I'm tired of losing all the lunar missions after a few weeks because they get dark and cold. A space mirror to extend these might make economic sense in addition to the science. It would also enable deep crater exploration.
@@TNM001 there’s a boat load of regulatory hurdles for RTG and limitations on the rockets that can send nuclear payloads out. Self imposed is a bit incorrect, more like cost and regulatory implications to using them.
I have similar concerns. Whatever we do we over do as a species. If we do it other countries will too. What happens when we have multiple thousands of these things in space? Even the desert has an ecosystem but we won't be beaming light down to only deserts. This still doesn't address clouds either. People are already complaining about Starlink satellites. They have a lot to prove before I'm comfortable with this.
@@emiljunvik3546 that is very very true and it be a long time till we stop using them but like all things we must grow up and start looking to long term solutions to a day when the main use for fossil fules is for plastics, something else i dont think we are ever going to stop using we deffently going need a way to clean em up though thats for dame sure
I guess it could also shade the earth for part of its orbit.. and you could reflect limited wavelengths best suited for solar cell type. ..but I still don’t really get it I admit. I would like to see the basic numbers up front before listening to an hour of talk to determine if there are any numbers.
Can the reflectors also make some shade, maybe while passing over the polar ice? Can they act as a sun umbrella with the back of the mirror? Would reflecting more sun beam to the earth have significant impact to warming of the planet?
How does the SAIL aspect of these reflectors effect the orbit. It seems that you would constantly need to be adjusting your trajectory to keep you in orbit..
The problem with a statite is the aiming to control the position would conflict with the aiming to provide power. So the original question remains. How do you keep it in position when it acts like a sail trying to push it away?
The value, to me, is similar to what you said at the end is more about what it can do for us out in space. The one concern I would have terrestrially, with any of these theoretical ways of getting more solar energy to the surface, is about the atmospheric temperature differential in the volume of air between the space sources and the ground. Even if you design the reflector to only work with the limited useful frequencies of light, transmission would still change the temperature of the air in between them, simply by being the medium the energy goes through.
If you could design solar panels to work on infrared and mirrors to only reflect infrared, clouds and water vapor in the air would be invisible to the energy. So there would be less heating of the atmosphere. Probably some of the energy would be reflected back to space by carbon dioxide but although that would make the system a bit less efficient, it would not affect the atmosphere. Where some of the energy might be reflected off the panels assuming some lack of efficiency, that would be reflected and dissipated in the atmosphere by carbon dioxide but it would depend how efficient the panels were.
That wont work because most of the infrared spectrum is absorbed by atmosphere. Thats why all infrared telescopes are in space. Plus if you want beam of photons to pass through clouds and fog then i suggest microwawes.
@@richardpavlov442 which is exactly what this proposal is trying to get away from doing 🙂. The fear of a very strong microwave beam being used as a weapon plus the ability to keep the sending electronics cool is a big engineering challenge. I’m not saying this proposal makes sense, I think it has many drawbacks but it could in theory be easier & better than a microwave beam orbiting solar farm.
@@sjsomething4936 easier? yes, but way more harmful in both the long and short run. If you think about it, the technology to make spaceships and space stations is already dangerous enough as it is right now. The tech to make solar sails is also extremely dangerous. Say someone uses these mirrors or hacks into them and manipulates them to create a focused solar beam. Isn't that very possible and dangerous as well? Not to mention the idea of those mirrors sending even more heat onto the surface, messing up with wind currents and wildlife as well.
@@rRekko I don’t think the concentration of light will be all that high, not high enough to do any kind of damage, these aren’t like a giant magnifying glass but I agree, every additional joule of energy that humans divert onto the surface of the earth that wasn’t originally destined to hit it is heat that changes the overall balance of energy on the planet. In the case of even a few dozen of these sails, it wouldn’t be very much as a fraction of earth’s overall energy budget, but too many and it could have disruptive long term effects. And it would also quite possibly cause issues for wildlife in the area as it would mess with the circadian rhythms of these creatures.
I wonder how feasible it would be to place massive reflectors around Mars' L1 Lagrange point to create a second source of sunlight. This would help with bringing more heat and potential energy to the surface, without needing to reflect only from the horizons. The reflectors may be angled at a very 'glancing' angle to alter the trajectory of the sun rays to direct them to Mars, or there could be double reflectors to direct the rays. They would be surrounding the Sun's 'line of sight' to Mars. They could be directed at solar panels or cold spots on Mars, or they could be aimed for an all-over Sun support. From Mars it would probably look like a circle of light that surrounds the sun.
@@jondoc7525 Yes the orbit would need to be tweaked once and a while as it started to stray out of L1, but that could be done. The extra heat would help the gases warning up the planet.
I can imagine a municipality paying a fraction of its current street light maintenance costs to have a reflector or two light up an area at night, once there are enough of these up there. Might even reduce light pollution, since none of it would be directed upwards.
Since global warming can be defined as an increase in reflected sunlight, would these solar farms be charged a carbon footprint equivalent commensurate with the amount of additional sunlight they are forcing on the surface of the earth? I know it's not a lot in the scheme of things, but it would help people in the audience to keep in mind that this is an adaptation for solar farm profitability and viability and not in any way a move against climate change
Disappointed that Fraser didn't ask how they plan to counteract the solar radiation pressure. I'd assume it would be ion thrusters of some sort but it would've been nice to know for sure.
It's great to explore this idea, but there are some formidable issues to overcome. Energy use for orbital station keeping, controlling orientation to avoid observatories and direct onto solar arrays and counteracting photon pressure will be substantial and limit lifetime. Keeping the mirror perfectly formed while orientating, whether planar or parabolic would seem to be impossible. Unfortunately I don't see this going beyond a pilot proof of concept. Building heliostats and collimators on the Moon may be more permanent and require less maintenance!
importing more heat from space seems a bad idea, a better idea is to turn the mirrors around and point them towards local star systems. This would not only reduce the heating of the planet, but form a beacon to those possible intelligent beings looking for others.
There is a big misunderstanding here. during the morning and evening peak the Sun is up. it is just, that the existing solar panels are not pointed towards the sun. If you want to produce solar energy during those hours you just need to build solar panels pointing east / west.
When these reflectors travel over sun lit parts of the earth it can actively reflect the sun away to cool the earth and atmosphere. Its an awesome idea.
A fascinating idea and maybe another use case for such a system would be to actually extend daylight time for urban areas and farmlands. This would provide indirect energy savings beside just power generation.
Seems like too much of a waste. This is intentionally focused on the solar panels so most the energy is collected and used. In your scenario, most of it would just hit the ground.
@@nemanjamarsenic1626 waste of what? The earth is not covered in large solar farms, so most of the time those mirrors will be unused. Might as well point them at urban areas and lower energy used for pre-dawn and post-sunset artificial lighting
@@trioxin428 waste of energy. But yes, if you have a part of the orbit where there is no solar farms in line of sight, it might be a good idea to repurpose the reflector. The question is if that will significantly help in this specific case since this works only slightly after sunset and slightly before sunrise, while there is still enough light. Also, it will not be too bright itself, so the question is how much it would actually help. Btw, at 1000km altitude, horizon is more than 3000km away. So there should be some solar farms in line of sight. If there are none, that will make a dip in the profitability of this project.
No. So many species are coupled to our particular range day/night lengths, both on a day to day basis and as a way to determine the season. Just build more renewable energy and light up indoor spaces for longer.
Is the solar energy simply reflected, or is there any magnification to this system? This poses another interesting question, Is magnifying solar energy from space down to earth weaponizable, like a kid with a magnifying glass? Talk about the old Star Wars project using lasers to shoot down missiles or burn down enemy locations.
I was wondering about the same thing. It's like watching an old James Bond movie where the villain could point the space-based directed sunlight down to some City that he wants to impact.😮
What you're talking about is basically Archimedes Heat Ray, which was essentially a large array of big mirrors that were used to focus sunlight onto enemy ships approaching in the harbor and set them on fire.
Imagine the economic value for increasing daylight and warmth for high lattitude metropoliotan areas. Imagine having mild spring weather and 16 hour length of day in Midwinter for a city such as Helsinki. The economic benefits could run in the billions annually.
There would be loads of economic value in that, but I don't think this technology can do that. Didn't the scientist say the light would be maybe a few minutes? EDIT: My bad, he said about 20 minutes per reflector, but it could actually add up to be a few hours per day.
I think i would agree that it makes more sense f.e. on the moon than on earth. At small scales it would hadly make a difference on earth, so we need large sacles, which would quickly turn into mountains of broken mirrors in orbit. That goes of course for any kind of significant light collection in earth orbit. At even larger scales (which the broken mirrors would probably prevent anyways) the project would turn into some kind of geoengineering, introducing additional heat to earth, which might even change weather patterns or other nasty things.. on the moon it might be fantastic though :)
My thoughts exactly. It’s truly a perfect fit for moon infrastructure. Overcoming the 14 day long night/day cycle on the moon, lack of risk for ecological issues, and much MUCH lower requirements for setting up a skeleton crew level of moon operations versus power for 8 billion humans.
One problem is the lunar regolith is very fine. A lot of electrostatic differentials at the day night divide shattering the silicates has left it very reactive pump to much energy at the surface without prep work and you might just wind up in a silica shitstorm of epic proportions. @@itsd0nk
Thanks for this one, Fraser, but I wonder why the topic of curved mirrors wasn't explored as opposed to the flat mirror advocated by the guest? It seems to me that with curved mirrors, one would be able to concentrate the energy onto a smaller area. What am I missing? As the video interview continued, I notice the issue was raised somewhat, but it was within the context of a further distance, i.e. Ganymeade, and the guest whiffed the question entirely preferring to discuss the marginally higher solar output at a further distance in certain circumstances.
No mention of the solar wind verses the counteracting force of station keeping. My question would be how much would lt cost to refuel the station keeping engines and how much power would be needed from solar panels or substitute to keep it oriented and stop it flying off to alpha centuri!
ive come to think that the times after sunset and before sunrise are the best times to one can relize by oneself without trusting anyone else that earth is indeed roubd. but i havent thought this situation has an economic potential 😯 so thanks to another interesting interview
I may be thinking about this wrong , but it seems to me that beaming more energy to earth is moving in the wrong direction. We should be finding ways to radiate energy away from the earth.
When the mirror rotates to position the sun beam to a specific spot the beam will create a path of light across the earth. Everyone in the path of that beam will see a bright flash of light. The animation shows the beam turning off when the mirror rotates. They don't show the path the light takes during the movement from one solar farm to the next. A one Kilometer reflector can't instantaneously "go edge on." It will take time to rotate. Lighting a path across the earth as it does. I'm an amateur astronomer. When I'm looking though my eyepiece and this satellite sweeps across my location, it burns a hole in my retina. PLEASE don't do this! Fraser, don't promote this madness.
I do hate that he didn't have an answer to the light pollution question. Sure, these things would be great for solar power farms, but what about the rest of the planet's circumference? That would negate any CO2 savings you get from power farms, and the whole thing is easily weaponized. This whole idea is a nonstarter, and we'd be better off building nuclear plants.
Would it be possible to have the reflector satellites aimed at other targets to boost their collection when they aren't being aimed at Earth farms? Being further out than the ISS means we could point them at our stations and other satellites, right?
Wouldn't work. As explained, it would work only right after sunset and right before sunrise and it wouldn't be much brighter than the sky at that moment.
What are the consequences of directing additional solar energy to the Earth. Yes it’s a small amount for each solar satellite, but it’s a direct energy increase that scales with the number of panels. Does it make sense reduce reduce carbon (the mechanism to trap energy) consumption by increasing the energy Earth receives from the sun?
This would be an absolute nightmare for astronomers, since it’s in LEO and thus moving across the sky and much larger in the sky. Traditional SBSP out in GEO don’t have this issue
yes but there are a lot of losses and it be costly to build out the idea of this is that its alot cheaper and simple to build rather then trying make solar cells launch them in space put them togther and then lose a a bunch of power while trying to beam it down this just extends the amount of time solar cells can get power just a thin sheet of metal reflecting light on solar cells on the ground
Solar panels are much heavier than reflective foil, and much harder to replace and maintain in space. The weight is really the limiting factor though. To launch a grid-scale solar power plant to space is going to be ridiculously expensive, that's not even counting the equipment needed to transform that amount of power into wireless. Meanwhile, you can launch a grid-scale solar reflector for pretty much peanuts. The only heavyweight component would be the rotator gyros (and ironically its own solar panels that it will need to power that) but you can get acres and acres of reflector up for very cheap, relatively speaking.
On bodies other than Earth this is a sound engineering solution to several potential handicaps found, especially true for the Moon as discussed. However, using such reflectors to redirect sunlight to the twilight and night side of Earth is something I could never support or countenance. Artificial lighting at night is already diminishing our ability to enjoy the night sky and certainly impact meaningful surface based observations of the universe, and numerous studies have demonstrated the very negative impact artificial lighting has on the ecology of an environment, causing numerous problems for wildlife. Every technology has unintended consequences, and just because we can does not mean we should.
If this works by reflecting sunlight directly to solar farms on Earth, then surely it must require that more solar farms be built which are accessible from the reflectors orbit. Also that the orbit spends as much time as possible over land, not ocean.
I'd be more interested in using it as a way to create plasma jets on asteroids etc to farm them. Then you're catching large masses with the fuel expense of station keeping an ultralight vehicle.Also better than adding to the heat crisis (co2, ch4 in the tundra escaping) once we get that sorted if we don't have to contend with pushed solar convective heating the next big heat crisis is aerobraking. Incoming minerals from space will also generate a global warming effect at around the 20 megatons of imports per annum...
Add another function: weather modification. Including, by using multiple mirrors, seeding hurricanes. Unless each mirror is kept deliberately relatively small.
Storage of electricity is the problem.... batteries, the new elite enrichment push. Batteries are in current state, not cost effective, expensive, limited confusing lifespan, long recharge times, harmful chemicals being used, more it gets used the less electricity it stores overtime (degrading). We don't have a problem with capture, we have a problem with storage.
I’m all for decreasing fossil fuels but I’m also concerned about how adding acres of black solar panels to an area affects the local heat pattern. Has this problem ever been addressed.
Solar panels are generally only optimised for some wavelengths. Maybe we should design them to reflect the others back into space.. and maybe every roof and road could be designed to do that too.
@@peterd9698Interesting. Recently there was a piece of news that transparent solar panels were created. With some light underneath, they would be able even to increase the planet's albedo.
Can that amount of radiation heat up the atmosphere and the region where the beam is focused, like when it is said that if we cover the Sahara desert in solar panels it will become even hotter that it already is?
Dr Honor seems not to understand the power from a molten salt thorium reactor would be less than 1/10th the cost of pushing up massive solar mirrors no matter how light with the least expensive contaminating rockets.
Question: Wouldnt we have seen primordial blackholes if they exist ? A 2-3 earth mass blackhole thats in transit infront of a star should leave some unique signature, no ?
Maybe if it line up as an eclipse but the distance the other thing would Need to move away . Usually things orbit blackholes , not the other way around .
@@jondoc7525 The gravitational well is the same size as a planet with the same mass. The star would not fall in it. A blackhole with 2-3 earth mass has the same gravitational effect as a planet with 2-3 earth mass.
@@Midg-td3ty a black hole has different properties tho and sucks more in. Plus I don’t think one that size can form and be stable . They collapse and keep absorbing matter . Maybe one could decay with Hawking radiation to that size . It would eat the earth and maybe grow slowly from space debris
The sun is about 0.5 deg wide from earth, so at 1000km I guess it would have to be 1000*0.5/360 = 1.4 km across to have same size in sky.. which I guess would give sunlike illumination at a single point, fading off within a similar radius at ground?
1 of the only 2 comments out of 265 that's actually adressing the elephant in the room. I kept wondering the whole time if 1) the prof. knows anything about physics at all, or 2) if it's somehow addressed in the paper and Fraser will bring it up. But saying that a mirror can increase sunshine near Mars to above Earth level points to answer #1.
The maximum wavelength for the photoelectric effect in a metal (Caesium) is about 660nm; IR starts at 700nm, so direct collection of electricity from IR isn't possible in a metal. There are probably molecules which have a photoelectric effect at longer wavelengths, but I don't think we've found any that also have a low enough resistivity that we can get hold of the electrons in any direct way. That said, there are known processes which turn IR into chemical energy, but these tend to be more feasible as a medium for transporting geothermal energy than for surface use, and make no sense in space.
This seems like a great idea for a weapon to destroy your enemies crops. Just add some more heat during a heatwave and watch their yields plummet or with a little focusing burn. I think it would be great off world in a lot of places and for a lot of reasons, but not for Earth. Apart from adding extra energy to our atmosphere there would also be huge problems caused by the interference created by large foil mirrors in close orbit. Having them block satellite signals, interfere with ground based astronomy and that they would likely be very visible to the naked eye means l can't see them having any chance of getting approval.
lol. i have some books from decades ago. they say the same thing! my usborne book of the future from 1979 has metal solar reflectors in it! Clarke's original plan for geo-stationary satellites, the ones staffed by dozens of men! lol! were to use big mirrors, lenses, and heat exchanger.
A mirror reflecting the sun must have an angular diameter of more than a half a degree seen from earth. Hopelessly big and difficult. It is not focusing, but a flat mirror ( Optics 001 )
How ecological would it be to launch a rocket for a sail in stead of using gas generators providing heat or electricity to housing? Seems a very non reusable way to use reusable energy to me...
Wouldn’t beaming extra sunlight down to earth have the same effect as trapping reflected light within the atmosphere? If this is supposed to reduce CO2, surely you would want make sure that the solution isn’t worse than the cause of the problem. After all, if you have an equation total energy = Energy in + Energy reradiated by CO2- Energy reradiated into space, it doesn’t matter whether you increase Energy beamed down or Energy reradiated by CO2 you still get an overall increase in power heating up the atmosphere. There is a lot less problem using this system around the moon but more thought needs to be put into this before trying it around earth.
This will never be economically feasible for applications on earth. In other applications, sure. Those reflectors will have the same limitations as the sun. Bad weather = no joy. The areas where big solar farms make sense are not in Europe (weather, energy per m² coming from the sun, densely populated). If we talk about desert-ish regions, PV is worse than solar thermal power plants. Solar panels don't like heat (see efficiency at different temps). I am also not sure how much additional energy those reflectors bring. Why don't I just build the solar farm 10% larger? Probably more cost effective than doing risky and expensive rocket stuff. Additionally those reflectors apparently more. Therefore they need propellant and maintenance. I would be very surprised if the costs would ever pan out. For use on the Moon/Mars whatever, i actually see viable applications. Caveat: I haven't looked into the actual numbers, but even in the future when transport costs come down, solar panels will also be cheaper and more efficient, not to speak of other forms energy generation. So maybe I am wrong, but I doubt it.
I wonder how far up the list of potential geoengineering solutions to combat climate change would be installing a grid of solar reflector satellites around Sun - Earth L1 point to block a small amount of incoming sunlight? I think with the introduction of the Starship it becomes doable and once the Lunar space launch infrastructure is erected it might become affordable
We could also just put reflectors on earth. Our solar panels could reflect unused wavelengths. Possibly even control weather. IMO there is far too much FUD about storage though, probably manufactured by oil companies. That is what this is really about. The storage problem would go away even without all the current rapid advances just by having large enough grids and massive power hogs like hydrocarbon production and desalination that create storable products, and thus can be turned off when power drops.
@@peterd9698 I don't think you understand well the problem of the greenhouse effect, it traps a lot of infrared spectrum radiation in the atmosphere heating the air directly. The whole idea of combatting climate change is either reduce the amount of energy the atmosphere absorbs, that or reduce the amount of incoming energy to begin with
@@mihan2d the atmosphere is transparent to visible light but the ground absorbs it, heats up, and emits it as infrared, which the atmosphere is not as transparent to.. so it is trapped. Reflect it directly back and most can escape without being absorbed because it hasn’t transformed to infrared
@@peterd9698Yes of course it would work too (and that is the idea behind cloud seeding including the water mist sprayers on large ships to increase the albedo which is very close to being implemented) but some of the energy is still trapped in the atmosphere. L1 mirrors would be far more efficient and potentially long term solution with less variability which is the main concern against geoengineering.
Imagine worrying about climate change and also thinking that gathering massive amounts of energy from the sun that would never have struck the earth and directing it at the earth and it not having any effect on the temperature of the earth. 🤦♂ Also, don't we have enough daylight as it is? I like to have night occasionally. Sometimes we should stop thinking "can it be done" and start thinking "should it be done". I can't imagine too many astronomers being happy about this ridiculous idea either. I do think that it may be worth carefully licensing a small number to be used to refine and test the technology for space missions, but as for providing energy to earth, I hate this idea and anyone that thinks it is a good idea.
LOLLLLL, spend 50 million dollars per unit, puting reflectors in Space, than a few millions in maintenance per year, all of that to get 100K value per reflector in Energy, SUPER PRACTICAL...
Implementation of the system for earth, based power generation is a terrible idea. However, illuminating a moon base during the two week night time is a great idea.
Hmm pumping more energy from space into earth's biosphere - seems it doesn't help with the global warming thing. A better way to go is to have a large solar farm or just mirrors pumping excess energy back out into space - a radiator if you will.
Ok, the idea is indeed quite interesting but not new. I feel atm it not wise to beam extra energy onto the planet heating it up. I'll listem to the full intervieuw and Im curious if this is considered. And maybe mitigitated by e.g. that new-ish white paint/material that emits right into the proper IR wavelengh to get red of via the IR window of the atmossphere. Venus might be not be far away both littelary and figuratively. In further thinking about this; it would be perfect for the moon and mars etc. there must be an astoroid nearby-ish to test the system.
@@MusikCassette You phrase it much better than me, thank you. Languages are fun and all albeit being native in English has both its benefits and downsides.
![[Live] : ONE FIGHT NIGHT 25 วันนี้!! "อเล็กซิส vs รีเกียน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/suVr9a6BM2g/mqdefault.jpg)
this guy clearly loves his job, massive grin on his face the whole time. love to see it
I'm tired of losing all the lunar missions after a few weeks because they get dark and cold. A space mirror to extend these might make economic sense in addition to the science. It would also enable deep crater exploration.
probably easier to just not rely on solar panels, or make your robots temperature resistant
@@kypickle8252some of these systems would do well with a little nuclear thermal electrics.
thats a self imposed situation. exoprobes (probes going to the outer solar system) already use alternatives, its a choice not to do it on the moon.
@@TNM001 there’s a boat load of regulatory hurdles for RTG and limitations on the rockets that can send nuclear payloads out. Self imposed is a bit incorrect, more like cost and regulatory implications to using them.
@@JoelSapp well, sure, from a mission planners perspective, but not from a technological one.
This idea sounds insane… in a bad way😂 but this was a great episode and I was happy to hear from the researcher about it!
I mean what could go wrong.....
Why are you concerned? It's sunlight
Astro photographers it’s gonna hate this idea. Star link satellites are already a nuisance to them.
Spot on fella. Some folk get excited seeing these trains of satellites but I shake my fist and swear at them.
We talk about this quite a bit in the interview.
I am curious about the impact that prolonged daylight around these solar farms might have on the surrounding wildlife.
In the desert... negligible.
@@duhaneyparkclassics7484 Las Vegas is in the desert and with its lights at night it is an insects killing machine
I have similar concerns. Whatever we do we over do as a species. If we do it other countries will too. What happens when we have multiple thousands of these things in space? Even the desert has an ecosystem but we won't be beaming light down to only deserts. This still doesn't address clouds either. People are already complaining about Starlink satellites. They have a lot to prove before I'm comfortable with this.
@@duhaneyparkclassics7484Deserts are full of life.
Climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels is not so great for wildlife either.
I'm envisioning a dystopian future where escaping the relentless illumination becomes all but impossible...
Send even more Sunlight down from space with massive reflectors........Ummm....what could go wrong 🤐
🎶Blinded by the light 🎶
using dead trees and sea life burred in the earth for millions of years...what could go wrong?
Human wanting to cook themselves...
@@SirDeadPuppy Modern civilization is pretty nice, isn’t it? It wouldn’t be here without fossil fuels.
@@emiljunvik3546 that is very very true and it be a long time till we stop using them but like all things we must grow up and start looking to long term solutions to a day when the main use for fossil fules is for plastics, something else i dont think we are ever going to stop using we deffently going need a way to clean em up though thats for dame sure
Love the way you are asking the questions Frazier. Because we all are thinking those questions, trying to mentally picture this.
More daylight = more heat. I think that is the opposite of what all this is supposed to fix.
Longwave radiation is different from (reflected) shortwave visible light.
Maybe this tech could help in the distribution of rain and snow.
I guess it could also shade the earth for part of its orbit.. and you could reflect limited wavelengths best suited for solar cell type.
..but I still don’t really get it I admit. I would like to see the basic numbers up front before listening to an hour of talk to determine if there are any numbers.
Can the reflectors also make some shade, maybe while passing over the polar ice? Can they act as a sun umbrella with the back of the mirror?
Would reflecting more sun beam to the earth have significant impact to warming of the planet?
No! They’re way, way too small.
How does the SAIL aspect of these reflectors effect the orbit. It seems that you would constantly need to be adjusting your trajectory to keep you in orbit..
check on 'statite'. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite
The problem with a statite is the aiming to control the position would conflict with the aiming to provide power. So the original question remains. How do you keep it in position when it acts like a sail trying to push it away?
@@thekaxmax Statites only work that way when in "orbit" around a star. Doesn't apply to planets.
@@rensin2 tell that to the people doing the research about putting statites over a planet, not me.
@@thekaxmax Could you name one of these statites over a planet?
Just what we need, more light pollution...
yup better to keep burning coal and oil that pollution is way less harmful then light!
The value, to me, is similar to what you said at the end is more about what it can do for us out in space. The one concern I would have terrestrially, with any of these theoretical ways of getting more solar energy to the surface, is about the atmospheric temperature differential in the volume of air between the space sources and the ground. Even if you design the reflector to only work with the limited useful frequencies of light, transmission would still change the temperature of the air in between them, simply by being the medium the energy goes through.
If you could design solar panels to work on infrared and mirrors to only reflect infrared, clouds and water vapor in the air would be invisible to the energy. So there would be less heating of the atmosphere. Probably some of the energy would be reflected back to space by carbon dioxide but although that would make the system a bit less efficient, it would not affect the atmosphere. Where some of the energy might be reflected off the panels assuming some lack of efficiency, that would be reflected and dissipated in the atmosphere by carbon dioxide but it would depend how efficient the panels were.
That wont work because most of the infrared spectrum is absorbed by atmosphere. Thats why all infrared telescopes are in space. Plus if you want beam of photons to pass through clouds and fog then i suggest microwawes.
@@richardpavlov442 which is exactly what this proposal is trying to get away from doing 🙂. The fear of a very strong microwave beam being used as a weapon plus the ability to keep the sending electronics cool is a big engineering challenge. I’m not saying this proposal makes sense, I think it has many drawbacks but it could in theory be easier & better than a microwave beam orbiting solar farm.
@@sjsomething4936 easier? yes, but way more harmful in both the long and short run.
If you think about it, the technology to make spaceships and space stations is already dangerous enough as it is right now. The tech to make solar sails is also extremely dangerous. Say someone uses these mirrors or hacks into them and manipulates them to create a focused solar beam. Isn't that very possible and dangerous as well? Not to mention the idea of those mirrors sending even more heat onto the surface, messing up with wind currents and wildlife as well.
@@rRekko I don’t think the concentration of light will be all that high, not high enough to do any kind of damage, these aren’t like a giant magnifying glass but I agree, every additional joule of energy that humans divert onto the surface of the earth that wasn’t originally destined to hit it is heat that changes the overall balance of energy on the planet. In the case of even a few dozen of these sails, it wouldn’t be very much as a fraction of earth’s overall energy budget, but too many and it could have disruptive long term effects. And it would also quite possibly cause issues for wildlife in the area as it would mess with the circadian rhythms of these creatures.
Literal global warming. What do you do with the extra heat?
Superb guests and content, as always. The tradeoff between reflector size and panel size, as you move further from the sun, is very interesting.
I wonder how feasible it would be to place massive reflectors around Mars' L1 Lagrange point to create a second source of sunlight. This would help with bringing more heat and potential energy to the surface, without needing to reflect only from the horizons. The reflectors may be angled at a very 'glancing' angle to alter the trajectory of the sun rays to direct them to Mars, or there could be double reflectors to direct the rays. They would be surrounding the Sun's 'line of sight' to Mars. They could be directed at solar panels or cold spots on Mars, or they could be aimed for an all-over Sun support. From Mars it would probably look like a circle of light that surrounds the sun.
It would be millions of these and they can’t hold
The orbit forever like jwst . The potent greenhouse gases would be best .
in planning.
@@jondoc7525 Yes the orbit would need to be tweaked once and a while as it started to stray out of L1, but that could be done. The extra heat would help the gases warning up the planet.
@@thekaxmax Great. Who is putting this plan together?
@@ngutngut40 several sets of researchers. Including, last time I looked, the ESA.
I can imagine a municipality paying a fraction of its current street light maintenance costs to have a reflector or two light up an area at night, once there are enough of these up there. Might even reduce light pollution, since none of it would be directed upwards.
I cant imagine that it would be cheaper than some LEDs for general lighting. Maybe for agriculture.
I see trouble for wildlife. But for Moon, Mars, etc... why not.
wouldn’t holding the reflectors in the right spots in orbit take a ton of fuel. I mean those things would be solar sails right?
Gathering energy from above or below, is a very dangerous thing to do. The biosphere of the Earth is a closed system.
Garhering energy from 250 Million years in form of Coal is better?
I was wondering about the same thing. So many things that could go wrong, especially if enemies wanted to use it as a weapon.😮
wtf?
@@NovaDeb stuff might go wrong better to hide your head in the sand! thats always works doing nothing!
Gathering 'extra' energy on top of the sun etc is implied obviously but it might be helpfull to point that out.
Since global warming can be defined as an increase in reflected sunlight, would these solar farms be charged a carbon footprint equivalent commensurate with the amount of additional sunlight they are forcing on the surface of the earth? I know it's not a lot in the scheme of things, but it would help people in the audience to keep in mind that this is an adaptation for solar farm profitability and viability and not in any way a move against climate change
Disappointed that Fraser didn't ask how they plan to counteract the solar radiation pressure. I'd assume it would be ion thrusters of some sort but it would've been nice to know for sure.
It's great to explore this idea, but there are some formidable issues to overcome.
Energy use for orbital station keeping, controlling orientation to avoid observatories and direct onto solar arrays and counteracting photon pressure will be substantial and limit lifetime.
Keeping the mirror perfectly formed while orientating, whether planar or parabolic would seem to be impossible.
Unfortunately I don't see this going beyond a pilot proof of concept. Building heliostats and collimators on the Moon may be more permanent and require less maintenance!
importing more heat from space seems a bad idea, a better idea is to turn the mirrors around and point them towards local star systems. This would not only reduce the heating of the planet, but form a beacon to those possible intelligent beings looking for others.
Would it add extra heat to the atmosphere? If it dose that’s not a good idea with global warming.
Yes!! That's the first thing I thought, surely it would add heat to the planet.
There is a big misunderstanding here. during the morning and evening peak the Sun is up. it is just, that the existing solar panels are not pointed towards the sun. If you want to produce solar energy during those hours you just need to build solar panels pointing east / west.
When these reflectors travel over sun lit parts of the earth it can actively reflect the sun away to cool the earth and atmosphere.
Its an awesome idea.
Sounds like a great idea but further reflection is required.
lmfao
A fascinating idea and maybe another use case for such a system would be to actually extend daylight time for urban areas and farmlands. This would provide indirect energy savings beside just power generation.
Seems like too much of a waste. This is intentionally focused on the solar panels so most the energy is collected and used. In your scenario, most of it would just hit the ground.
@@nemanjamarsenic1626 waste of what? The earth is not covered in large solar farms, so most of the time those mirrors will be unused. Might as well point them at urban areas and lower energy used for pre-dawn and post-sunset artificial lighting
@@trioxin428 waste of energy. But yes, if you have a part of the orbit where there is no solar farms in line of sight, it might be a good idea to repurpose the reflector. The question is if that will significantly help in this specific case since this works only slightly after sunset and slightly before sunrise, while there is still enough light. Also, it will not be too bright itself, so the question is how much it would actually help.
Btw, at 1000km altitude, horizon is more than 3000km away. So there should be some solar farms in line of sight. If there are none, that will make a dip in the profitability of this project.
No. So many species are coupled to our particular range day/night lengths, both on a day to day basis and as a way to determine the season. Just build more renewable energy and light up indoor spaces for longer.
So few people pronounce Glasgow properly, nice work 🙌 Thanks for the interesting interview with Dr Çelik
Is the solar energy simply reflected, or is there any magnification to this system? This poses another interesting question, Is magnifying solar energy from space down to earth weaponizable, like a kid with a magnifying glass? Talk about the old Star Wars project using lasers to shoot down missiles or burn down enemy locations.
I was wondering about the same thing. It's like watching an old James Bond movie where the villain could point the space-based directed sunlight down to some City that he wants to impact.😮
It's a reflector, not a lens.
What you're talking about is basically Archimedes Heat Ray, which was essentially a large array of big mirrors that were used to focus sunlight onto enemy ships approaching in the harbor and set them on fire.
@@macbuff81JWST is a reflecting mirror - a “lens”.
What about making it slightly concave to concentrate the sunlight, to overcome loss
Melting cirrus clouds to resupply snow to high altitude regions? ❤
Imagine the economic value for increasing daylight and warmth for high lattitude metropoliotan areas. Imagine having mild spring weather and 16 hour length of day in Midwinter for a city such as Helsinki. The economic benefits could run in the billions annually.
I don’t think we need more ways of increasing the temperature of entire cities. We’re already trying to do the exact opposite of that very thing.
There would be loads of economic value in that, but I don't think this technology can do that. Didn't the scientist say the light would be maybe a few minutes? EDIT: My bad, he said about 20 minutes per reflector, but it could actually add up to be a few hours per day.
@@drewd2 20 min per reflector. There would be a constellation of them though.
Yeah, thanks. This is why I shouldn't play games while I listen to cool science. lol@@itsd0nk
I think i would agree that it makes more sense f.e. on the moon than on earth. At small scales it would hadly make a difference on earth, so we need large sacles, which would quickly turn into mountains of broken mirrors in orbit. That goes of course for any kind of significant light collection in earth orbit. At even larger scales (which the broken mirrors would probably prevent anyways) the project would turn into some kind of geoengineering, introducing additional heat to earth, which might even change weather patterns or other nasty things.. on the moon it might be fantastic though :)
My thoughts exactly. It’s truly a perfect fit for moon infrastructure. Overcoming the 14 day long night/day cycle on the moon, lack of risk for ecological issues, and much MUCH lower requirements for setting up a skeleton crew level of moon operations versus power for 8 billion humans.
One problem is the lunar regolith is very fine. A lot of electrostatic differentials at the day night divide shattering the silicates has left it very reactive pump to much energy at the surface without prep work and you might just wind up in a silica shitstorm of epic proportions. @@itsd0nk
Thanks for this one, Fraser, but I wonder why the topic of curved mirrors wasn't explored as opposed to the flat mirror advocated by the guest? It seems to me that with curved mirrors, one would be able to concentrate the energy onto a smaller area. What am I missing?
As the video interview continued, I notice the issue was raised somewhat, but it was within the context of a further distance, i.e. Ganymeade, and the guest whiffed the question entirely preferring to discuss the marginally higher solar output at a further distance in certain circumstances.
Could we use it to make the Northwest Passage ice 🧊 free for 🚢 shipping?
😨🐧👎🏿🐧👎🏻🐧😨
I feel like we should be getting rid of heat rather than reflecting more to the surface
No mention of the solar wind verses the counteracting force of station keeping. My question would be how much would lt cost to refuel the station keeping engines and how much power would be needed from solar panels or substitute to keep it oriented and stop it flying off to alpha centuri!
ive come to think that the times after sunset and before sunrise are the best times to one can relize by oneself without trusting anyone else that earth is indeed roubd. but i havent thought this situation has an economic potential 😯
so thanks to another interesting interview
Still wondering why we don't make a giant magnifying glass of some sort to generate power.
Fernell lense (sp*) in space could be used to focus higher intensity sun light into the ground…. Let’s do this, Fraser!👍🏾
Fresnel. And: No. In so many ways just absolutely no 😆
This was good, and a wee shout out to Glasgow, onyersel Glezga!
I may be thinking about this wrong , but it seems to me that beaming more energy to earth is moving in the wrong direction. We should be finding ways to radiate energy away from the earth.
When the mirror rotates to position the sun beam to a specific spot the beam will create a path of light across the earth. Everyone in the path of that beam will see a bright flash of light. The animation shows the beam turning off when the mirror rotates. They don't show the path the light takes during the movement from one solar farm to the next. A one Kilometer reflector can't instantaneously "go edge on." It will take time to rotate. Lighting a path across the earth as it does. I'm an amateur astronomer. When I'm looking though my eyepiece and this satellite sweeps across my location, it burns a hole in my retina. PLEASE don't do this! Fraser, don't promote this madness.
This one hit like a hammer on a nail
With a moustache like that anyone can be a genius!
I do hate that he didn't have an answer to the light pollution question. Sure, these things would be great for solar power farms, but what about the rest of the planet's circumference? That would negate any CO2 savings you get from power farms, and the whole thing is easily weaponized. This whole idea is a nonstarter, and we'd be better off building nuclear plants.
Really fascinating interview.
Would it be possible to have the reflector satellites aimed at other targets to boost their collection when they aren't being aimed at Earth farms?
Being further out than the ISS means we could point them at our stations and other satellites, right?
New Weapon.
energy in is gonna be bigger then energy out
I wonder who will be the first baseball team to enlist one of these for their night games.
Wouldn't work. As explained, it would work only right after sunset and right before sunrise and it wouldn't be much brighter than the sky at that moment.
What are the consequences of directing additional solar energy to the Earth.
Yes it’s a small amount for each solar satellite, but it’s a direct energy increase that scales with the number of panels.
Does it make sense reduce reduce carbon (the mechanism to trap energy) consumption by increasing the energy Earth receives from the sun?
This would be an absolute nightmare for astronomers, since it’s in LEO and thus moving across the sky and much larger in the sky. Traditional SBSP out in GEO don’t have this issue
Can’t we just have solar panels in space, and then beam to electricity directly to a satellite disc back on earth?
no
yes but there are a lot of losses and it be costly to build out the idea of this is that its alot cheaper and simple to build rather then trying make solar cells launch them in space put them togther and then lose a a bunch of power while trying to beam it down this just extends the amount of time solar cells can get power just a thin sheet of metal reflecting light on solar cells on the ground
Solar panels are much heavier than reflective foil, and much harder to replace and maintain in space. The weight is really the limiting factor though. To launch a grid-scale solar power plant to space is going to be ridiculously expensive, that's not even counting the equipment needed to transform that amount of power into wireless. Meanwhile, you can launch a grid-scale solar reflector for pretty much peanuts. The only heavyweight component would be the rotator gyros (and ironically its own solar panels that it will need to power that) but you can get acres and acres of reflector up for very cheap, relatively speaking.
well both is kind of a stupid Idea.
no, just no,, we fkd this planet up already as it is.
Imagine looking thru ur dob and a ton of space based reflectors being in the way😢
On bodies other than Earth this is a sound engineering solution to several potential handicaps found, especially true for the Moon as discussed.
However, using such reflectors to redirect sunlight to the twilight and night side of Earth is something I could never support or countenance.
Artificial lighting at night is already diminishing our ability to enjoy the night sky and certainly impact meaningful surface based observations of the universe, and numerous studies have demonstrated the very negative impact artificial lighting has on the ecology of an environment, causing numerous problems for wildlife.
Every technology has unintended consequences, and just because we can does not mean we should.
If this works by reflecting sunlight directly to solar farms on Earth, then surely it must require that more solar farms be built which are accessible from the reflectors orbit.
Also that the orbit spends as much time as possible over land, not ocean.
I'd be more interested in using it as a way to create plasma jets on asteroids etc to farm them. Then you're catching large masses with the fuel expense of station keeping an ultralight vehicle.Also better than adding to the heat crisis (co2, ch4 in the tundra escaping) once we get that sorted if we don't have to contend with pushed solar convective heating the next big heat crisis is aerobraking. Incoming minerals from space will also generate a global warming effect at around the 20 megatons of imports per annum...
Intelligent & Good-looking
Most excellent 👏🏻
Add another function: weather modification. Including, by using multiple mirrors, seeding hurricanes. Unless each mirror is kept deliberately relatively small.
Storage of electricity is the problem.... batteries, the new elite enrichment push. Batteries are in current state, not cost effective, expensive, limited confusing lifespan, long recharge times, harmful chemicals being used, more it gets used the less electricity it stores overtime (degrading). We don't have a problem with capture, we have a problem with storage.
I’m all for decreasing fossil fuels but I’m also concerned about how adding acres of black solar panels to an area affects the local heat pattern. Has this problem ever been addressed.
Solar panels are generally only optimised for some wavelengths. Maybe we should design them to reflect the others back into space.. and maybe every roof and road could be designed to do that too.
@@peterd9698Interesting. Recently there was a piece of news that transparent solar panels were created. With some light underneath, they would be able even to increase the planet's albedo.
Can that amount of radiation heat up the atmosphere and the region where the beam is focused, like when it is said that if we cover the Sahara desert in solar panels it will become even hotter that it already is?
Dr Honor seems not to understand the power from a molten salt thorium reactor would be less than 1/10th the cost of pushing up massive solar mirrors no matter how light with the least expensive contaminating rockets.
We are “all doomed” because of climate change, but yes let’s aim more sunlight at the earth. What could go wrong?
Very awesome!
Question: Wouldnt we have seen primordial blackholes if they exist ? A 2-3 earth mass blackhole thats in transit infront of a star should leave some unique signature, no ?
The star would fall into it. It can’t be that close with that type of insane gravity well
Maybe if it line up as an eclipse but the distance the other thing would
Need to move away . Usually things orbit blackholes , not the other way around .
@@jondoc7525 The gravitational well is the same size as a planet with the same mass. The star would not fall in it. A blackhole with 2-3 earth mass has the same gravitational effect as a planet with 2-3 earth mass.
@@Midg-td3ty a black hole has different properties tho and sucks more in. Plus I don’t think one that size can form and be stable . They collapse and keep absorbing matter . Maybe one could decay with Hawking radiation to that size . It would eat the earth and maybe grow slowly from space debris
The sun is about 0.5 deg wide from earth, so at 1000km I guess it would have to be 1000*0.5/360 = 1.4 km across to have same size in sky.. which I guess would give sunlike illumination at a single point, fading off within a similar radius at ground?
1 of the only 2 comments out of 265 that's actually adressing the elephant in the room.
I kept wondering the whole time if 1) the prof. knows anything about physics at all, or 2) if it's somehow addressed in the paper and Fraser will bring it up. But saying that a mirror can increase sunshine near Mars to above Earth level points to answer #1.
do solarcells also use the infrared part of the spectrum ?
No. Long wave infrared is absorbed by the atmosphere.
@@davemi00 but what about solarcells in space ?
IDK bit IR photons have much less energy. It might be more efficient to use the heat.
The maximum wavelength for the photoelectric effect in a metal (Caesium) is about 660nm; IR starts at 700nm, so direct collection of electricity from IR isn't possible in a metal. There are probably molecules which have a photoelectric effect at longer wavelengths, but I don't think we've found any that also have a low enough resistivity that we can get hold of the electrons in any direct way.
That said, there are known processes which turn IR into chemical energy, but these tend to be more feasible as a medium for transporting geothermal energy than for surface use, and make no sense in space.
It depends on the infrared reflectance of the material
This seems like a great idea for a weapon to destroy your enemies crops. Just add some more heat during a heatwave and watch their yields plummet or with a little focusing burn.
I think it would be great off world in a lot of places and for a lot of reasons, but not for Earth. Apart from adding extra energy to our atmosphere there would also be huge problems caused by the interference created by large foil mirrors in close orbit. Having them block satellite signals, interfere with ground based astronomy and that they would likely be very visible to the naked eye means l can't see them having any chance of getting approval.
lol. i have some books from decades ago. they say the same thing! my usborne book of the future from 1979 has metal solar reflectors in it! Clarke's original plan for geo-stationary satellites, the ones staffed by dozens of men! lol! were to use big mirrors, lenses, and heat exchanger.
It's Daniel Riciardo's scientific brother!
A mirror reflecting the sun must have an angular diameter of more than a half a degree seen from earth. Hopelessly big and difficult. It is not focusing, but a flat mirror ( Optics 001 )
I don't like the idea, but I think a really big, flat mirror would be doable.
Question
How are questions picked out from the millions of channels questions ?
I just pick ones that sound like fun to answer
@@frasercain Gotcha. I will throw my question out there later.
Gotta say thou. Not a very precise scientific answer lol
Yep, light trespass/pollution is always a consideration. Darksky society's work is increasing.
can we terraform earth first please
A good day for power generation, a sad day for astronomers.
We talk about this in the interview.
@@frasercain oops. I made my post early on then ran off
start at south pole science station?
OPEC countries and fossil fuel companies will hate this.
Let's build it!
How ecological would it be to launch a rocket for a sail in stead of using gas generators providing heat or electricity to housing? Seems a very non reusable way to use reusable energy to me...
Wouldn’t beaming extra sunlight down to earth have the same effect as trapping reflected light within the atmosphere?
If this is supposed to reduce CO2, surely you would want make sure that the solution isn’t worse than the cause of the problem. After all, if you have an equation total energy = Energy in + Energy reradiated by CO2- Energy reradiated into space, it doesn’t matter whether you increase Energy beamed down or Energy reradiated by CO2 you still get an overall increase in power heating up the atmosphere.
There is a lot less problem using this system around the moon but more thought needs to be put into this before trying it around earth.
This will never be economically feasible for applications on earth. In other applications, sure.
Those reflectors will have the same limitations as the sun. Bad weather = no joy.
The areas where big solar farms make sense are not in Europe (weather, energy per m² coming from the sun, densely populated). If we talk about desert-ish regions, PV is worse than solar thermal power plants. Solar panels don't like heat (see efficiency at different temps).
I am also not sure how much additional energy those reflectors bring. Why don't I just build the solar farm 10% larger? Probably more cost effective than doing risky and expensive rocket stuff. Additionally those reflectors apparently more. Therefore they need propellant and maintenance.
I would be very surprised if the costs would ever pan out.
For use on the Moon/Mars whatever, i actually see viable applications.
Caveat: I haven't looked into the actual numbers, but even in the future when transport costs come down, solar panels will also be cheaper and more efficient, not to speak of other forms energy generation. So maybe I am wrong, but I doubt it.
Let's hope Dr Evil doesn't get control of these things.
I wonder how far up the list of potential geoengineering solutions to combat climate change would be installing a grid of solar reflector satellites around Sun - Earth L1 point to block a small amount of incoming sunlight? I think with the introduction of the Starship it becomes doable and once the Lunar space launch infrastructure is erected it might become affordable
We could also just put reflectors on earth. Our solar panels could reflect unused wavelengths. Possibly even control weather.
IMO there is far too much FUD about storage though, probably manufactured by oil companies. That is what this is really about.
The storage problem would go away even without all the current rapid advances just by having large enough grids and massive power hogs like hydrocarbon production and desalination that create storable products, and thus can be turned off when power drops.
@@peterd9698 I don't think you understand well the problem of the greenhouse effect, it traps a lot of infrared spectrum radiation in the atmosphere heating the air directly. The whole idea of combatting climate change is either reduce the amount of energy the atmosphere absorbs, that or reduce the amount of incoming energy to begin with
@@mihan2d the atmosphere is transparent to visible light but the ground absorbs it, heats up, and emits it as infrared, which the atmosphere is not as transparent to.. so it is trapped. Reflect it directly back and most can escape without being absorbed because it hasn’t transformed to infrared
@@peterd9698Yes of course it would work too (and that is the idea behind cloud seeding including the water mist sprayers on large ships to increase the albedo which is very close to being implemented) but some of the energy is still trapped in the atmosphere. L1 mirrors would be far more efficient and potentially long term solution with less variability which is the main concern against geoengineering.
@@mihan2d clouds are complicated, eg they retain heat at night. Sea ice might be a better analogy.
Imagine worrying about climate change and also thinking that gathering massive amounts of energy from the sun that would never have struck the earth and directing it at the earth and it not having any effect on the temperature of the earth. 🤦♂
Also, don't we have enough daylight as it is? I like to have night occasionally.
Sometimes we should stop thinking "can it be done" and start thinking "should it be done".
I can't imagine too many astronomers being happy about this ridiculous idea either.
I do think that it may be worth carefully licensing a small number to be used to refine and test the technology for space missions, but as for providing energy to earth, I hate this idea and anyone that thinks it is a good idea.
so with global temps rising every year, he wants to send more sunlight to earth?!*
LOLLLLL, spend 50 million dollars per unit, puting reflectors in Space, than a few millions in maintenance per year, all of that to get 100K value per reflector in Energy, SUPER PRACTICAL...
Implementation of the system for earth, based power generation is a terrible idea. However, illuminating a moon base during the two week night time is a great idea.
The Russian Burt Reynolds here is gonna try n jiffy pop us to death with solar aluminum foil death rays from space…😳
I bet those would be used as a weapon and bargaining chip prior to changing solar energy
Hmm pumping more energy from space into earth's biosphere - seems it doesn't help with the global warming thing. A better way to go is to have a large solar farm or just mirrors pumping excess energy back out into space - a radiator if you will.
Ai software for lights left on not being used on the planet maybe
Ok, the idea is indeed quite interesting but not new. I feel atm it not wise to beam extra energy onto the planet heating it up. I'll listem to the full intervieuw and Im curious if this is considered. And maybe mitigitated by e.g. that new-ish white paint/material that emits right into the proper IR wavelengh to get red of via the IR window of the atmossphere. Venus might be not be far away both littelary and figuratively.
In further thinking about this; it would be perfect for the moon and mars etc. there must be an astoroid nearby-ish to test the system.
Well interesting in the sense of it is interesting to think about. In terms of being a potential option it really is not remotely interesting.
@@MusikCassette You phrase it much better than me, thank you. Languages are fun and all albeit being native in English has both its benefits and downsides.
@@blueredbrick English is not my native language.
@@MusikCassette Even better. Tnx.
They can reflect sunloght
This will wreak havoc on certain insect populations
Use mirrors