Yale Environment 360 has a useful survey of the current state of play in space-based solar power (SBSP). One tidbit new to me was this on Solaren
And last spring, the California-based Solaren Corporation signed a contract with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to provide 200 megawatts of power — about half the output of an average coal-fired power plant — by 2016 by launching solar arrays into space. Several other companies have announced their intentions to put up solar satellites of their own.
It is plausible that SBSP will become significant in the latter part of the 22nd century. For the next 50 years of zero carbon power we can only count on nuclear plus a small contribution from highly subsidized “renewables”.
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