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Reflecting sunlight from space to power solar farms at night
- rtrgrd 2y ago(This is my first time posting on HN so please correct me if I need to change the title.) The literature section of the site seems interesting to read, unsure about the cost projections if such a system though.
- DemocracyFTW2 2y agoThis has long been debunked e.g. by Thunderf00t (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rF2oZPe_WI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rF2oZPe_WI) and EEVblog (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM) It comes as no surprise this won't work when you imagine 1) where you have to put the mirrors: either in low orbit so as to keep light dispersion low and the apparent mirror size from the ground big—but now you have the problem that the mirrors move with high speed relative to the ground, and the time frame where you can still reflect light before entering into Earth's shadow is very short. Or you put them into a higher orbit so they can reflect light for a longer time, but now the light spot that arrives on the ground is even more dispersed 2) how big these mirrors can practically become, and how little light there will be when you have a, say, 100m² mirror hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away.