[HN Gopher] An Italian town that built its own sun (2021)
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An Italian town that built its own sun (2021)
Author : Amorymeltzer
Score : 134 points
Date : 2024-12-08 20:21 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| pidge wrote:
| Soon available as a service https://www.reflectorbital.com/
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| That seems outrageous. Do they make any claims about how many
| watts or lumens they can deliver, and to what area?
| margalabargala wrote:
| "As many as VC money is prepared to pay for" is the answer
| here.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| Astronomers: Starlink constellation solar panels are ruining
| the astro photography. Reflect Orbital: That sounds like a
| startup idea! /s
|
| Russians also seemed to think that math could work out, but
| fumbled on funding and engineering -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(satellite)
| bee_rider wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it is the eternal fate of Russian physicists
| to have worked out the math, but to not have the funding or
| engineering to implement a thing, right? So, I guess that
| fact, at least, doesn't tell us much of anything.
| alnwlsn wrote:
| I refuse to believe this project isn't some sort of elaborate
| troll.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Some people have convinced themselves they can disrupt
| anything.
| notahacker wrote:
| I'm sort of torn between that reaction and "hey, this seems
| similar logistics-wise to that space solar project I'm
| kicking off next week"...
| LtWorf wrote:
| Asimov described a similar thing in I Robot. I imagine it'd
| create very unpredictable climate issues.
| perdomon wrote:
| Scrolljacking makes it impossible to get info from a website at
| a glance.
| ChiefNotAClue wrote:
| Dave from the EEVBlog did a take on this.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM
| lxgr wrote:
| Assuming this works (which might be a big if, even with
| recently greatly expanded launch capabilities), it raises the
| question of who gets to decide whether a given piece of land
| should be illuminated at night or not.
|
| Hopefully not just the highest bidder, without any veto right
| of the (other) people that are there too?
| labster wrote:
| Another one in Rjukan, Norway:
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170314-the-town-that-bu...
| (2017)
| dang wrote:
| Discussed here:
|
| _A Norwegian town built a giant mirror to deflect the sun
| (2017)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19910305 - May
| 2019 (97 comments)
|
| Sort of related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34056620
|
| Others?
| vidarh wrote:
| There was also a planned (but scrapped) project in Rattenberg,
| Austria:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenberg
| hakonjdjohnsen wrote:
| There are also two systems in Sydney, the big tall one on
| Rhodes Central [1] and the slightly smaller on One Central Park
| [2].
|
| I think the idea is that by removing some of the shadowing from
| the high-rise buildings, the local authorities allow the
| buildings to be taller, which makes this type of system pay
| off.
|
| [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-13/heliostats-
| bringing-l... [2] https://good-design.org/projects/one-central-
| park-heliostat-...
| eh_why_not wrote:
| _> The mirror was designed by Bozani with the help of engineer
| Gianni Ferrari, and cost about EUR100,000..._
|
| First reaction: why would a mirror cost this much?
|
| _> Eight metres wide and five tall, it reflects the sunlight for
| six hours a day, following the sun's path in the sky thanks to a
| software programme that makes it rotate._
|
| Also saw elsewhere that the reflectors are made of steel. So a
| giant, software-controlled, motorized structure, reflecting just
| the right amount of sunlight to a precise location, sitting out
| there in the elements...
|
| Totally worth it, and what a cool project!
|
| Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliostat ("Aziz,
| Light!")
| moffkalast wrote:
| "It's a Ferrari!"
|
| "It's a steel box!"
| yohannparis wrote:
| This reference was such a classic for years after the release
| of the Fifth Element!
| notahacker wrote:
| my thought was the opposite: "only EUR 100k for a giant sun
| tracking device mounted above a village? Maybe Montgomery
| Burns' idea of doing the same thing in reverse wasn't so
| ludicrous after all..."
| nine_k wrote:
| The hardware may cost very modestly. But consider the salary of
| the people who designed it, built it, transported it, and
| installed it. These must be several pros, working on that full-
| time, at a salary near the competitive level (even if they
| agree to take a hit out of being charitable). Much of that
| salary would go to the taxes.
| bayouborne wrote:
| Interesting. It's hydraulically controlled -
|
| https://youtu.be/kWiilCH1AO0?si=PxE3UuB9DE9sB0Hq&t=124
|
| Norway's Rjukan seems to have implemented it better
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PbAsci1D0k
| nikolay wrote:
| A clickbait title - they reflected the existing sun.
| throw646577 wrote:
| (Can't tell if joking or serious)
|
| The subset of people for whom such a title would be "clickbait"
| is so small and well-informed that they ought not to be falling
| for clickbait.
|
| Everyone else understands that since it is impossible to build
| a sun, it must be a clever metaphor or some other intriguing
| novelty.
| MonkeyClub wrote:
| GP is quite right that it's clickbaity. Better title would be
| "... its own sun reflector", but it's not as catchy for Vice.
| throw646577 wrote:
| Headlines written in poetic style have existed for about
| 400 years before clickbait was a problem. Complaining about
| clickbait is one thing; ridding the world of poetic,
| intriguing headline and subhead writing is just going to
| make us miserable.
| nottorp wrote:
| Are you absolutely sure that right at this moment some
| startup isn't gathering funding for a proper artificial sun?
|
| I mean, they don't have to succeed, just to convince the
| angel investors to put some money in...
| nikolay wrote:
| Artificial "sun" _could be_ and _will be_ created... one day.
| By reading the title, I 've thought this day has come
| already.
| alnwlsn wrote:
| panel = 40 m^2 sunlight = 1370 W/m^2
|
| So some amount less than 50 kW. Maybe about 2x photonicinduction
| garden light bulbs, or a few dozen normal streetlights. Seems
| like about the right amount to light up a very small town.
|
| But it makes me wonder why anyone would choose to settle in an
| area which is in shadow 1/4 of the time. Why found a city there?
| kgdiem wrote:
| I assumed it was a safe place to live in the year 1300 through
| the 1800s when Napoleon was romping through Italy on through to
| the 1940s.
| vidarh wrote:
| Presumably it's pleasant the rest of the time, or near a
| suitable travel route or natural resources, and because it's
| easier to build there than higher up the mountain side.
|
| E.g. while much newer, the town of Rjukan in Norway which also
| has a small heliostat, was built specifically due to the nearby
| waterfalls that provided easy access to power for industrial
| use, and the valley floor was where most of the town was
| constructed because that's were the easily accessible terrain
| was.
| gpas wrote:
| It's a small hamlet founded by iron miners, they were familiar
| with darkness. Foundries and blacksmiths also worked well in
| the shadow i think.
|
| Here is a quick history of the village
| https://www.comune.borgomezzavalle.vb.it/en-us/vivere-il-com...
| dtgriscom wrote:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/28841+Viganella,+Province+...
| thund wrote:
| Mirror: https://maps.app.goo.gl/soe6WX87ihvu4E1W9
| smurpy wrote:
| I lived in Inuvik, NWT (Canada) for a decade in my youth. It's
| above the Arctic Circle and has 30 days without sunlight,
| bracketed by months of near darkness. Each year a new crop of
| noobs would move in and there would be a little exodus when the
| folks who just couldn't hack the dark would finally realize what
| they had signed up for. Summer was grand compensation though,
| three or four months of the sun being up whenever you might be
| tempted to be. An odd thing was, in the summer, being up at 3 am
| and seeing things uncannily lit from an unfamiliar side! Quite a
| fascinating place to experience, all in all, and well worth the
| couple thousands of kilometers of driving to get there too.
| hrdwdmrbl wrote:
| It's surprisingly small! In order to deliver enough light, I
| would have assume it would need to be maybe half the size of the
| area it needs to illuminate.
|
| Would it ever make sense to build one for ones own home? I guess
| it must be far enough away for the light to spread out enough...
| mattyw wrote:
| I didn't realise the Thunderbirds was a documentary
|
| https://youtu.be/h9kPmX32j9A?feature=shared
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| Lighting conditions seem to check out:
|
| https://shademap.app/@46.05225,8.19394,11.38803z,17341770702...
| frankohn wrote:
| I think we as human beings do not actually invest almost anything
| in these kinds of quality of life improvements. Everything is
| based on commercial interests driven by capitalism, so big
| projects are undertaken only when there is proportionate
| commercial interest in them. I feel we could improve people's
| quality of life significantly if only we put our resources and
| technology in service of this purpose.
|
| In this case, you may notice that this project was done just by
| the municipality, not by any government or commercial entity, and
| only because of the goodwill of a few people in this town. I
| would say we need political will at the state level to accomplish
| these kinds of projects.
|
| I feel that with modern day technology could do marvel to improve
| the quality of life of people. Instead technology often ends up
| making life of people subtly more miserable.
|
| Edit: fixed writing error
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