for? What does it teach?
ANSWER: Other than what I've expressed that scientists, a lot of scientists, don't ask me the names, I can't tell you where it came from, a lot of scientists believe that back through time something, molecules, amoeba, whatever, evolved into the complexities of life we have now.
Q: That's the theory of intelligent design?
A: You asked me my understanding of it. I'm not a scientist. I can't go into details and debate it with you."
Q: Do you remember giving that testimony?
A. Yes.
Q. And at least as of that date, January the 3rd, that's all that you understood about what the theory of intelligent design is, isn't that correct?
A. Plus the fact that I felt that life was too complex to have randomly happened without a design of some sort.
[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Trial transcript: Day 16 (October 27), AM Session, Part 1]
Buckingham’s Board failed their mandate as educators to equip the next generation with the necessary tools for survival. They demonstrated contempt for humanity, ignoring man’s best efforts to understand himself and his place in time They failed their duty as elected officials to represent the views [or even the best interests] of their constituency. They extorted, bullied, lied and distorted, and then, under oath, denied it all. And like the Theory of Intelligent Design, these apostles failed even to name the designer they had in mind on the day they embarked on their ridiculous crusade.
It would be laughable if so many people hadn’t been hurt.
I remember awaiting the decision of United States District Judge John E. Jones III. I knew what the verdict should be, but I honestly wasn’t sure what the court would do. I remembered the Supreme Court’s failure to address the “God” in the pledge issue, granted a trivial matter compared to Dover. I was afraid the court would make some sort of compromise with these lunatics in the name of tradition or American values. While reading the testimony of Buckingham and others, I came to the conclusion that these people—like the goddamned Taliban—don’t compromise. They don’t soften their message. They don’t study. They’re not interested in anything man has accomplished in the last millennium. As far as they’re concerned, history stopped two thousand years ago with Jesus, the Bible is the only book, and the complete store of knowledge was handed down to man by God. They believe their nonsense. They are people of faith. They disparage every effort made by man to uncover the truth calling him the Devil and damning him to Hell. They blind their eyes to the truth he discovers. They cover their ears. They have no stomach for the truth when it unsettles their little minds. They haven’t the integrity to acknowledge truth.
United States District Judge John E. Jones thought better…thank goodness.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Faith and Evil
Faith is believing something, something which can not be proved to exist. When someone believes some religious doctrine, they are believing something for which there is no evidence. Modern believers point to history, their holy books, heroes and martyrs, arks and shrouds, and any number of bits of so-called physical evidence to “prove” their faith. All they ever end up proving is that people for centuries have done the same thing they are doing. People for centuries have believed, not in existence, but rather, in what they wanted to believe. People of faith for all time have shared this common belief: that their minds—their thoughts, wishes, visions, dreams—are real and that their minds have the power of creation. “If I believe it, it is true. As evidence, I offer the words and deeds of thousands [billions] of others who believed it too. Surely, so many could not be wrong.” They express their faiths in community where they have the physical support of other believers. Universalizing faiths—like Islam and Christianity—encourage the faithful to win converts, increasing their numbers, increasing their certainty that the unreal is real.
From time to time mindless reality demonstrates the fraud modern humans call faith in their gods. Tragically, the innocent are made to suffer.
Eleven-year-old Madeline Neumann, after suffering two months of deteriorating health, paid for her parent’s irrational psycho-epistemology with her life. Madeline died last month of diabetic ketoacidosis while her parents prayed that the demons would leave her body. A single shot of insulin would have saved her life.
Madeline’s mother, Leilani Neumann, said that she and her family believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God. “We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do.” Incredible…a 21st Century American who thinks prayer is more effective than modern medicine in treating the sick.
Do you think the death of her beautiful little girl has caused Leilani to reconsider her thinking on the matter? Maybe even question her faith? Think again. When asked how she and her husband were coping with the loss of their daughter, Leilani replied: "Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time." Incredible… it was her faith in God that brought this disaster to her doorstep in the first place. A little “faith” in humanity and human science [i.e. reality] and Madeline would be alive today.
I happen to know that when people like Leilani say things like “only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time,” they are actually proud to make the pronouncement. It’s as if voicing it makes them feel closer to God. It is the public pronouncement that gives them “strength.” Knowing others have heard their public surrender to the will of the All Mighty somehow makes them feel favored, more holy.
One relative told police that the girl's mother believed she "died because the devil is trying to stop Leilani from starting her own ministry," according to the Associated Press. The death of her little girl is not about a treatable insulin deficiency and her failure to grasp reality. For Leilani it’s about her imagined battle with the man in the red suit, horned forehead, and pitch fork. Incredible stupidity.
“Do not say that you’re afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience—that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible—that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.”—AR, For the New Intellectual
From time to time mindless reality demonstrates the fraud modern humans call faith in their gods. Tragically, the innocent are made to suffer.
Eleven-year-old Madeline Neumann, after suffering two months of deteriorating health, paid for her parent’s irrational psycho-epistemology with her life. Madeline died last month of diabetic ketoacidosis while her parents prayed that the demons would leave her body. A single shot of insulin would have saved her life.
Madeline’s mother, Leilani Neumann, said that she and her family believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God. “We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do.” Incredible…a 21st Century American who thinks prayer is more effective than modern medicine in treating the sick.
Do you think the death of her beautiful little girl has caused Leilani to reconsider her thinking on the matter? Maybe even question her faith? Think again. When asked how she and her husband were coping with the loss of their daughter, Leilani replied: "Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time." Incredible… it was her faith in God that brought this disaster to her doorstep in the first place. A little “faith” in humanity and human science [i.e. reality] and Madeline would be alive today.
I happen to know that when people like Leilani say things like “only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time,” they are actually proud to make the pronouncement. It’s as if voicing it makes them feel closer to God. It is the public pronouncement that gives them “strength.” Knowing others have heard their public surrender to the will of the All Mighty somehow makes them feel favored, more holy.
One relative told police that the girl's mother believed she "died because the devil is trying to stop Leilani from starting her own ministry," according to the Associated Press. The death of her little girl is not about a treatable insulin deficiency and her failure to grasp reality. For Leilani it’s about her imagined battle with the man in the red suit, horned forehead, and pitch fork. Incredible stupidity.
“Do not say that you’re afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience—that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible—that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.”—AR, For the New Intellectual
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Faith v. Reason
The following is a letter to my students:
“Who Cares”
If I were conducting this class 10,000 years ago, my lessons would include the following topics: 1. How to hunt large animals with a sharpened stick; 2. How to make sharpened sticks; 3. Which plants are edible and where to find them; 4. How to make fire; 5. How to build a temporary shelter. I would have chosen those topics 10,000 years ago for the very same reasons I chose the topics I teach today. My job is to arm you with the knowledge you require in order to live successfully in this country on this Earth.
You may ask: What’s the point? Why does this matter? How will I ever need this knowledge in the future? Who cares?
I require no followers. I seek no apostles. I would never ask anyone to accept any of my ideas on faith. But, these are big questions that I think deserve a response. Before you read on, permit me to answer your question with one of my own: Do you value your life? If so, know this:
1.The skills necessary for survival have changed over the past 10,000 years: The fact that man must think to sustain his life has not. Other animals have things like wings to fly away from danger, sharp claws to defend themselves, hard shells, sharp quills, or brute strength. Humans have none of these things. Humans survive because we evolved an excellent brain. Our brain is our “basic tool of survival.” [AR] A teacher is someone who cares about the survival of mankind. A rational teacher is the only one who can make good on that promise.
2. An individual must think [that is, reason] in order to sustain his life. If he refuses to do so—if 10,000 years ago you ignored my lessons and ate poisonous berries—the individual dies. Your survival today does not require that you know how to hunt, fish, or gather berries, so I don’t teach these skills. I teach reading and writing and rational thinking.
3. To think rationally the first thing one must come to grips with is simple: A = A Or stated another way: Existence exists. And still another way: What is….IS! This is called REALITY. On Earth, the only reality we know of, the fundamental question for every man or woman is the question of their own existence: “To be or not to be?” To live or to die? So I ask again: Do you value your life?
4. There are millions of people out there—running countries, starting churches, leading armies, writing books, creating art, selling philosophy, gathering and making news—who do not accept the validity of my #3. They do not believe reality is an absolute. They do not believe in the value of your life. They demand your sacrifice. They believe that their wishes have the power of creation. They believe “if I think it, it is so.” They take short-cuts—gathering dreams, whims, feelings, and mystic revelations—and arrive at what they call “the truth.” Their truth has little to do with WHAT IS. Everything to do with what they want. They claim to love mankind: they hate the human mind and human science. They are the growers of your fears and the collectors of your sacrifices. In exchange for your actual life right here on Earth, they promise an imagined eternal life in some “better place.” I teach so that you may identify irrationalists of every stripe and know there is no better place for a human being than here on Earth. Earth is the planet that made our existence possible. We are the best product of this Earth.
5. Because humans love their children and want them to survive, we teach our young. Humans pass knowledge on from one generation to the next. Human knowledge of this world has been accumulating over the thousands of years of recorded history. Human knowledge about the world we live in is today better than it has ever been in the history of the world. Humans continue to add volumes to our knowledge stores, volumes that extend human life through medicine, volumes that make it possible for humans to see with our own eyes worlds billions of miles away, volumes that make it possible for us to live comfortable, pleasant lives. I teach children who will one day have children of their own.
6. Humans make errors. Honest humans correct them. The ancients made many errors. They had only their five senses in raw form with which to make observation, reason, and draw conclusions about the nature of their existence. With technology we have enhanced our five senses a billion fold. We don’t have to guess the definition of star. We know what it is, how far away it is, what it’s made of, where it came from, and how to get there. We don’t have to make up stories about how man came to exist on this planet. We can read his entire history. It’s written in every cell in your body on every strand of your DNA. A man of integrity loves the truth. I teach so that you may learn to recognize the truth when you see it.
7. Irrational philosophies are the greatest threat to freedom in this country; indeed, they are the cause for the lack of freedom elsewhere in the world. Altruistic moral codes are dominant in the history of the world and in the world today. They are immoral codes that teach self-sacrifice is the key to moral perfection. The purveyors of these vicious ideas survive [in many cases growing wealthy, strong, and politically powerful] by your sacrifices. The survival of our Republic requires that you understand the value of your life and the absolute necessity of your freedom. That the purpose of your life is to live it. That there is no higher purpose than the pursuit of your own happiness. That your brain belongs to you! A moral man is one who earns his success by the power of his creative mind and his productive spirit and who deals with other men by trade, by persuasion, but not by force. I try to demonstrate the power of these ideas because I want you to be happy, too.
I care.
“Who Cares”
If I were conducting this class 10,000 years ago, my lessons would include the following topics: 1. How to hunt large animals with a sharpened stick; 2. How to make sharpened sticks; 3. Which plants are edible and where to find them; 4. How to make fire; 5. How to build a temporary shelter. I would have chosen those topics 10,000 years ago for the very same reasons I chose the topics I teach today. My job is to arm you with the knowledge you require in order to live successfully in this country on this Earth.
You may ask: What’s the point? Why does this matter? How will I ever need this knowledge in the future? Who cares?
I require no followers. I seek no apostles. I would never ask anyone to accept any of my ideas on faith. But, these are big questions that I think deserve a response. Before you read on, permit me to answer your question with one of my own: Do you value your life? If so, know this:
1.The skills necessary for survival have changed over the past 10,000 years: The fact that man must think to sustain his life has not. Other animals have things like wings to fly away from danger, sharp claws to defend themselves, hard shells, sharp quills, or brute strength. Humans have none of these things. Humans survive because we evolved an excellent brain. Our brain is our “basic tool of survival.” [AR] A teacher is someone who cares about the survival of mankind. A rational teacher is the only one who can make good on that promise.
2. An individual must think [that is, reason] in order to sustain his life. If he refuses to do so—if 10,000 years ago you ignored my lessons and ate poisonous berries—the individual dies. Your survival today does not require that you know how to hunt, fish, or gather berries, so I don’t teach these skills. I teach reading and writing and rational thinking.
3. To think rationally the first thing one must come to grips with is simple: A = A Or stated another way: Existence exists. And still another way: What is….IS! This is called REALITY. On Earth, the only reality we know of, the fundamental question for every man or woman is the question of their own existence: “To be or not to be?” To live or to die? So I ask again: Do you value your life?
4. There are millions of people out there—running countries, starting churches, leading armies, writing books, creating art, selling philosophy, gathering and making news—who do not accept the validity of my #3. They do not believe reality is an absolute. They do not believe in the value of your life. They demand your sacrifice. They believe that their wishes have the power of creation. They believe “if I think it, it is so.” They take short-cuts—gathering dreams, whims, feelings, and mystic revelations—and arrive at what they call “the truth.” Their truth has little to do with WHAT IS. Everything to do with what they want. They claim to love mankind: they hate the human mind and human science. They are the growers of your fears and the collectors of your sacrifices. In exchange for your actual life right here on Earth, they promise an imagined eternal life in some “better place.” I teach so that you may identify irrationalists of every stripe and know there is no better place for a human being than here on Earth. Earth is the planet that made our existence possible. We are the best product of this Earth.
5. Because humans love their children and want them to survive, we teach our young. Humans pass knowledge on from one generation to the next. Human knowledge of this world has been accumulating over the thousands of years of recorded history. Human knowledge about the world we live in is today better than it has ever been in the history of the world. Humans continue to add volumes to our knowledge stores, volumes that extend human life through medicine, volumes that make it possible for humans to see with our own eyes worlds billions of miles away, volumes that make it possible for us to live comfortable, pleasant lives. I teach children who will one day have children of their own.
6. Humans make errors. Honest humans correct them. The ancients made many errors. They had only their five senses in raw form with which to make observation, reason, and draw conclusions about the nature of their existence. With technology we have enhanced our five senses a billion fold. We don’t have to guess the definition of star. We know what it is, how far away it is, what it’s made of, where it came from, and how to get there. We don’t have to make up stories about how man came to exist on this planet. We can read his entire history. It’s written in every cell in your body on every strand of your DNA. A man of integrity loves the truth. I teach so that you may learn to recognize the truth when you see it.
7. Irrational philosophies are the greatest threat to freedom in this country; indeed, they are the cause for the lack of freedom elsewhere in the world. Altruistic moral codes are dominant in the history of the world and in the world today. They are immoral codes that teach self-sacrifice is the key to moral perfection. The purveyors of these vicious ideas survive [in many cases growing wealthy, strong, and politically powerful] by your sacrifices. The survival of our Republic requires that you understand the value of your life and the absolute necessity of your freedom. That the purpose of your life is to live it. That there is no higher purpose than the pursuit of your own happiness. That your brain belongs to you! A moral man is one who earns his success by the power of his creative mind and his productive spirit and who deals with other men by trade, by persuasion, but not by force. I try to demonstrate the power of these ideas because I want you to be happy, too.
I care.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Energy Independence: Two untapped Alternatives
Then I found precisely what I’m looking for on the front page of the paper.
Billionaire Texas oil man makes big bets on wind
By Chris Baltimore Fri Apr 18, 9:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legendary Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens has gone green with a plan to spend $10 billion to build the world's biggest wind farm. But he's not doing it out of generosity - he expects to turn a buck.
The second sentence cracks me up. Why Christopher Baltimore thought it necessary to remind Americans that entrepreneurs make investments in order to turn a profit is beyond understanding. But, of course! T. Boone Pickens should only risk his $10 billion if he can reason a high probability of a profitable return on his investment. Becoming “green”—in the Al Gore sense of the word—is not prerequisite to capitalizing on meeting the energy needs of the free world. Healthy self-interest drives entrepreneurship in a capitalist economy. The only question remaining is, will more private individuals make similar investments before our government crowds private investment right out of the market?
If government takes the lead change will be slow, waste will be abundant, and the building of the necessary infrastructure will be charged to tax-payers, stifling growth in other sectors of the economy while denying entrepreneurs opportunities in the energy sector. If private interests take the lead the progress of change will vary across the country, each major city providing an opportunity for a private energy producer to build a clientele supplying the clean energy needs of the local homes and businesses. The most productive and efficient of the private producers will be rewarded with growing market share and profits for its shareholders. Not since Reconstruction has such an opportunity for growth presented itself: the complete transformation of how America creates power.
T. Boone Pickens chose to invest in wind. That may work best in Texas where millions of acres remain undeveloped. T. Boone’s wind farm will power a million homes and businesses when completed, a greater yield than two nuclear power plants, according to The Energy Blog, with no adverse effects on the environment.
If I had $10 billion to invest, I’d chose to produce geothermal energy. A 2006 study by MIT sold me on the idea.
"The Future of Geothermal Energy" (PDF, 14.1 MB).
Geothermal energy is a product of the Earth’s own heat. Wells [no deeper than the wells we currently drill to reach oil] are drilled to reach the hot rocks underground. The hot rocks are broken up so that water can pass through them. Water poured down one well returns to the Earth’s surface as steam to run electric generators.
According to MIT Tech Talk: “Unlike conventional fossil-fuel power plants that burn coal, natural gas or oil, no fuel would be required. And unlike wind and solar systems, a geothermal plant works night and day, offering a non-interruptible source of electric power.”
Geothermal energy leaves no carbon footprint.
Ultimately, I think solar energy will be the future…but not the way we’re doing it now. The first time I saw solar panels stretched across my neighbor’s roof, I thought, those panels would work much better if they were in orbit where they could absorb the sun’s energy without interference. I wondered if anybody else was thinking like me. A quick Wikipedia search confirmed my thinking.
“A solar power satellite, or SPS or Powersat, as originally proposed would be a satellite built in high Earth orbit that uses microwave power transmission to beam solar power to a very large antenna on Earth. Advantages of placing the solar collectors in space include the unobstructed view of the Sun, unaffected by the day/night cycle, weather, or seasons. It is a renewable energy source, zero emission, and generates no waste. However, the costs of construction are very high, and SPS will not be able to compete with conventional sources (at current energy prices) unless at least one of the following conditions is met:
1. Low launch costs can be achieved;
2. A space-based manufacturing industry develops that is capable of building solar power satellites in orbit, using off-Earth materials;
3. Conventional energy costs increase.”
With oil pushing $120 a barrel, we may be well on our way to achieving the third criteria. In time, the second will be realized.
Billionaire Texas oil man makes big bets on wind
By Chris Baltimore Fri Apr 18, 9:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legendary Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens has gone green with a plan to spend $10 billion to build the world's biggest wind farm. But he's not doing it out of generosity - he expects to turn a buck.
The second sentence cracks me up. Why Christopher Baltimore thought it necessary to remind Americans that entrepreneurs make investments in order to turn a profit is beyond understanding. But, of course! T. Boone Pickens should only risk his $10 billion if he can reason a high probability of a profitable return on his investment. Becoming “green”—in the Al Gore sense of the word—is not prerequisite to capitalizing on meeting the energy needs of the free world. Healthy self-interest drives entrepreneurship in a capitalist economy. The only question remaining is, will more private individuals make similar investments before our government crowds private investment right out of the market?
If government takes the lead change will be slow, waste will be abundant, and the building of the necessary infrastructure will be charged to tax-payers, stifling growth in other sectors of the economy while denying entrepreneurs opportunities in the energy sector. If private interests take the lead the progress of change will vary across the country, each major city providing an opportunity for a private energy producer to build a clientele supplying the clean energy needs of the local homes and businesses. The most productive and efficient of the private producers will be rewarded with growing market share and profits for its shareholders. Not since Reconstruction has such an opportunity for growth presented itself: the complete transformation of how America creates power.
T. Boone Pickens chose to invest in wind. That may work best in Texas where millions of acres remain undeveloped. T. Boone’s wind farm will power a million homes and businesses when completed, a greater yield than two nuclear power plants, according to The Energy Blog, with no adverse effects on the environment.
If I had $10 billion to invest, I’d chose to produce geothermal energy. A 2006 study by MIT sold me on the idea.
"The Future of Geothermal Energy" (PDF, 14.1 MB).
Geothermal energy is a product of the Earth’s own heat. Wells [no deeper than the wells we currently drill to reach oil] are drilled to reach the hot rocks underground. The hot rocks are broken up so that water can pass through them. Water poured down one well returns to the Earth’s surface as steam to run electric generators.
According to MIT Tech Talk: “Unlike conventional fossil-fuel power plants that burn coal, natural gas or oil, no fuel would be required. And unlike wind and solar systems, a geothermal plant works night and day, offering a non-interruptible source of electric power.”
Geothermal energy leaves no carbon footprint.
Ultimately, I think solar energy will be the future…but not the way we’re doing it now. The first time I saw solar panels stretched across my neighbor’s roof, I thought, those panels would work much better if they were in orbit where they could absorb the sun’s energy without interference. I wondered if anybody else was thinking like me. A quick Wikipedia search confirmed my thinking.
“A solar power satellite, or SPS or Powersat, as originally proposed would be a satellite built in high Earth orbit that uses microwave power transmission to beam solar power to a very large antenna on Earth. Advantages of placing the solar collectors in space include the unobstructed view of the Sun, unaffected by the day/night cycle, weather, or seasons. It is a renewable energy source, zero emission, and generates no waste. However, the costs of construction are very high, and SPS will not be able to compete with conventional sources (at current energy prices) unless at least one of the following conditions is met:
1. Low launch costs can be achieved;
2. A space-based manufacturing industry develops that is capable of building solar power satellites in orbit, using off-Earth materials;
3. Conventional energy costs increase.”
With oil pushing $120 a barrel, we may be well on our way to achieving the third criteria. In time, the second will be realized.
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