From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Mon Dec 17 2001 - 13:23:50 MST
On Monday, December 17, 2001 2:04 PM Mike Lorrey mlorrey@datamann.com
wrote:
> 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).
I would think so too. I bet it would hardly be noticeable. Moreover,
even if it were and opposition to noticeable solar farms was effective,
they could moved to places less viewable or not viewable at all from
Earth, such as the far side or near enough to the far side to still be
in line of sight yet not noticeable. This would them less efficient,
but is still a potential solution.
> 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...
Not a bad idea and also I think people advocating lunar solar farms
should devote a lot of effort toward recruiting the NIMBY and
environmental types -- the ones that are recruitable -- so that they,
too, can promulgate the notion of off planet power generation. If the
choice is offered as either more power plants on Earth (of whatever
type) vs. more in space or on the Moon, I think many of them would
choose the latter, other things being equal.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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