• starbreaker@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    We already have a perfectly good nuclear fusion reactor about 93,000,000 miles from our planet. We just need to make better use of its output.

    • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Well seeing how you almost need the output of a Dyson swarm to make a Dyson swarm, cool glowy rock power and explodey gas power can and will work just as good. Especially for places that are far away from the ideal conditions to exploit solar energy terrestrially. Where I’m at we have to use literal piles of garbage to be able to get high enough above the trees to achieve sustainable output.

            • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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              9 months ago

              Sadly I believe they found adding more mirrors did not appreciably raise the temperature of the focal point. Diminishing returns and all. So unfortunately more mirrors is not the answer, more Lasers is!

      • Mossy Feathers (They/Them)@pawb.social
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        9 months ago

        They already do this fyi. Solar plants tend to use mirrors that concentrate light to heat water and turn a turbine instead of actual solar panels. Amazingly, iirc converting light into heat, the heat into steam, and then the steam into kinetic energy, is still more efficient than a normal photovoltaic cells.