Funny, the picture instantly reminded me of the Shinra and its reactors in Final Fantaisy VII :) [1]
Regarding Mars, I would love someone who knows to tell us how this would compare to raw sun energy exploitation. Each time I think of solar energy, I can't help but think it's a waste to try to collect it under the atmosphere, given one of its useful properties is precisely to protect us from the sun. My thinking usually then go into thinking a solar farm would be way more efficient in space, or on Mars. Could someone debunk or confirm this?
The biggest problem with setting a solar farm in space is efficient energy transfer [1]. Bezos proposes to build also industrial zones in space, but then the problem is raw material transfer [2]. The easiest thing to do is to reap what you can here on surface of the Earth.
Orbital solar is such a fantastic idea, until you realize that any kind of energy transfer at useful scales is almost by necessity going to be strategically equivalent to a BF laser beam. Needless to say, that's going to be a tricky subject in the current geopolitical climate.
I'm reminded of the book "The Mote in God's Eye", which featured an alien race using an enormous orbital laser array to launch an interstellar solar sail vehicle. The launch was pretty much the crowning achievement of the race, and also the pretty much the last one, as the launch laser was almost immediately turned back on the planet itself.
Regarding Mars, I would love someone who knows to tell us how this would compare to raw sun energy exploitation. Each time I think of solar energy, I can't help but think it's a waste to try to collect it under the atmosphere, given one of its useful properties is precisely to protect us from the sun. My thinking usually then go into thinking a solar farm would be way more efficient in space, or on Mars. Could someone debunk or confirm this?
[1] http://www.playersc.com/midgar_big.gif