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There's an answer in their whitepaper[0] - see Table 1. tl;dr - power is continuous and free via solar array [0] - https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf https:
by dilyevsky 1y ago
There's an answer in their whitepaper[0] - see Table 1. tl;dr - power is continuous and free via solar array
[0] - https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf
- richardwhiuk 1y agoFree in the sense of astronomical capital and operational costs.
- dilyevsky 1y agor&d sure, not sure about ops as you can probably just detach a faulty module and launch a replacement.
- richardwhiuk 1y agoRelaunching is effectively operational cost.
- SahAssar 1y agoStationkeeping is not free, satellite monitoring is not free, and any replacement to any component is now a multi-year, at least 1+ million dollar affair (or most likely a complete replacement, since not many satellites have done in-situ repairs).
- GTP 1y agoNot an expert in this area, but I think that that "just" is hiding a lot of complexity. Plus you also need some remotely operated robots to mount the replacement.
- cj 1y ago> “We still don’t appreciate the energy needs of this technology… there’s no way to get there without a breakthrough… we need fusion or we need radically cheaper solar plus storage or something” -Sam Altman It's kind of depressing that the only way to make this tech better is to feed it more energy. (And apparently now to send it to space)
- jebarker 1y agoIt's also interesting that everyone is convinced the same capabilities can't be realized with drastically less compute.
- CobrastanJorji 1y agoJust spitballing here, but what if you built it on Earth, and then used the savings to build a second one on the opposite side of Earth? Now you have equivalently continuous power via solar array and also, as a bonus, air.
- dilyevsky 1y agoNot continuous because weather is a thing. Also the sun isnt directly overhead the entire time so need a much larger array
- CobrastanJorji 1y agoOkay, build 12 datacenters, 30 degrees of longitude apart. I'm pretty sure it's still far cheaper.
- dilyevsky 1y agoWell I guess it's a good thing for them they actually did the math. Please show me where they sell you electricity at ~$0.002/kWh where it's politically stable enough to build super expensive datacenters.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago> power is continuous and free via solar array It’s is on earth as well using solar and batteries. What is likely to get cheaper faster? Solar and batteries? Or lifting datacenters to space? The world is almost at the point of deploying 1TW/year of solar, and batteries are catching up. No space required. There aren't a lot of VC investment opportunities speeding the rate of solar and battery deployments though.
- dilyevsky 1y agoThe argument probably is that battery advances require not yet existing tech via new chemistry etc while what they are proposing is basically just integrating tech that already exists
- toomuchtodo 1y agoBut this is not the case, as it relates to the battery manufacturing pipeline and capacity. Battery supply exceeds battery demand. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43624308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43624308
- zamalek 1y agoPower in needs to equal heat out, and that isn't easy in space. They, deceptively, claim that their novel solution is radiative cooling. Relying on radiation for cooling in space is the problem statement! Convective (as on Earth) is significantly more effective. I'm not one of those idiots who would claim that "we should focus on terrestrial problems instead of space," but this idea seems to have only downsides.