Jo thanks for that info, it doesn't come as any surprise. China has been streets ahead for years on many research fronts and evidently still seems to be gaining ground.

I doubt also anyone will get as far as deploying such a beam, because money will surely cave in to the energy problem much sooner than that, I guess within a year, in a way that forces scaling up domestic and community solar, by issue of money reflecting the historical D&C solar put to use already, because at the moment, it isn't monetised, hence the reason we seriously undervalue it, and our misunderstanding of it is causing such a problem with inflation.

It is already pushing down the sales of utilities businesses, even if the fuel shortage didn't exist, the fuel shortage seems deliberate, to distract from the real issue, that is energy generation moving out of control of utilities companies and governments, into the hands of D&C solar facility owners.

After that crisis is fixed well enough to fix the value of money once more, the need for a beam, and a utilities grid will be gone, because we will already have energy security in the form of fully scaled D&C solar, as far as I can tell.

I doubt if China has got their heads around that either. If there was any front where they are likely not so advanced, it is in economics, and how it connects with energy. Imho Western countries have far more experience, and are much closer to the impending crash than China, so we are being forced to do something radical much sooner.

Bring it on, I say :)