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Conversely solar panels are cheap, but environmental impact statements, permitting and installation labour are not.

Its not immediately obvious that a mass produced solar satellite could not scale better than thousands of individual legal jurisdictions and eco systems.

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Those things are true in the US. You don’t need to go all the way to space to find a place where solar panels can be deployed cheaply.

But you do need to factor in geography. Solar cells in space can be “always on and operating at peak efficiency” directly over the places that need the power, significantly reducing the need to build long distance transmission lines.

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