[RightWhale]

Here's what I would do instead of trying to beam energy down. I would move the metal smelting industries into space, mine a few carefully chosen asteroids for iron and aluminum, and thereby eliminate about a third of the draw on the surface power grid. It's a side benefit. The main reason for space mining is that it can be done cheaper than earth mining and can be expanded to meet future demand such as we see with China and India coming on line.

[SunkenCiv]

I agree. Once the equipment (and personnel, where needed) is up there, it's just a matter of extruding so-called lifting bodies for the unmanned trip to the ground. IOW, we'd not be beaten by the high payload cost to orbit, because whatever needed to be built for the whole process could be built using something much smaller that could be sent into space at the beginning of the process.

Of course, there would be fewer jobs on Earth... but since there won't be any oil everyone will be toiling in the fields anyway. ;')

George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent