@Soleron. They can (and have) managed controlled fusion however they are struggling with efficiency - they currently have a negative net energy from fusion reactors as it takes so much energy to make the fusion occur. They are slowly getting better at it though.

I know, but it was simpler to explain it the other way. I hope we have commercial reactors in my lifetime...

I've heard of these as a possibility since like... Jr Highschool. Would be kickass if someone actually tried one.

Launching is less efficient than a space elevator because the weight coming down can be used to generate energy for the weight going up. If you add in the material we could bring down by mining asteroids for metals, it could produce enough energy to sustain itself.

Other factors include reliability, the fact you can send untrained people on a space elevator but probably not on a rocket, and that the volume that can be transported is greatly increased so commercial operations could start which would actually pay back the cost of operation rather than it coming out of a national budget.

Fun fact: a coal power station dumps 100 times more nuclear radiation to the environment than the equivalent nuclear power plant does.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

I believe it's closer to a decade when i first heard about this. Too bad the carbon nanotube isn't yet strong enough to deal with the elevator yet.

In the first stage it's supposed to go up to 30 000 km and in the second stage to 100 000 km.

I see two things being biggest with the elevator; energy production, which would lead to whole different level with solar energy and a shipbuilding dock in stationary orbit for spacecrafts and satellites.

Wonder if that includes the "Clean Coal" plants that want to be about 50% of our nations energy.

Funny, considering the energy polcies being proposed in the US>

"Clean coal" is a bullshit term. It's not clean at all. It reduces some of the pollutive elements, but not all and perhaps not the worst ones. There's also the question of pollution storage, of course.

As far as I've read, radionuclides aren't reduced by the so called "clean coal" technologies. Coal is (and will remain) the dirtiest form of energy, no matter how many "clean slogans" the energy firms come up with.

Oh I know... it's why I don't like the Obama energy plan, it's half make the global food crisis worse, half "clean coal" while we wait around 10-20 years for actual mass market green energy.

Nuclear makes more sense as a bridge energy.

Well, after the "bridge" we still keep continuing to use nuclear energy, in forms of fusion and solar power. Those are the two energy sources i see viable in the long term.