Of course Hank responded to my post by introducing an environmental caveat
to the concept of assembling and testiing even a 'modest' 100 meter x 300 meter
orbital solar-energy platform in GEO for initial experimental purposes.

I think Hank was concerned that birds would be literally cooked alive
flying into such an intense beam; and so would any human being walking into
the energy receiving zone... [I'll get back to that issue!]

You have to carry out actual experiments to prove the value of beaming
energy from space to Earth, and it would be worthwhile to see how birds
react to microwave energy, etc...

You can in theory spread an huge wiremesh antenna, raised on tall poles,
above a desert region to receive the beamed energy...Me thinks human beings
would be reasonably safe, even naked, walking about underneath the wiremesh
while it receives/absorbs and converts the microwave energy into electricity.

If environmental litigation prevents the USA from being chosen as the site to receive the beamed energy, how about the Sonora Desert in Mexico?

What about those birds, and butterflies, that could become microwaved 'toast'?
ANSWER: A microwave beam does not have a sharp boundary, but a graduated, diffuse perimeter that gradually increases in energy flux-density the closer you approach the center.
A bird approaching the beam may start to feel warm, then the further it flew inside the beam's graduated perimeter it might encounter increasingly uncomfortable warmth, hopefully alarming the bird, causing it turn around and flee the zone.

I'm sorry! There are no 'showstoppers', as far as I'm concerned to this technology!

And...as I've posted before, a larger, one square kilometer orbital solar-energy platform
can have a variety of uses beyond simply beaming energy to Earth to light houses,
simply be changing over from the microwave-beam transmitter [pointed to Earth]
to a high-energy laser [pointed to the heavens].

cheers.

Jacob

ANON: "The last words worthwhile to acknowledge are, it is finished! It works!"