About

Energy Aperture is a graded evidence base on space-based solar power, written and published by Richard Padden.

Why it exists

Space-based solar power is argued about with numbers that are hard to trace. A figure appears in a report, is repeated in a presentation, and arrives in a news article with no way back to whoever first calculated it or on what assumptions. By the time it reaches an argument, its basis year, its scope and its uncertainty have usually been lost.

This base is an attempt to fix that for one subject. Every number belongs to a numbered record with a source, a locator, a date and a grading, and every record states in plain English what it cannot be used to support.

What it is not

It is not a campaign for or against the technology, and it is not the work of any institution. Nobody funds it, and no organisation commissions it, reviews it or approves what goes on it.

It is also not complete, and the value chain page says exactly how far from complete it is, layer by layer.

How to use it

Cite the record, not the site. A record address is meant to be permanent, and that is the point of citing the identifier rather than a URL you found it at. Keeping one working after a record is withdrawn or superseded is not built yet: today its page stops being generated, so its address stops resolving.

If you think a record is wrong, say so. Open objections are recorded, each with a named holder and a statement of what evidence would settle it. An objection from a weak source is still recorded.

Corrections

The record is corrected first. Anything that cites it is rebuilt afterwards. Nothing published here is edited quietly: a corrected article carries a dated note above its text, and a withdrawn number is removed from the text, not left in place with a footnote.

To report an error, write to corrections@energyaperture.com. Say which record or page, and what you think it should say.