You are thinking in the wrong direction. Investment in Space so that we can mine the Septillions of tons of material on the moon(6% Titanium and 8% Aluminum if I remember correctly) could solve the issue as well. That is not counting on the asteroids which have rarer metals and can be more centralized in mining.
$8 Trillion-$12 Trillion is all it will cost over a 50 year period at the longest. If we build Multiple Mass Drivers specifically only for cargo then we can speed that process up to 10-15 years. 20 tons/daily for one, and if we have 5-10 that is 100-200 tons a day. This is the lowest yield amount since it can be estimated that 20 129 Kg per minute can be done depending on power input and designing. 1 ton is about 907 Kg roughly.
Each Cargo Mass Driver and its related power sources could be $120 Billion a piece. Man power for all could be around $1.5 Trillion. The extra Trillions of dollars are buffers. The next step is building a Hybrid with a space version of a 747 which should cost around $400 Billion, and it should be able to carry 100 people or at least 60.
Building a space Dock in space is the next step which as using the method above can be done in 1 year. 50 times the ISS size with struts spanding so that space ships can be built(thicker ones to build the next space station being 200 times the ISS in the L5 point area using another Space structure like the space dock), and cargo holds(100 feet length by 5 feet diameter)[built in space using the materials shoot up to them] only to hold materials and have 2-4 space ships tug it out there and building a small Mass Driver in the higher orbit of the Van Allen belts to basically shoot the material over to the L5 space station Catcher Net(4000 feet in diameter using mainly wires with hole width being 3 inches in diameter).
The $8 T - $12 T is actually almost double if not Triple the amount needed for a 20-40 year operation. If wanting 40-120 year operation that is the amount that would be needed. the length should be around 2-5 miles at a 60 degree incline with about 2-3 miles being underground and the last parts being up the side of a mountain. There should be around 1200 G of acceleration by the end of it. I would say this can go much longer around 30 miles at a 38 degree slope incline with the same acceleration just going a bit higher in the Atmosphere with the anchor point being the mountain and 2 miles underground so 3 Miles while the rest has to be an active structure. 12 Gw with 4 Gw total capacitor worth is more than enough to satisfy the energy requirements. 100 sm-TMSRs(small modular- Thorium Molten 'Salts' Reactor) of 400 MW should be more than enough to provide several functions with constant power supply, power generation to sell, redundancy on top of the Safety features of the MSRs, and the excessive amount would allow them to have low-medium Stress loads so the overall Lifetime of the structure would be even longer.
That is just my view anyways. The total end part of the money generated by the 20 year mark should be $2 Trillion-$4 Trillion every year and growing after a Mass Driver is built on the moon. That would be around the 15-21 year mark after start of the project. Even then Power Generation can start as early as the 8 year mark of the first Space Habitat. If properly made in size and material could generate 5 Gw per solar Satellite.
You are thinking in the wrong direction. Investment in Space so that we can mine the Septillions of tons of material on the moon(6% Titanium and 8% Aluminum if I remember correctly) could solve the issue as well. That is not counting on the asteroids which have rarer metals and can be more centralized in mining.
$8 Trillion-$12 Trillion is all it will cost over a 50 year period at the longest. If we build Multiple Mass Drivers specifically only for cargo then we can speed that process up to 10-15 years. 20 tons/daily for one, and if we have 5-10 that is 100-200 tons a day. This is the lowest yield amount since it can be estimated that 20 129 Kg per minute can be done depending on power input and designing. 1 ton is about 907 Kg roughly.
Each Cargo Mass Driver and its related power sources could be $120 Billion a piece. Man power for all could be around $1.5 Trillion. The extra Trillions of dollars are buffers. The next step is building a Hybrid with a space version of a 747 which should cost around $400 Billion, and it should be able to carry 100 people or at least 60.
Building a space Dock in space is the next step which as using the method above can be done in 1 year. 50 times the ISS size with struts spanding so that space ships can be built(thicker ones to build the next space station being 200 times the ISS in the L5 point area using another Space structure like the space dock), and cargo holds(100 feet length by 5 feet diameter)[built in space using the materials shoot up to them] only to hold materials and have 2-4 space ships tug it out there and building a small Mass Driver in the higher orbit of the Van Allen belts to basically shoot the material over to the L5 space station Catcher Net(4000 feet in diameter using mainly wires with hole width being 3 inches in diameter).
The $8 T - $12 T is actually almost double if not Triple the amount needed for a 20-40 year operation. If wanting 40-120 year operation that is the amount that would be needed. the length should be around 2-5 miles at a 60 degree incline with about 2-3 miles being underground and the last parts being up the side of a mountain. There should be around 1200 G of acceleration by the end of it. I would say this can go much longer around 30 miles at a 38 degree slope incline with the same acceleration just going a bit higher in the Atmosphere with the anchor point being the mountain and 2 miles underground so 3 Miles while the rest has to be an active structure. 12 Gw with 4 Gw total capacitor worth is more than enough to satisfy the energy requirements. 100 sm-TMSRs(small modular- Thorium Molten 'Salts' Reactor) of 400 MW should be more than enough to provide several functions with constant power supply, power generation to sell, redundancy on top of the Safety features of the MSRs, and the excessive amount would allow them to have low-medium Stress loads so the overall Lifetime of the structure would be even longer.
That is just my view anyways. The total end part of the money generated by the 20 year mark should be $2 Trillion-$4 Trillion every year and growing after a Mass Driver is built on the moon. That would be around the 15-21 year mark after start of the project. Even then Power Generation can start as early as the 8 year mark of the first Space Habitat. If properly made in size and material could generate 5 Gw per solar Satellite.