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these panels reject 70 W/m^2 What about plain mirrors? How efficiently do they reflect photons back into space? Presumably they're highly efficient for visible
by PhantomGremlin 9y ago
these panels reject 70 W/m^2
What about plain mirrors? How efficiently do they reflect photons back into space? Presumably they're highly efficient for visible light; how easy is it to reflect infrared passively?
- hwillis 9y agoA mirror rejects close to 0 heat compared to a matte surface, it just causes it to be absorbed in the air instead of the ground.
- sjruckle 9y agoThe problem with using mirrors as radiators is that they're terrible radiators. They might be great at reflecting the sky-photons away, but they won't launch their own photons away either. Shiny things are great at reflecting incident radiation (which is why they're good mirrors) but bad at radiating their own heat. Dull black things are bad at reflecting but good at radiating. The technical terms are reflectance, absorptance, and emissivity. http://www.optotherm.com/emiss-physics.htm http://www.optotherm.com/emiss-physics.htm