© NASA
We know it's a cult when we have thousands of years of nuclear power available but scientists want to build giant mirrors in space to reflect the sun onto solar panels on Earth.We know it's corrupt when governments won't pay for research into the suns role in our climate but they'll give
2.5 million Euros to a wild idea that might rescue their banker and investment friends last technological white elephant. This was funded under "EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)" don't you know?
They figure we could get teams of robots into space to assemble vast mirrors about 1 km across that would reflect the sun from 900km above Earth onto solar plants so they make electricity a bit more often. What could possibly go wrong, apart from mishaps that blind drivers, hurt wildlife, screw body clocks and waste gazillions of dollars?
As the huge reflectors pass over a solar plant, they will spin around and point at it to illuminate it "and it's immediate surroundings". Thus theoretically extending the working day of the solar panels, and delivering energy at breakfast and dinner time when the peak hour demand is killing our new fragile grids.
Supposedly when the plant on the ground rolls out of view, the giant mirrors will spin themselves edge on to the sun so they stop reflecting sunlight. Just imagine the maintenance nightmare and cost blowouts possible with large precision space infrastructure? Not to mention what happens when the software goes wrong, or hostile cyberhackers play "spot light" with highways, airports and military installations. How much fun can you have with a 10 kilometer wide beam? (That's just the inner intense core, the actual "stray light" could be an oval up to 70 km long.)
All the nasty surprises that make solar panels and wind farms so uneconomic on the planet would presumably multiply ten-fold in orbit as clouds get in the way, then solar flares and space junk damage the mirrors. How long will mirrors keep their smooth surface under the constant onslaught of the solar wind that runs at a million miles an hour?
Comment: Update January 22
Bianet.org reports: