Renewables

[stevebowers]

Particularly in the early part of the scenario, a colony ship would arrive with only minimal energy to spare - almost all of the fuel would be expended, and much of the mass of the ship would be discarded. In a system where the volatiles are in the outer reaches and the power sources are in the inner system, the colonists would need to rearrange resources on a significant scale before achieving sustainable growth. This stage would also be faced by any robots that prepare the system beforehand, so they will need to be well-programmed and adaptable.

Here's Robert Freitas' strategy for robotic reproduction; maybe we should fold something like this into the Neumann article. It is a long and complex business, but (it seems) by no means impossible.
http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/ReproJBISJuly1980.htm