Lighting the dark (night) areas on earth with sun light conveyed from bright areas?

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  • lamanhcuong
    Junior Member
    • Aug 2012
    • 1

    Lighting the dark (night) areas on earth with sun light conveyed from bright areas?

    The sun never stops shining to our earth. But while one half of the earth is abundantly shined with bright sun light, the other half is in dark and electrical lights must be used. Imagine that we could convey the sun light from the bright (day) areas of the earth to the dark (night) areas, huge energy will be saved, together with many other benefits when our night is shined with natural sun light!

    Optical fiber cable can be thought for that conveyance. Sun lights from the brighting areas are captured, concentrated, fed into the optical fibers (ideally the optical fibers form a global ring circling around the earth’s equator) and conveyed to the night areas on earth. One night area (the light "receiver"), when on its turn becoming a bright area at day, will vice versa play as the source of sun light (the light "transmitter") for the other night areas on earth.

    Of course how the optical fiber cable can convey the light over long distance is the biggest (technical) challenge, secondly whether all the nations on our earth are willing to cooperate for the global utilizing and sharing of the most valuable and important resource that the Nature generously grant us?

    How would you think about such global light sharing idea?

    Thank you.

    La Manh Cuong

    [Mod: Read the forum rules before you post anything more. If you duplicate post, both posts will be deleted.]
    Last edited by Jason; 08-09-2012, 10:52 AM. Reason: Warning on duplicate posting.
  • axis11
    Solar Fanatic
    • Mar 2011
    • 237

    #2
    I think having the sun shine at night would have a negative impact on most living things. Nocturnal creatures would probably die.
    Having a worldwide interconnected grid would be a more feasible solution for lack of sunlight at night.

    Comment

    • Sunny Solar
      Solar Fanatic
      • May 2012
      • 510

      #3
      A world wide electrical is the only way to go and it has been proposed many times before. But nothing has ever come of it. Hard to get every country to cooperate AND actually put up MONEY.. One idea was supercooled conductors to keep wire size down to manageable sizes.

      But dont expect any result until at least after next christmas.

      Comment

      • Sunking
        Solar Fanatic
        • Feb 2010
        • 23301

        #4
        You cannot fool Mother Nature and we already have such a device provided by God. We call it the Moon.
        MSEE, PE

        Comment

        • inetdog
          Super Moderator
          • May 2012
          • 9909

          #5
          Originally posted by Sunking
          You cannot fool Mother Nature and we already have such a device provided by God. We call it the Moon.
          But the moon is unreliable. Only works 50% of the time! We need a second moon to provide full coverage.
          SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.

          Comment

          • billvon
            Solar Fanatic
            • Mar 2012
            • 803

            #6
            Originally posted by lamanhcuong
            Optical fiber cable can be thought for that conveyance. Sun lights from the brighting areas are captured, concentrated, fed into the optical fibers (ideally the optical fibers form a global ring circling around the earth’s equator) and conveyed to the night areas on earth.
            The use of orbital mirrors for illumination of cities at night has been proposed several times and is relatively simple (if expensive to implement.) Optical fiber has some problems with transmission losses and power handling capability; you'd be talking gigawatts of optical power being transmitted.

            Comment

            • inetdog
              Super Moderator
              • May 2012
              • 9909

              #7
              Originally posted by billvon
              Optical fiber has some problems with transmission losses and power handling capability; you'd be talking gigawatts of optical power being transmitted.
              We do not yet have the optical fiber equivalent of superconductors. Here's hoping that there is something coming in that direction.
              Also, a break in a fiber carrying that amount of power could be interesting!
              Last edited by inetdog; 08-09-2012, 06:04 PM. Reason: typo
              SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.

              Comment

              • Sunking
                Solar Fanatic
                • Feb 2010
                • 23301

                #8
                Originally posted by inetdog
                We do not yet have the optical fiber equivalent of superconductors. Here's hoping that there is something coming in that direction.
                Also, a break in a fiber carry that amount of power could be interesting!
                It would make a nice Space Heater for something like a domed foot ball stadium to cook the fans to medium well done.
                MSEE, PE

                Comment

                • russ
                  Solar Fanatic
                  • Jul 2009
                  • 10360

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Sunny Solar
                  A world wide electrical is the only way to go and it has been proposed many times before. But nothing has ever come of it. Hard to get every country to cooperate AND actually put up MONEY.. One idea was supercooled conductors to keep wire size down to manageable sizes.

                  But dont expect any result until at least after next christmas.
                  Or maybe New Years - 2525
                  [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

                  Comment

                  • Shmel
                    Member
                    • Jul 2012
                    • 31

                    #10
                    Originally posted by billvon
                    The use of orbital mirrors for illumination of cities at night has been proposed several times and is relatively simple (if expensive to implement.)
                    This idea was actually tested in 1992 by Russian Space Agency. Search wikipedia for znamya-2. During this experiment a 20 meters orbital mirror produced a 5 km wide spot on the surface with brightness of full Moon. There were other experiments proposed with larger mirrors which were supposed to produce a spot as bright as several full Moons, but this research was abandoned in 1999.

                    Comment

                    • Sunny Solar
                      Solar Fanatic
                      • May 2012
                      • 510

                      #11

                      There were other experiments proposed with larger mirrors which were supposed to produce a spot as bright as several full Moons, but this research was abandoned in 1999.

                      But to get that spot bright enough to produce usable power from a solar panel is going to take a mirror a hundred times that size to just do that spot.. Gets kinda expensive.

                      Comment

                      • billvon
                        Solar Fanatic
                        • Mar 2012
                        • 803

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Sunny Solar
                        But to get that spot bright enough to produce usable power from a solar panel is going to take a mirror a hundred times that size to just do that spot.. Gets kinda expensive.
                        Why would you need solar? You use the light as is. (You don't need streetlights if you can light the streets from reflected sun, for example.)

                        Comment

                        • Shmel
                          Member
                          • Jul 2012
                          • 31

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Sunny Solar
                          But to get that spot bright enough to produce usable power from a solar panel is going to take a mirror a hundred times that size to just do that spot.. Gets kinda expensive.
                          This project has nothing to do with solar panels. This is about illumination of large areas on the night side of the Earth. For example, zones of natural disasters could be illuminated this way to let rеscue teams work 24 hours a day.

                          Comment

                          • russ
                            Solar Fanatic
                            • Jul 2009
                            • 10360

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Shmel
                            This project has nothing to do with solar panels. This is about illumination of large areas on the night side of the Earth. For example, zones of natural disasters could be illuminated this way to let rеscue teams work 24 hours a day.
                            Come on! The amount of mirror required plus the propulsion/guidance system required is well past anything we presently are capable of - year 2525 - maybe.

                            This is stuff from science fiction - from a rather poor selling author.
                            [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

                            Comment

                            • Sunny Solar
                              Solar Fanatic
                              • May 2012
                              • 510

                              #15
                              You guys suggesting they would just spend about 3.8 kazillion dollars just so cities dont need street lights.??
                              And who is going to repay me the money for the shorter life of my curtains??? Bet you havent been thinking much about the importance of that.

                              Comment

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