Reflect Orbital: Sunlight after dark using a constellation of spatial reflectors

YT video going into the math and physics involved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM

TL;DW: not practical in it's current design.

> selling sunlight

Sounds like an eco disaster to me.

Some things only happen when it's dark...

I'm amazed I almost never read about a much more viable alternative: inter-continental power transmission cables.

There are a few projects: UK buying electricity from Morocco, Singapore buying electricity from Australia. Both implemented using undersea power transmission cables.

If this could be implemented on a global scale, it would also massively reduce the requirements of storage for transient solar and wind power.

I am so tired of seeing ideas that are indiscernible from satire. This is like something that they would have come up with on HBO's Silicon Valley.

Who do I complain to when a nearby golf course orders some nightshine and now my sky looks like I'm under a fucking police helicopter?

It's astounding to me that such ignorance is even acknowledged.

I did a bunch of my own math on this a while back related to this.

1. On of the big tradeoffs is the sun sync orbit altitude chosen. The higher up you are, the slower you have to tilt to track, the longer time possible on a given customer, and bigger range of possible customers you have as the sat goes around. But, as you are higher, the size of sunlight you send gets bigger and bigger. A 5km by 5km circle is going to waste a lot of energy on not-solar panels all but the largest solar installations. If you double the light radius, you quarter the intensity.

2. Most of the earth is water. Of that land left, most of the land is quite uninhabited. This means that most of your time orbiting is going to be over areas with no paying customers.

3. I think the EEVBLog video overestimates the cost per sat, but I still didn't get the economics to work out to something profitable.