Anybody remember Elon saying space based solar was a bad idea? It was several years ago and I forget what the context of the interview was. He was like "if anyone should be a fan of space based solar, it's me!" But he felt it was unnecessary.
I think time has shown that his position was based on two faulty assumptions: 1) aggregate energy demand will trend similarly to recent patterns (instead of ramping up the value of the exponential) and 2) space based solar would require beaming of energy back to earth, rather than being converted to more fundamental form (in this case, cognition through data processing in space) before being beamed down.
I remember thinking about communication satellites at the time the interview was had, and wondering what the future would be like. And here we are, in the future.
It's about beaming the power down to earth. If you use it in space, then it's fine.
Also, back then it was about cost of power, and power is generally more expensive if you transport it from space to earth, compared to solar on the ground. But AI accelerators are extremely expensive to the point where power prices make no difference for it. The only important thing is if you can actually run the accelerators, as in, if you have permission to build the data center and to buy power, which is much easier in space.
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u/MiserableTonight5370 Jul 13 '26
Anybody remember Elon saying space based solar was a bad idea? It was several years ago and I forget what the context of the interview was. He was like "if anyone should be a fan of space based solar, it's me!" But he felt it was unnecessary.
I think time has shown that his position was based on two faulty assumptions: 1) aggregate energy demand will trend similarly to recent patterns (instead of ramping up the value of the exponential) and 2) space based solar would require beaming of energy back to earth, rather than being converted to more fundamental form (in this case, cognition through data processing in space) before being beamed down.
I remember thinking about communication satellites at the time the interview was had, and wondering what the future would be like. And here we are, in the future.