Space-Based Solar Power on Island in the Pacific Ocean. Will This Be Viable?

The Pacific island of Palau is being proposed as the site to have microwaves beamed down from an orbitting satelite.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071223/ap_on_sc/space_power;_ylt=AsXoXCpo8gq2JVCGTeDXtXAPLBIF

Well the short answer is that it will be viable someday. Today? No. The Palau one would be a test design. It's good place to do it since if it messes up there is a lot of ocean around it. People say it costs too much to get to space to build this and they are right if you ship all the materials up using existing systems.

What if we steer an asteroid into orbit and then convert it? There are lots of them with high iron content that we could move with an engine mounted to them to steer them. We could use the asteroids itself as fuel all we need is to get an engine and navigational system there that would work. This is all in the realm of speculation at this time though.

Fun exercise for the brain though.

At a cost of $800 million, I would think the money would be better invested in say....thin film tech. We need to get the cost of PV down to where it is affordable for Joe Handyman to go to the home center and get a 10 or 15 kilowatt kit. $800 million in seed money would be a good start.