Effective use of natural sunlight in a habitat.

On Jul 23, 2007, at 13:37 UTC, Combs, Mike wrote:

> Why are we working so hard to avoid use of electricity? I would have
> thought that one of the advantages of living outside the shadow of the
> Earth is that solar-generated electricity would be very cheap.

That's the standard story, at least -- abundant solar electricity. But
then the standard designs bend themselves backwards to bring natural
sunlight in, despite the serious heat-rejection issues that result.

I suspect that this is because in the 1970s, lighting technology wasn't
nearly as advanced as it was now. Any lights based on incandescence
put out huge amounts of waste heat anyway, at there were no
broad-spectrum alternatives at the time. But today, with things like
OLED lighting, we can have pretty much any spectrum we want, with high
efficiency and almost no waste heat. It seems a bit silly to be piping
dangerously condensed sunlight around complex geometries when you could
instead just convert solar energy to electricity wherever that is
convenient, and transmit the electricity by ordinary means to wherever
light is needed.

> Not only do I predict inhabitants of orbital habitats will use
> electricity for all of the applications we do at present, I further
> predict they will use if for application we presently do not because
> of the price/kilowatt we pay.

I agree. Like growing crops under artificial lights, whose spectrum is
tuned to the plant's needs, for example. :)

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...
Strout Custom Solutions, LLC