Keith Henson wrote:
StratoSolar
This is off NDA so I can go into detail.
...
> Ed's
approach, which he named StratoSolar, was to reduce the mass from
hundreds of kg per kW to a few tens of kg by moving the solar
concentrator into the stratosphere as a large, lightweight, buoyant
structure.
...
The concentrated sunlight gets to the ground via a hollow light pipe
lined with highly reflective prismatic plastic. Preliminary
optimization for kg/kW leads to a 30-meter diameter light pipe with
less than 10% loss. A larger pipe has lower losses but uses more
total material per kW.
Keith--
Hi. StratoSolar is interesting. I looked at the website
when you mentioned it a month ago. At the time, this
was my main objection:
I see bigger problems with losses in the light pipe.
The plan seems to be to have a flexible tube lined
with reflective material to guide the solar radiation
down to steam turbines or whatever on the ground.
Most of the light would have to reflect off the sides
many times, losing at least a few percent of its
intensity at each reflection. So nothing makes it
to the ground, and the light pipe melts. There may
be solutions to this too, but they're going to be
tricky.
How many reflections are you assuming light will make
as it goes down the pipe, and how glancing are they?
---David
_______________________________________________
http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
