Fusion vs Space-Based Solar

Space-based solar beams power from orbit — clean and near-constant, but staggeringly complex and costly. Terrestrial fusion offers firm clean power without leaving Earth.

Space solar

Solar collected in orbit, beamed to Earth

Appeal

Near-constant sunlight above weather

Barrier

Enormous launch/complexity/cost

Fusion

Firm clean power on the ground

Space-based solar power (SBSP) would collect sunlight in orbit — above weather and night — and beam it to Earth as microwaves. It's an elegant idea for firm-ish clean power, but it requires launching and assembling vast structures and building kilometre-scale receivers, at costs and complexity far beyond terrestrial generation.

Both are ambitious, but fusion delivers firm clean power without the launch problem — a reactor on Earth rather than a power station in space. For the foreseeable future, terrestrial firm generation is the more tractable path. See fusion vs solar.