4 ms·
Intriguing, but wouldn't it be even more efficient to just paint something black and let the sun heat it directly?
by Retr0id 1y ago
Intriguing, but wouldn't it be even more efficient to just paint something black and let the sun heat it directly?
- Scoundreller 1y agodepends how hot you want to get something
- cwillu 1y agoAt the cost of very efficiently radiating that heat back out into space at night. Making electricity and then using that electricity to heat something elsewhere lets you insulate, effectively allowing you to create a box that heat energy can only pass one way.
- jaggederest 1y agoWe have a one-way diode technology for heat, it's called "glass", and it'll bump your efficiency by about 25% versus uncovered flat plates on a still day. More in windy conditions etc, lots of hand waving assumptions about spherical cows in a vacuum etc.
- b00ty4breakfast 1y agoYou'd need some kind of storage for the heat, something with a large thermal mass that doesn't readily give up it's heat to the surroundings. Sand or water or even big rocks or a thick slab of concrete.