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In an old game of mine, there was a monastry driving on wheels through the dessert. The monks spend there days collecting sunlight, smelting sand into "glasstre

In an old game of mine, there was a monastry driving on wheels through the dessert. The monks spend there days collecting sunlight, smelting sand into "glasstrees", which would then use daylight to collect water (silica gel), pump it up at night (using optic fibres for transport, salt water for storing heat, glass wool for isolation and distills to re-capture the nightly water vapors).. creating a ecosystem in its shade. Nearly all of it made from glas. While the premise might be idiotic scifantasy, the idea to terraform in situ with what you got, is quite neat. https://imgur.com/gallery/yPU871e https://imgur.com/gallery/yPU871e https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8 Solar Sintering by Markus Kayser Just imagine this driving around on mars, with huge halftransparent balloons over it, which like a parabolic mirror pre-collects the light, printing structures for future ecology with the little light that world offers from the material at hand.

AlbertoGP 4y ago
I’m not an expert on this, and I might be missing something because to me this sounds like a spectacularly useful idea. Compared to something I would have thought of, like the trivial idea of raised solar panels that left enough space below for animals and plants to grow, those glass trees have wide manufacturing tolerances and work independently of each other. Thinking now about their degradation process, they might produce a blanket of fine glass shards which would make animal life impossible. I wonder whether there would be ways of mitigating that.
- Retric 4y ago
  There’s another name for Blanket of very fine glass shards, it’s sand. Which suggests the mitigation process might be to insure degradation doesn’t stop in an unpleasant middle ground. Not that glass trees are a good idea…
  - kragen 4y ago
    Sand is not normally made of glass, but there are obsidian beaches in, for example, Hawai‘i that are.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  I think it's not much of a problem, but even so it can probably be mitigated. There are types of glass (tempered safety glass) which break into tiny little cubes instead of shards.
- samatman 4y ago
  This wouldn't so much be glass, as sintered sand. Energy spent rendering the sand fully amorphous would be wasted. There are analogous igneous rocks, they aren't good for knapping into blades, leading me to think that broken glass trees wouldn't be especially dangerous either. Frits used in chemistry are sintered glass, and they don't break into sharp edges either.
throwaway4aday 4y ago
I think you could redesign this to be 100% glass with no optic fibers or silica gel. Heat transport can be accomplished heating the water until it becomes steam and then condensing it again at the bottom. Even if there isn't enough heat to produce steam you can still induce flow by exploiting the fact that hot water rises to the top of colder water. Water collection could be accomplished using a fog fence made from glass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_collection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_collection
- dr-detroit 4y ago
hutzlibu 4y ago
I am also exploring the idea for a SciFi setting. The solar sintering by Markus Kayser looks neet, but it is not practical in its current shape, it does not produce useful outcome. Too brittle. The main problem is, the heat from the sun is not cohaerent. There are fluctations in the sky for example, that will make the heat changes drastically. (there is a paper about this from a professional solar furnace, I need to find again) Reading tip, "The man who sold the moon", from Cory Doctorow. Which also explores the idea of solar 3D sintering (but ignores the limitations). So I do strongly believe, the whole concept has big potential, beyond entertaining SciFi - it is just not so easy. I think a way to go, could be to have the base load directly from the sun - and then a laser for the exact heat where it is need.

AlbertoGP 4y ago

I’m not an expert on this, and I might be missing something because to me this sounds like a spectacularly useful idea. Compared to something I would have thought of, like the trivial idea of raised solar panels that left enough space below for animals and plants to grow, those glass trees have wide manufacturing tolerances and work independently of each other. Thinking now about their degradation process, they might produce a blanket of fine glass shards which would make animal life impossible. I wonder whether there would be ways of mitigating that.

Retric 4y ago
There’s another name for Blanket of very fine glass shards, it’s sand. Which suggests the mitigation process might be to insure degradation doesn’t stop in an unpleasant middle ground. Not that glass trees are a good idea…
- kragen 4y ago
  Sand is not normally made of glass, but there are obsidian beaches in, for example, Hawai‘i that are.
actionfromafar 4y ago
I think it's not much of a problem, but even so it can probably be mitigated. There are types of glass (tempered safety glass) which break into tiny little cubes instead of shards.
samatman 4y ago
This wouldn't so much be glass, as sintered sand. Energy spent rendering the sand fully amorphous would be wasted. There are analogous igneous rocks, they aren't good for knapping into blades, leading me to think that broken glass trees wouldn't be especially dangerous either. Frits used in chemistry are sintered glass, and they don't break into sharp edges either.

throwaway4aday 4y ago

I think you could redesign this to be 100% glass with no optic fibers or silica gel. Heat transport can be accomplished heating the water until it becomes steam and then condensing it again at the bottom. Even if there isn't enough heat to produce steam you can still induce flow by exploiting the fact that hot water rises to the top of colder water. Water collection could be accomplished using a fog fence made from glass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_collection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_collection

dr-detroit 4y ago

hutzlibu 4y ago

I am also exploring the idea for a SciFi setting. The solar sintering by Markus Kayser looks neet, but it is not practical in its current shape, it does not produce useful outcome. Too brittle. The main problem is, the heat from the sun is not cohaerent. There are fluctations in the sky for example, that will make the heat changes drastically. (there is a paper about this from a professional solar furnace, I need to find again) Reading tip, "The man who sold the moon", from Cory Doctorow. Which also explores the idea of solar 3D sintering (but ignores the limitations). So I do strongly believe, the whole concept has big potential, beyond entertaining SciFi - it is just not so easy. I think a way to go, could be to have the base load directly from the sun - and then a laser for the exact heat where it is need.