Generating Power on Earth from the Coldness of Deep Space | Hacker News Reader

Generating Power on Earth from the Coldness of Deep Space

spectrum.ieee.org

31 pointsmfiguiere14 comments

This is pretty cool (pun not intended). We just have to be careful to not overuse the resource, or else we can end up with a universal warming crisis. Even worse than mere global warming.

Our universe is a closed system. We cannot change its overall heat content. We can only move heat around within it.

Without tapping into another universe - which we're nowhere close to being able to even theorize about - all we have the ability to do is create a localized heating crisis within our universe.

The universe is busy doing this itself. Eventually we use up all the low entropy states and end up in high entropy states where we can no longer extract useful energy.

In about 5 billion years, we'll have a really bad localized heating crisis in our solar system.

Relevant graph for reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_window#/media/File...

The terrestrial blackbody curves are in the top right (labelled "210 K - 310 K"), and the filled blue curve below those is radiative emission with atmospheric absorption subtracted out.

- "Within the mid-infrared range, which is where heat radiation from typical earthbound objects is concentrated, the most applicable atmospheric transmission band is in the 8- to 13-micrometer-wavelength range."

I think the direct electrical generation is a niche application and most likely a scientific curiosity.

The commercial application of space cooling sounds much more exciting as a way of cooling without electricity.

It would also be interesting if they could use the cooling effect to cool a working fluid and use that the run a turbine. Choose the correct working fluid that will expand at ambient. Such design may have higher energy density per area. And would work all year around.

I wonder what the geoengineering implications are of this technology. (I suppose we couldn't make enough of it over enough space to matter wrt global warming)

>we demonstrated 50 milliwatts per square meter of nighttime electricity generation

That's compared to 200 watts you can get from a reasonable panel in that same area during a clear day.

Like solar roadways, or "gravity energy storage", a good sounding idea, but not practical.

The article discusses the actual goal: solar power systems that make power day and night.

Covering the entire state of Massachusetts with these would generate as much power as a single nuclear plant.

So? If they can be produced economically and occupy the same footprint as solar who cares about power density?

Nobody is suggesting making power plants out of these panels. So not sure why you’d have that idea.

If you don’t have access to the grid, like for remote sensors and such, being able to generate just a bit of power at night can let you avoid needing an expensive battery.

Don’t argue against a technology based on an application it was never intended to handle.

“SkyCool’s Panels save 2x – 3x as much energy as a solar panel generates given the same area” [1].

[1] https://www.skycoolsystems.com/

Reminds me of Trantor in Asimov's Foundation books. They had to beam heat into space with lasers if I recall correctly.

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