rocketsocks t1_ixh21oa wrote
Reply to comment by adoughoskins in The ESA aims to make 24/7 space-based solar energy harvesting a reality | Solaris program will study space-based solar power amid rising energy concerns by chrisdh79
Oh yeah, it totally would, let's check the scale of the problem to see if it's a concern.
Annual global energy usage is about 500 million terajoules per year. If all of that energy is gathered off Earth and beamed to the planet that would ultimately end up being released in the form of heat, which would potentially heat up the Earth.
In contrast, the amount of excess heating due to human caused greenhouse gas emissions translates to about 24,000 million terajoules per year, which is fifty times more heating. So replacing any carbon emitting heat source with space based solar power would still be objectively vastly advantageous in terms of reducing global warming.
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