Carbon and Lifecycle Emissions
How clean is electricity from orbit once launches and manufacturing are counted?
Chapter summary
probably clean, but launch emissions matter.
Key takeaways
- 1
A space solar plant emits nothing while operating, but building it requires manufacturing tens of thousands of tonnes of hardware and hundreds of heavy launches, each burning hundreds to thousands of tonnes of propellant.
- 2
Spread over 30 years of near-continuous output, the lifecycle carbon intensity depends mainly on launch emissions per kilogram and specific mass.
- 3
Setcoin's illustration puts it at a few grams of CO₂ per kilowatt-hour before upper-atmosphere effects; published studies range up to tens of grams, comparable to ground solar and far below gas.
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