From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Dec 17 2001 - 12:04:37 MST
Eugene Leitl wrote:
> > you have to use multi-layer cells made from different materials with
> > higher and lower energy band gaps to get into the 30+% region.
>
> What's the obsession with efficiency at this early point of the game? If
> you've got a few 100 km^2 lunar plains covered with hardware, it doesn't
> really matter that much whether it's 5% or 25%.
>
> And late stuff is all spaceborne, anyway, where efficiency is even less
> relevant, considering that we have enough material in the inner solar
> system to intercept the entire solar output.
Well, mass is a precious commodity for spacecraft, so one tries to make
the most of it, while maximizing energy generation, thus high efficiency
is highly useful for spacecraft needing to get from point A to B.
With a large, uninhabited landscape like Luna, efficiency is not so
necessary. You've got plenty of mass, you don't have to worry so much
about Luddites protesting against ruining that lunar ecosphere (though
I'm sure some fools will try to do so (hey, that may be an effective
counter-luddite propaganda movement, which will make them look like
fools to everyone else)) or displacing valuable farmland or other real
estate.
One thing to worry about, though, will be people objecting to the idea
that the earthbound view of the moon would be somehow altered by large
scale construction of solar farms there. This can easily be countered by
TV ads showing computer generated before and after images showing
absolutely no recognisable change at human-capable resolution (it might
be even more effective if used at resolutions equivalent to that of some
other animals, like eagles, etc).
The strongest segment of the NIMBY/luddite movement at the present, at
least in rural areas, is widespread objections to alterations of
landcape views created by cellphone towers in rural/wild areas. You get
wealthy cityfolk who pay big bucks to buy/build their 'country retreats'
and they are the biggest opponents to anyone else in the community
developing their property, especially in ways that don't fit their
naive, Rockwell/Parrish-inspired ideas of what country living should be
like.
Doing a visible alteration to the near side of the moon would create
similarly huge opposition on a global scale, if only by those who want
to screw up the plans of Americans for their own resentment/rivalry
based reasons.
For this reason, it may be preferable to make solar farms as efficient
as possible, to reduce the footprint on the earthside view. I think it
would be a good idea to run up some computer simulations with graphic
output to mockup how various farm layouts with various degrees of ground
coverage would impact the view at various resolutions. Coming up with
layouts and ground coverage percentages that would be undetectable at
eagle resolutions would help mitigate environmentalists claims that such
farms would somehow significantly alter the way that animals perceive
the moon, since it is allegedly of importance to how some animals
navigate, etc...
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