Originally posted by sonhouse .....it would seem fixed solar cells would be needed every few km.
Surely the superconductor means that you have free power transportation, and it doesn't matter where you place your solar cells as long as enough of them get enough sunlight at any given time.
Actually you have free power storage too, so the solar cells could all be in one place if necessary.
Originally posted by twhitehead Surely the superconductor means that you have free power transportation, and it doesn't matter where you place your solar cells as long as enough of them get enough sunlight at any given time.
Actually you have free power storage too, so the solar cells could all be in one place if necessary.
Solar cells on the moon have a big problem: Say they are on the equator somewhere.
There is still night and day there also but night and days are 14 earth days each. So if you have cells on the lunar equator, you better have them plastered all over linked by something like my trans-lunar railway because you would have to have enough overkill power to store somehow 14 earth nights of energy, about 336 hours without sunlight. My trans-lunar railway would solve that problem though, the cells would be on a train constantly in max sunlight going around the lunar equator and transferring power to the rails which could have power pickoffs anywhere around the globe.
Alternatively you could have tracking cells on the lunar poles with transmission lines going where they are needed, that way you would have power pretty much 24/7. If you had cells on the lunar equator, you would need something like 14 times your daily requirement in power generation, probably more like 20 times after system inefficiencies are taken into consideration and power storage for 14 long lunar nights.
Originally posted by sonhouse Solar cells on the moon have a big problem: Say they are on the equator somewhere.
There is still night and day there also but night and days are 14 earth days each. So if you have cells on the lunar equator, you better have them plastered all over linked by something like my trans-lunar railway because you would have to have enough overkill power to store ...[text shortened]... r system inefficiencies are taken into consideration and power storage for 14 long lunar nights.
-just an idea:
Could there be a crater edge or mountain ridge/peek near enough to the middle of one of the poles of the moon so that, at one half of the lunar cycle, one side of the ridge is light by the sun and the other side is lit up by the other half of the lunar cycle?
If so, you may have several solar panels arranged on either side of the very edge of the ridge and all of them just literally centimetres apart and all contained within the same small area and yet they could be so arranged so that, at any one point of time, at least one of them will always be in the sun and providing power and without having to keep moving the panels to make sure that this happens.
25 Nov '10 04:481 edit
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