Just let China and Russia be stupid enough to blow money on a fool’s dream.
Bingo. Best post of the day; thank you.
Go to the moon and/or asteroids. Mine and smelt all the metals needed to build the power plants there with 1/6 gravity on the moon and less on asteroids.
Launch the materials from there to small factories in orbit around the earth and construct the power plants in geosynchronous orbits.
These would be simple steam generators. If you understand how a steam generator works, half of the power comes from the steam, the other half from the suction of condensing the steam.
A power plant in orbit would have the ultimate heat on the sun side of the plant, and the ultimate cold on the shaded side.
You beam the power to earth with microwave energy to converter stations.
You wouldn't need a huge grid of power lines as receiver and converter stations could be located in local areas.
I expected, back in the 1970s that well before now this would be where our power came from.