> These things take acres of antennas to collect power from.
Ok. Now imagine you redirect the beam to a random substation somewhere. What's the likelihood some of the transformers will fry? Or you point the beam at some cellular phone network towers?
Russia is at war right now, and they have lots of antennas pointing up, both for anti-air defense and for electronic warfare. All those would be immediately vulnerable to a concentrated power beam coming from the sky. How likely are they to say, "sure, no big deal, as long as you promise to only use that stuff for power generation, we are totally, absolutely fine with it" ?
Ok. Now imagine you redirect the beam to a random substation somewhere. What's the likelihood some of the transformers will fry? Or you point the beam at some cellular phone network towers?
Russia is at war right now, and they have lots of antennas pointing up, both for anti-air defense and for electronic warfare. All those would be immediately vulnerable to a concentrated power beam coming from the sky. How likely are they to say, "sure, no big deal, as long as you promise to only use that stuff for power generation, we are totally, absolutely fine with it" ?