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.

@kypickle8252

4 ай бұрын

probably easier to just not rely on solar panels, or make your robots temperature resistant

@JoelSapp

4 ай бұрын

@@kypickle8252some of these systems would do well with a little nuclear thermal electrics.

@TNM001

4 ай бұрын

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.

@JoelSapp

4 ай бұрын

@@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.

@TNM001

4 ай бұрын

@@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!

@MrJohnnyseven

4 ай бұрын

I mean what could go wrong.....

@Tse3581

4 ай бұрын

Why are you concerned? It's sunlight

Love the way you are asking the questions Frazier. Because we all are thinking those questions, trying to mentally picture this.

I am curious about the impact that prolonged daylight around these solar farms might have on the surrounding wildlife.

@duhaneyparkclassics7484

4 ай бұрын

In the desert... negligible.

@Enkaptaton

4 ай бұрын

​@@duhaneyparkclassics7484 Las Vegas is in the desert and with its lights at night it is an insects killing machine

@jmr

4 ай бұрын

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.

@bozo5632

4 ай бұрын

​@@duhaneyparkclassics7484Deserts are full of life.

@macbuff81

4 ай бұрын

Climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels is not so great for wildlife either.

Superb guests and content, as always. The tradeoff between reflector size and panel size, as you move further from the sun, is very interesting.

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..

@thekaxmax

4 ай бұрын

check on 'statite'. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite

@johnbennett1465

4 ай бұрын

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?

@rensin2

4 ай бұрын

​@@thekaxmax Statites only work that way when in "orbit" around a star. Doesn't apply to planets.

@thekaxmax

4 ай бұрын

@@rensin2 tell that to the people doing the research about putting statites over a planet, not me.

@rensin2

4 ай бұрын

@@thekaxmax Could you name one of these statites over a planet?

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?

@executivesteps

4 ай бұрын

No! They’re way, way too small.

I see trouble for wildlife. But for Moon, Mars, etc... why not.

Send even more Sunlight down from space with massive reflectors........Ummm....what could go wrong 🤐

@Ponk_80

4 ай бұрын

🎶Blinded by the light 🎶

@SirDeadPuppy

4 ай бұрын

using dead trees and sea life burred in the earth for millions of years...what could go wrong?

@oatmeal7818

4 ай бұрын

Human wanting to cook themselves...

@emiljunvik3546

4 ай бұрын

@@SirDeadPuppy Modern civilization is pretty nice, isn’t it? It wouldn’t be here without fossil fuels.

@SirDeadPuppy

4 ай бұрын

@@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 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.

@mshepard2264

4 ай бұрын

I cant imagine that it would be cheaper than some LEDs for general lighting. Maybe for agriculture.

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

4 ай бұрын

It would be millions of these and they can’t hold The orbit forever like jwst . The potent greenhouse gases would be best .

@thekaxmax

4 ай бұрын

in planning.

@ngutngut40

4 ай бұрын

@@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.

@ngutngut40

4 ай бұрын

@@thekaxmax Great. Who is putting this plan together?

@thekaxmax

4 ай бұрын

@@ngutngut40 several sets of researchers. Including, last time I looked, the ESA.

Astro photographers it’s gonna hate this idea. Star link satellites are already a nuisance to them.

@williemacdonald72

4 ай бұрын

Spot on fella. Some folk get excited seeing these trains of satellites but I shake my fist and swear at them.

@frasercain

4 ай бұрын

We talk about this quite a bit in the interview.

I'm envisioning a dystopian future where escaping the relentless illumination becomes all but impossible...

Really fascinating interview.

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?

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.

So few people pronounce Glasgow properly, nice work 🙌 Thanks for the interesting interview with Dr Çelik

Literal global warming. What do you do with the extra heat?

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.

@nemanjamarsenic1626

4 ай бұрын

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.

@trioxin428

4 ай бұрын

@@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

@nemanjamarsenic1626

4 ай бұрын

@@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.

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

This one hit like a hammer on a nail

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?

Just what we need, more light pollution...

@SirDeadPuppy

4 ай бұрын

yup better to keep burning coal and oil that pollution is way less harmful then light!

What about making it slightly concave to concentrate the sunlight, to overcome loss

This was good, and a wee shout out to Glasgow, onyersel Glezga!

More daylight = more heat. I think that is the opposite of what all this is supposed to fix.

@user-nz6ug4ru8f

4 ай бұрын

Longwave radiation is different from (reflected) shortwave visible light. Maybe this tech could help in the distribution of rain and snow.

@peterd9698

4 ай бұрын

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.

Sounds like a great idea but further reflection is required.

@tygical

4 ай бұрын

lmfao

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.

@grgmetube

4 ай бұрын

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.

@richardpavlov442

4 ай бұрын

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.

@sjsomething4936

4 ай бұрын

@@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.

@rRekko

4 ай бұрын

@@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.

@sjsomething4936

4 ай бұрын

@@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.

Would it add extra heat to the atmosphere? If it dose that’s not a good idea with global warming.

@gordon1570

4 ай бұрын

Yes!! That's the first thing I thought, surely it would add heat to the planet.

Intelligent & Good-looking Most excellent 👏🏻

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.

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?

@odd_bird

4 ай бұрын

😨🐧👎🏿🐧👎🏻🐧😨

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

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.

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!

Fernell lense (sp*) in space could be used to focus higher intensity sun light into the ground…. Let’s do this, Fraser!👍🏾

@Smo1k

4 ай бұрын

Fresnel. And: No. In so many ways just absolutely no 😆

Melting cirrus clouds to resupply snow to high altitude regions? ❤

New Weapon.

energy in is gonna be bigger then energy out

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.

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.

@NovaDeb

4 ай бұрын

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.😮

@macbuff81

4 ай бұрын

It's a reflector, not a lens.

@chrisergna617

4 ай бұрын

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.

@executivesteps

4 ай бұрын

@@macbuff81JWST is a reflecting mirror - a “lens”.

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 :)

@itsd0nk

4 ай бұрын

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.

@leonmusk1040

4 ай бұрын

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

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!

With a moustache like that anyone can be a genius!

I feel like we should be getting rid of heat rather than reflecting more to the surface

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.

Still wondering why we don't make a giant magnifying glass of some sort to generate power.

OPEC countries and fossil fuel companies will hate this. Let's build 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

@peterd9698

4 ай бұрын

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.

@mihan2d

4 ай бұрын

​@@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

@peterd9698

4 ай бұрын

@@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

@mihan2d

4 ай бұрын

​​​@@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.

@peterd9698

4 ай бұрын

@@mihan2d clouds are complicated, eg they retain heat at night. Sea ice might be a better analogy.

Surely someone will think how military would use it... Just aim all the mirrors on one spot and there you have a modern version of archimedes's magic mirrors.

@SirDeadPuppy

4 ай бұрын

it is really any worse then the stuff we use now? nukes or chem or bio warfare been around for a long time is this really that much worse?

I wonder who will be the first baseball team to enlist one of these for their night games.

@nemanjamarsenic1626

4 ай бұрын

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.

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.

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...

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

4 ай бұрын

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.

@blueredbrick

4 ай бұрын

@@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.

@MusikCassette

4 ай бұрын

@@blueredbrick English is not my native language.

@blueredbrick

4 ай бұрын

@@MusikCassette Even better. Tnx.

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?

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 ?

@jondoc7525

4 ай бұрын

The star would fall into it. It can’t be that close with that type of insane gravity well

@jondoc7525

4 ай бұрын

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 .

@Midg-td3ty

4 ай бұрын

@@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.

@jondoc7525

4 ай бұрын

@@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

start at south pole science station?

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?

It's Daniel Riciardo's scientific brother!

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.

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

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?

@Milan_Openfeint

4 ай бұрын

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 ?

@davemi00

4 ай бұрын

No. Long wave infrared is absorbed by the atmosphere.

@gitmoholliday5764

4 ай бұрын

@@davemi00 but what about solarcells in space ?

@bozo5632

4 ай бұрын

IDK bit IR photons have much less energy. It might be more efficient to use the heat.

@Smo1k

4 ай бұрын

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.

@gawayne1374

4 ай бұрын

It depends on the infrared reflectance of the material

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.

@peterd9698

4 ай бұрын

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.

@odd_bird

4 ай бұрын

​@@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.

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.

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.

Sounds like a good way to heat up the earth way more than co2

@penguinswithdynamite

4 ай бұрын

When you look at the numbers this turns out not to be the case. The amount of solar power this system focuses onto the earth is in the 100's of MW range (for a single mirror) whereas the heating power caused by global warming is MUCH larger at 460TW. Humanity only uses 19TW globally across all energy sources. So even if we replaced every single power plant and energy source in the world with this, it would still be less than a 20th of the heat caused by greenhouse gases. However this is just looking at things globally, it's unknown if it could cause undesired weather patterns locally where the light is focused.

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.

@itsd0nk

4 ай бұрын

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.

@drewd2

4 ай бұрын

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.

@itsd0nk

4 ай бұрын

@@drewd2 20 min per reflector. There would be a constellation of them though.

@drewd2

4 ай бұрын

Yeah, thanks. This is why I shouldn't play games while I listen to cool science. lol@@itsd0nk

Such a cool concept. Given all the new technology coming our way, I think our world is going to experience a sea change in the next 10 years.

@itsd0nk

4 ай бұрын

Well, there’s a monkey’s paw wish if I’ve ever seen one 😂. Careful with your figurative wording there.

Question How are questions picked out from the millions of channels questions ?

@frasercain

4 ай бұрын

I just pick ones that sound like fun to answer

@RectalRooter

4 ай бұрын

@@frasercain Gotcha. I will throw my question out there later. Gotta say thou. Not a very precise scientific answer lol

A good day for power generation, a sad day for astronomers.

@frasercain

4 ай бұрын

We talk about this in the interview.

@ethorii

4 ай бұрын

@@frasercain oops. I made my post early on then ran off

(Rough question specifics to come from an example answer) How much of the cosmic background light has been blocked especially the farthest light we are seeing 13B L Y wouldn’t it take another 13 BLY to reach our sights again? Another rough question Looking at the C M B I’m guessing that’s our sights all around and from the earth (or telescope, if we were to instantly poof in any direction any great distance that new position in space we land in probably going to shift the CMB that we lose sight of a portion we traveled from and gain a new portion in the direction we traveled into. ( for sure there is light we arnt seeing yet still past the cmb and we can’t Confirm we’re the Big Bang took place?)

This will wreak havoc on certain insect populations

thank you and fantastic stuff as usual, i'm a big believer in using nuclear waste for energy but it will be a mix of of things we will end up using. i wonder on your thoughts about hybrid power systems to fuel our galactic journey.

The Russian Burt Reynolds here is gonna try n jiffy pop us to death with solar aluminum foil death rays from space…😳

Great, practical idea with lots of applications! Love it.

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.

Can’t we just have solar panels in space, and then beam to electricity directly to a satellite disc back on earth?

@SnareGG

4 ай бұрын

no

@SirDeadPuppy

4 ай бұрын

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

@cecilkorik

4 ай бұрын

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.

@MusikCassette

4 ай бұрын

well both is kind of a stupid Idea.

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.

Let's hope Dr Evil doesn't get control of these things.

Ocean Waves - generating energy 24/7 365....

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 )

@bozo5632

4 ай бұрын

I don't like the idea, but I think a really big, flat mirror would be doable.

Ai software for lights left on not being used on the planet maybe

can we terraform earth first please

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.

Dr Onur Çelik reminds me of another genius Freddy Mercury. Is it that naughty smile that only geniuses have or it's the moustache? Can't put a finger on it yet. Maybe is all of it

@mattwuk

4 ай бұрын

I thought it was Borat at first glance.

no, just no,, we fkd this planet up already as it is.

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...

We are “all doomed” because of climate change, but yes let’s aim more sunlight at the earth. What could go wrong?

Clouds

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.

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.

so with global temps rising every year, he wants to send more sunlight to earth?!*

I bet those would be used as a weapon and bargaining chip prior to changing solar energy

Yep, light trespass/pollution is always a consideration. Darksky society's work is increasing.

Very interesting! I am wondering where this scientist's country of origin is?

@bozo5632

4 ай бұрын

Turkiye, I reckon.

@blueredbrick

4 ай бұрын

Turkey I think and now he is working at the University of Glasgow.

@bozo5632

4 ай бұрын

@@blueredbrick I like the Scots-Turkish accent lol.

@blueredbrick

4 ай бұрын

@@bozo5632 I noticed that too, interesting how English, being the Lingua Franca atm, gets so much richer in a sence. Accents are cool. We might even get past the point of letting go of negative connotations with things like dialect/street speak/farmer's 'flat' languages. I'm from NL and have no background in linguistics but ever since the internet became a common good in the 2000's the world really got more connected. For good and worse but interesting nevertheless. But on topic; I'm not at comfortable yet about this project of putting extra mirrors in LEO in whatever form or shape.

@bozo5632

4 ай бұрын

@@blueredbrick I agree, including about the mirrors.

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.

Add another function: weather modification. Including, by using multiple mirrors, seeding hurricanes. Unless each mirror is kept deliberately relatively small.