A Solar-Powered Death Ray - io9 Comments

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

sun1 — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:44:42 PDT

I just went to Nasa's Yuri's night and there were a few solar thermal companies there.

Now that free energy solar thermal is starting to break into the mainstream news, I find it interesting that a few articles I've seen about it have likened it to "a death ray"

It's basically just a bunch of mirrors that focus onto a point, then heat is stored in a salt tank, boiled or something.

Our government's Sandia laboratories built one of the first solar thermal plants back in the 90's.
Solar One

Here is a huge database of pictures and white papers of all the solar thermal plants being built around the world.

sun1

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

szielins — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:05:38 PDT

Not molten sodium, molten *salt*.
[en.wikipedia.org]

szielins

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Signal — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:45:53 PDT

@Ed Grabianowski

Would that be safe? Sodium tends to be extremely explosive when exposed to moisture.

Signal

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

MonkeyT — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:15:47 PDT

A timely summary: [ecoworldly.com]

MonkeyT

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Ed Grabianowski — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:30:58 PDT

@varun: They are indeed moving to molten sodium as a heat collector/transfer medium. The main benefit is that it will stay hot long enough that they can continue to generate power through the night.

Ed Grabianowski

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

varun — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:14:16 PDT

It's called a Stirling engine - and yes, there is one out in SoCal run for SoCal Edison. This is a much larger scale, if memory serves.

What would be interesting to see, of course, is if they replaced water (a relatively inefficient heat transfer substance) with something more efficient - such as sodium. I believe the Soviets had developed a tiny sodium-cooled nuclear reactor right before the collapse of the USSR; I wonder if anyone has tried to replace water with sodium to boost efficiency.

varun

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Igpajo — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:10:44 PDT

Did noone here see the movie Sahara with Matthew McConaughey? It's final climax happened at the top of a tower that looked exactly like that one in the picture above. In the film I believe it was something like a solar powered incinerator that diverted the solar energy down the center of the tower where it was used to destroy nuclear waste. In the movie there was a leak or something that was poisoning an underwater aquifer. But I swear they had to have filmed it at that facility in Spain. Looks exactly the same.

Igpajo

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

MonkeyT — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:39:18 PDT

@tamoko: I saw a letter to the editor about this in the NYT. The writer said he observed the Russian test and that it was roughly as bright in the night sky as Jupiter, which isn't exactly a devastating amount of luminous power.

MonkeyT

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

MonkeyT — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:36:14 PDT

@Greasy Thumb Guzik: I think there is a working prototype in Spain, with another larger scale version being built nearby. I believe the same company has an agreement for one of the same style in Australia. I think there is a solar tower of a different design in Arizona (it collects hot air that is allowed to rise through the tower).

MonkeyT

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Gann — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:00:30 PDT

@Citizen Kang: I think the idea is that they play with the wavelength of the transmitting laser to minimize absorption when it passes through the atmosphere.

Gann

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Citizen Kang — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:56:38 PDT

I believe the main issue with orbital platforms involving solar death rays is the fact that the energy quickly disperses once it hits the thicker parts of the atmosphere. It's the same reason ground-based telescopes have to be huge and use imaging software just to breach the pollution and light dispersing properties of Earth's protective blanket. The Hubble with a mirrored surface area of about 2 meters (I think) has significantly greater optical resolving power than the largest ground-based telescopes...even one as high up and huge as Mauna Kea. Anyone who knows better, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Citizen Kang

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

ManchuCandidate — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:46:25 PDT

Wasn't it one of the Command and Conquer games?

ManchuCandidate

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Ed Grabianowski — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:43:43 PDT

@Greasy Thumb Guzik: That was the prototype. It had a small generating capacity, but actually exceeded their efficiency goals. It was decommissioned when the testing phase was complete.

Ed Grabianowski

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Greasy Thumb Guzik — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:32:15 PDT

I believe one of these was built in Arizona or California several years ago, but I don't know if it's still working.
I think "60 Minutes" did a piece on it.

Greasy Thumb Guzik

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Gann — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:31:16 PDT

You mean kinda like this?
[gizmodo.com]
If these ever become commonplace, I'd hate to live next to one, in case a piece of space junk knocks the satellite half a degree off target.

Gann

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

se7a7n7 — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:28:18 PDT

They could use it to clean up all the deadly space debris we've heard so much about. Or they could roast a chicken very fast. Mmmmmm roast chicken..................

se7a7n7

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

CMG — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:19:45 PDT

@Huxleyhobbes: "one billion dollars!"

CMG

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

tamoko — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:14:18 PDT

@MonkeyT: Cool!

tamoko

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

MonkeyT — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:05:02 PDT

Look up the italian village of Viganella. For 80 days each year, their town stands in the shade of a neighboring mountain and gets no direct sunlight at all. So they built a mirror on the facing mountain and get a few hours of redirected sunlight onto the town square each day of their deep winter.

MonkeyT

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Log1c — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:50:29 PDT

They called it the Icarus and it was in one of the crappier Bond movies...

Log1c

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

quetzilla — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:46:50 PDT

@tamoko: I actually read about that a long time ago and I'm pretty sure it actually did work. I remember pictures where it looked like daylight. Of course, pictures can be doctored, but hey.

quetzilla

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Mister Adequate — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:38:07 PDT

Well, if I had a solar death ray, I imagine I'd demand a good deal more than $500 million. =P

Mister Adequate

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

tamoko — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:22:30 PDT

@Illuminatus: Me too... Sometimes simple is better.

I love me some SteamPunk.

tamoko

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

tamoko — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:21:28 PDT

The Russians have already tried a very primitive version of this. They launched an unmanned Soyuz, with an inflatable mylar disk at the front. I don't recall how large it was (not very) but they wanted to test the idea of using orbital mirrors to reflect light onto Siberian cities, shrouded in darkness for large portions of the year. I don't believe it worked very well, it was probably way too small. Or the whole thing was just a creative cover story for an steerable orbital mirror for a ground based laser... Who knows.

tamoko

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

Illuminatus — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:20:46 PDT

It always amazes me how the oldest ideas can become useful with a bit of modern technology. Along with bleeding edge tech like paint-on photovoltaics and breeder-reactors, we have sun-powered steam turbines.

I love science.

Illuminatus