Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Solar in space is only about 2x more effective per unit area of solar panel than solar on the ground, after you deduct transmission losses. The costs, of course, are much higher. The enthusiasm for hydrogen as energy storage is misplaced. Electricity to hydrogen to electricity is maybe 40% efficient. Lithium batteries are 80% - 90% round trip.

In any place that needs air conditioning, solar power is very effective. Peak load and peak solar panel output line up nicely, and little storage is needed. Keep it simple.

View on HN

Some countries don't get much sunshine though, e.g. the UK only gets sun around 30% of the daytime according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_United_Kingdom .

Spain isn't that much farther away than outer space.

We can't beam energy from Spain to elsewhere via microwaves, though. And it still gets dark at night in Spain.

It gets dark in the stratosphere too, and the UK already has a power grid connecting it with the Spanish power grid which doesn't rely on 20km cables into the sky...

The parent post was about outer space, not the stratosphere. And that method uses microwave transmission, not cables.

Outer space gets dark too you not sure which orbit will get you 100 sun time solar synced orbits still get 50% night time. Maybe some geosync high polar orbit but then you have issues with transmition. Space solar makes very little sense you only get twice the solar power at 50% efficiency rate at best.

It also doesn't need much air conditioning. And when it does, it's because the sun is out.

Hydrogen could be handy for heating. The efficiency would be higher too, since what you want is heat & you get all of it by simply burning it.

You could collect it in North Africa and distribute to Europe in the winter.

Lithium batteries are not portable, hydrogen can be. With sufficient solar power generation that forty odd percent efficiency would become a non issue.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com