Elon Musk’s five insights into solar energy

[bananas]

14. Actually, it could continue for a very long time.

People already have to re-roof their houses every so many years, and solar cells are already being embedded into roofing material. So the cost of installing solar will become zilch since people have to re-roof anyway - the installation costs get absorbed into existing maintenance costs.

Also, like Musk, I believe it's time we start settling the rest of the solar system. Spacecraft solar power has been doubling every four years*. In space, we'll be able to build extremely large solar power plants out of very thin material, for spacecraft propulsion, asteroid mining, and beaming energy to rectennas on the surface of Earth and Mars.


*See Figure 4 in "300-kW Solar Electric Propulsion System Configuration for Human Exploration of Near-Earth Asteroids" by John Brophy et al. downloadable from http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/space-challenge2011/references.html

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kiss.caltech.edu%2Fworkshops%2Fspace-challenge2011%2Freferences%2Fpropulsion-system%2F300-kW%2520Solar%2520Electric%2520Propulsion&docid=9c62e8f7f4dce03df0d558f53a776d89&a=bi&pagenumber=6&w=800