University of Wisconsin-Madison

Second, in order to construct a 20,000 GWe LSPS in 30 years, ~ 2 billion tons of regolith would have to be moved on the Moon per year. The Lunar operation would require a one time mass transfer of mining equipment and support facilities to the Moon approaching 500,000 tons. This would have to be supported by a yearly transport from Earth to the Moon of ~ 250,000 tons/y. In addition, over 300,000 tons of mirrors and orbiting receivers would have to be launched from the Moon into space every year. Clearly this concept requires low cost access to space with HLV's capable of transporting 100's of tons per launch. Third, the capital cost of the LSPS 20,000 GWe reference design approaches 22 trillion dollars (1995$) over 30 years. While such an enormous sum of money is hard to fathom, it is the order of magnitude the world will have to spend to build other electrical power producing systems (fossil, fission, fusion, etc.) if that level of power is required. It is projected that the LSPS reference concept could be built at ~1,100 $/kWe capital costs. This is roughly half the present capital cost on new electrical power systems today.