Solar Panel Placement
xkcd.com
  • quindraco@lemm.eeEnglish
    5·
    3 年前

    OP, you should always include the title alt-text with an xkcd comic. Like so:

    Getting the utility people to run transmission lines to Earth is expensive, but it will pay for itself in no time.

  • addie@feddit.ukEnglish
    1·
    3 年前

    That number didn’t really seem enough to me. However, the solar luminosity is about 3.8×10^26 watts and the surface area about 6.1×10^18 m2, ie. 62.3 MW / m2. 8760 hours in a year times 62300 kW equals 545 million kW/h, at twenty percent efficiency times twenty cents each is $21.8 M/a.

    The sun might seem to be really, really hot; but in fact, it is just quite hot and really, really big.

      • addie@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        3 年前

        The corona is indeed super hot, but also quite tenuous in comparison to the rest of the sun. The photosphere is only about 5500 °C. If our solar panels were made of diamond they would have melted at 3500, but it’s not impossible to imagine a solar panel that could be positioned ‘quite’ close to the sun’s surface - would just need to be made from some quite fancy materials.

    • Ferk@kbin.social
      1·
      3 年前

      They could send the energy wirelessly in the form of light beams, then use special panels to transform those beams of light on Earth. Let’s call them “solar panels”.