[AR] Re: 500,000 tons per year to GEO (off topic)

  • From: David Weinshenker <daze39@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 22:16:14 -0700

Keith Henson wrote:
> For power satellites, it's the cost to GEO that is important, not the
> cost to LEO.
> 
> But let's consider what a cost of $1000/kg to GEO would do to the cost
> of electric power, holding the rest constant.  The transport cost
> would go up to $5000/kW, making total cost come in at $6100/kW.  The
> power would have to be sold at 7.6 cents per kWh to break even.  The
> cost of synthetic oil would be $10/bbl for capital cost and $150/bbl
> for energy.  Gasoline would be around $7 per gallon.
> 
> If the goal is dollar a gallon gasoline, this won't do it.
> 
> Sorry.

Does the goal -need- to be equivalence to "dollar a gallon gasoline"
(vs. e.g. $7/gallon) before this becomes an interesting project?

After all, US gasoline prices in recent years (~3.50 - $5.00/gallon)
are not much below that already, and I understand that is low compared
to many places in the world (something like twice that in Europe?).

If a system offers continued access to power at the equivalent of
$7/gallon for gasoline (while the price of actual gasoline, and other
petroleum fuels, continues to increase - inexorably, if erratically),
that seems like it has a good chance of reaching "break-even", at
least, in the reasonable future.

And also - would all of a full-scale system be deployed at the initial
launch cost, or would it become the volume that ended up driving prices
down, in itself? (Even if the present price for launch to GEO is $1000/kg,
would it remain at that level at the anticipated launch rate? How far would
the first 500,000 tons put us up the learning curve?)

Also, while we're making "modest proposals": lunar resources... the moon
has silicon, aluminum, and titanium, higher in the gravity well than GEO:
yes, lunar mining, and in-situ manufacturing at GEO, are hard work and we
don't really know how to do them yet... but it would be an alternative to
hoisting all the mass up off of earth to GEO!

-dave w

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. arocket
  3. Archive
  4. 04-2014