3D Solar towers boost electricity production by around 50% | Hacker News Reader

3D Solar towers boost electricity production by around 50%

newatlas.com

9 pointsthelastgallon18 comments

Open articleView on HN

Texas-based Janta Power --- as low as $0.05/kWh compared to a global average of about $0.15/kWh.

The solar revolution has definitely arrived when even oil soaked Texas is on board.

At this rate, it will only takes a few decades for the USA to catch China.

https://electrek.co/2025/09/02/h1-2025-china-installs-more-s...

It's a sad thing to say but to see the future, look to China, not the USA.

> The solar revolution

Made me chuckle since the panels revolve to track the sun.

>At this rate, it will only takes a few decades for the USA to catch China.

Where will China be in a few decades?

Manufacturing most of the world's goods using automation and cheap power.

https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/western-executives-...

Yes! Everyone forgets about the super cheap power in US and so many people complaining how their electricity bills are going to zero!

I wonder what the people in China will be doing then.

Troubleshooting robots, developing super intelligence, working to further economic hegemony over western countries.

I wonder what the people in the USA will be doing then? Still waiting for tariff payments from China?

So all 1.4+ billion people will be employed doing all that work. Riiiiight...

Of course not.

There will always be service jobs. But they will likely have lots of people on some form of Universal Basic Income --- which they will pay for using money sucked out of western economies.

Where will the USA get this kind of money from? Borrowing/credit?

https://www.the-sun.com/topic/universal-basic-income/

It's a sad thing to say but to see the future, look to China, not the USA.

I don’t understand how this achieves a higher density. Won’t taller towers cast larger shadows, thus requiring towers to be spaced further apart?

These are not just taller. They also rotate to track the sun --- makes them much more efficient.

The increased "density" is measured in kwh per acre --- and the increased efficiency figures into this.

>Tall skyscrapers can hold significantly more people on a small footprint, so why not apply that thinking to solar panels as well?

This is not a good analogy and seems to misunderstand the purpose of the arrangement.

More kwh on a small footprint?

So, people take up volume, which is a cubic function, whereas solar panels take up surface area, which is a square function. But on top of that, though they might kvetch, people can be in a shadow and still be reasonably in a dwelling. If you started making a field of solar towers, they'd start casting shade on each other and reduce the efficiency. Which isn't to say that there would be zero marginal additional kwh/sqft, but that you'd get dramatically diminishing returns the less you spaced out the towers, which I think happens slower for people.

+1 for kvetch

Panels are becoming as cheap as the dirt from whence they came so owners of big plots spend the least welder-hours propping them off the ground. Would this make sense for airports?

"Uh, control, we cant see the ground because there is a massive blinding glare coming from what appears to be a giant field of mirrors with a landing strip in the middle."

Matte solar panels like roads instead of glossy?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com