California-based startup Reflect Orbital aims to build a swarm of 4,000 giant mirrors in low Earth orbit to “sell sunlight” to customers at night. Experts warn that the mirrors could mess with telescopes, blind stargazers and impact the environment.
Reflect Orbital, which was founded in 2021, has recently taken the first step in a scheme to sell sunlight at night by bouncing solar rays off giant “reflectors” that can redirect the vital resource almost anywhere on our planet. By doing this, the company aims to extend daylight hours in specific locations, thus allowing paying customers to generate solar power, grow crops and replace urban lighting.
But experts say it is a wildly impractical plan that should never get off the ground. What’s more, the resulting light pollution could devastate ground-based astronomy, distract aircraft pilots and even blind stargazers.
They’re not going to reflect sunlight that wouldn’t otherwise hit the planet. This won’t add extra energy to the planet, just move it around a bit.
Literally a screenshot from their website
If I understand correctly, those mirrors will reflect sun rays, that would otherwise be wasted across the universe, to earth.
So, you are fundamentally wrong. The very idea is to reflect sunlight that wouldn’t otherwise hit the planer. This WILL add extra energy to the planet.
Even if they used sunlight that bounces off earth, they would still cause issues, just a little less serious. This is because they would be trapping energy that tries to leave the earth.
They’re supposed to be positioned in low earth orbit. Apart from a very slim belt that light would’ve hit the planet anyway.
Did you bother to read the 3rd part of my previous comment?
Are you being serious? I can’t tell, but if you are, that’s not how this works.
You either steal energy from somewhere/someone to redirect it around the planet where it’s dark, or, you add energy from what is not hitting the planet in the first place.
You can’t have a situation where you aren’t stealing someone’s sunlight and you aren’t adding sunlight
Are you serious? Taking energy from one part of the planet and putting it somewhere else isn’t going to make the planet hotter, like the previous commenter stated. Taking water from 1 lake and putting it in a neighboring lake, isn’t going to add or retract from the total water.
We do take energy from one place and put it in another. In the form of fossil fuels. And we ship it with what energy now?
What does that have to do with mirrors in space?