logoalt Hacker News

petermcneeley06/16/20251 replyview on HN

"reflects onto dozens of photovoltaic cells arranged around the inside of the device which convert the energy back to usable power."

This is no different that what we were considering two decades ago for the space elevator competition. One of the problems with this approach is that as the photovoltaic cells heat up their overall efficiency decreases.


Replies

bagels06/16/2025

They'll only get so hot, and you can just spread the energy across more cells, right?

show 1 reply