"It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan's space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves. The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades." - Jason, Incognito from Bookmarklet

The problem with space-based solar is infrastructure. It works fairly well if you build it from lunar materials in a fab plant in orbit. If you have to ship everything uphill in rockets.... not so much. - Wirehead