41–50 of 164 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Annoyingly and predictably, reads like AI slop. You can practically guess the prompt goes something along the lines of 'write a press release explaining why this bad idea is a good idea'.
Do you have anything to say about the project itself or do you only care about your perception of ai slop?
The only non-marginal application for this is military, surely. It sounds too coarse-grade in terms of its area to be anything other than disruptive socially and ecologically. Sporting and cultural events? Not really (extending the hours of sunlight over a city does have marginal value for a major celebratory event I suppose, but there just aren't that many of these). Farming? Don't plants need night too? Does harves…
Illuminating a solar farm for 24 hour power generation?
It's not going to be full daylight, is it?
The only non-marginal application for this is military, surely. It sounds too coarse-grade in terms of its area to be anything other than disruptive socially and ecologically. Sporting and cultural events? Not really (extending the hours of sunlight over a city does have marginal value for a major celebratory event I suppose, but there just aren't that many of these). Farming? Don't plants need night too? Does harves…
Illuminating a solar farm for 24 hour power generation?
And as this is optical, won't go through clouds. This is why beamed power discussions often talk about converting to microwaves instead, though that comes with an even bigger spot size on the ground.
They seem to be talking about each satellite managing the luminosity of the full moon over a few square kilometres, and getting a few tens of thousands of them. Even if you ignoring how much drag these must have, and hence how much electrical power you'd need for an ion drive just to keep them up, each spot being a few km across (and only getting light while the satellite is over your horizon) is just not compelling.…
With global warming, trillions upon trillions of acres of immensely fertile bogland, in Northern Canada is thawing. The problem is, global warming doesn't affect daylight. 4 hours of "the sun barely makes it over the horizon" means no crops, no matter if the temp is above 0C in September. Obviously this satellite isn't viable, but all things start small. Large tracts of land could be illuminated. But of course, I que…
They seem to be talking about each satellite managing the luminosity of the full moon over a few square kilometres, and getting a few tens of thousands of them. Even if you ignoring how much drag these must have, and hence how much electrical power you'd need for an ion drive just to keep them up, each spot being a few km across (and only getting light while the satellite is over your horizon) is just not compelling.…
With global warming, trillions upon trillions of acres of immensely fertile bogland, in Northern Canada is thawing. The problem is, global warming doesn't affect daylight. 4 hours of "the sun barely makes it over the horizon" means no crops, no matter if the temp is above 0C in September. Obviously this satellite isn't viable, but all things start small. Large tracts of land could be illuminated. But of course, I que…
My guess is it's probably easier to make a bunch of greenhouses on the surface? But the scale is so huge that which is best will be affected by technology invented after you start.
How are the economics of this idea meant to be viable? The proposed business model is to park hundreds of millions to billion dollars of satellites in orbit, plus the costs to maintain and operate them, to meet the goal of selective area illumination and solar power. Ignoring the issue of cloud cover, which still seems to be an impediment. That's going to need to directly compete with terrestrial energy storage techn…
The revenue potential is huge. Think of public events where people might want to illuminate the area as daylight for several hours. Galas, sports, concerts, parties, etc.. They will all pay top dollar and they have the funds. Could get sponsors, "Today's sunlight brought to you by NordVPN"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And also cheaper than launching stuff into space. This may have been approved but that's a long ways off from actual viability.
Launching a gossamer thin mirror in space is not very expensive. Broad strokes claiming anything launched to space is going to be a more expensive solution has to level with the fact that GPS and quite a lot of telecommunications and Earth observation seem to have incredible leverage if launched to space instead of just using ground based solutions.
(Things I'm learning while researching what is now looking like an eight thousand or more word blog post about why a different space thing, data centres, is also not a good investment; my guess is this would be less of a problem if you used mirrors like this to cool the earth by reflecting sunlight away instead of towards).
The only non-marginal application for this is military, surely. It sounds too coarse-grade in terms of its area to be anything other than disruptive socially and ecologically. Sporting and cultural events? Not really (extending the hours of sunlight over a city does have marginal value for a major celebratory event I suppose, but there just aren't that many of these). Farming? Don't plants need night too? Does harves…
> The only non-marginal application for this is military, surely. I think so, but even then it's a heck of a lot of work to make it useful for that. > Farming? Don't plants need night too? Does harvesting need the sun anymore? Mostly limited by other things, hence why there's only limited farming in the Sahara, relatively little phytoplankton in the North Atlantic Gyre. > But being able to illuminate a war zone with…
I just don't really get it.