The Japanese government is prepared to spend some 2 trillion yen on a one-gigawatt orbiting solar power station—and
this week Mitsubishi and other Japanese companies have signed on to
boost the effort. Boasting some four kilometers of solar panels—maybe
of the superefficient Spectrolab variety but more likely domestically sourced from Mitsubishi or Sharp—the space solar power station would orbit some 36,000 kilometers above Earth and transmit power via microwave or laser beam.
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