this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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Science Memes

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[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)
[–] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

And if you wanna go big you use liquid salt instead of boring old water.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The concept is viable. Just needs moar mirrors

[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Mythbusters used a lot of mirrors, and could not get it to work.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The concept is viable. Just needs moar mirrors

[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 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!