A Dyson-Sphere is a hypothetical mega-structure that encompasses a Star and captures a large percentage of its energy OUPUT. The opposite of this would be a hypothetical megastructure that encompasses a Planet and captures a large percentage of its energy INPUT.
The Earth receives about 173,000 terawatts of solar power continuously (i.e., at any moment), which adds up to over 4 million terawatt-hours of energy PER DAY. That’s roughly 10,000 times more than all of humanity currently uses. Which means that if we could capture even just 0.01% of the solar energy reaching Earth, we could power the entire planet’s energy needs. [numbers and figures provided by ChatGPT]
In addition to the energy generated, the structure would also block some of the sunlight, effectively achieving SOLAR-DIMMING (a geoengineering solution already being considered as a way to lower Earth’s temperatures). According to ChatGPT, blocking just 1% of daily sunlight would cool the Earth by approximately ~2.7°C.
AND… in addition to the Solar-Energy and Solar-Dimming capabilities, if we used its energy FIRST to power “Carbon-Removing Machines” and “Water-Desalination Plants” (since the biggest hurdles of these two efforts are their energy consumption), we could potentially slow-and-steady start reversing the effects of Global Warming.
The advantage of having a “modular” Dyson, is that instead of having to build one giant thing in one go, we can send out 10 Solar-Satellites today, then 6 months from now send out another 10, and so on and so forth, and build it slow-and-steady, until eventually there are enough orbiting satellites to supply all energy demand.
( Also, in a world with unlimited solar power there would be no more need for 'Crude' wars. )
CREDIT: original article
"The problem with fossil fuels is that it produces too-little energy to meet our current demands, and the problem with a Dyson Sphere (besides being impossible to build) is that it produces Too-Much energy, and we would never use it all in the first place.
What we need is a 'goldilocks' solution, something that is juuuust right.
Something big enough to meet all energy demands, but not so big that it's merely hypothetical."
Could a Modular "Reverse" Dyson-Sphere be possible to build? (as opposed to a "regular" Dyson-Sphere)
byu/ImperialCatSmuggler inFuturology
9 Comments
What if a type 2 civilization is just the ability to harness fusion energy? What if we’ve been thinking about the kardashev scale wrong? It would make sense to me because the scales to harness all of your home star’s energy don’t seem to be within the realm of what’s possible to me.
Edit: plus I’d argue it’s way more impressive and difficult to be able to recreate how energy is created in a star than just collect what’s already there.
I mean orbital solar generation has been a thing since we started going to orbit.
The real challenge is how to get the power down to earth on a usable way. Power cables would be extremely complex and deadly if they fail, we don’t have any real form of wireless transmission beyond maybe a metre or so and getting batteries up to orbit would require so much fossil fuel that we’d be better of burning that in a power plant instead. (Besides reentry adds huge amounts of heat into the atmosphere too)
Building satellites that would always face the sun and generate GWs of power is more of a logistics challenge than anything else. We have the understanding and materials to do it.
Getting the power down in a way we can use it is a materials science and engineering problem we are along way from solving.
Solar dimming has tons of probable downsides from crop efficiency to dramatic changes to weather patterns. Life has evolved here around converting sunlight to energy. Maybe if applied to only the poles it could be effective without the risk, but there are potentially [better solutions from the climate perspective which increase the albedo effect](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-refreeze-the-arctics-ice-scientists-test-new-geoengineering-solutions/).
To understand some of the problems, read up on some of the research and modeling done regarding covering the sahara with solar panels. Here’s an [article that provides a summary](https://www.inverse.com/science/why-turning-the-sahara-into-a-giant-solar-farm-could-damage-the-global-climate).
If we moved most production off earth we could use solar to power that production, significantly reducing energy needs on earth so that we can get more than what we need from earth based sources.
Our local space is already too full of space junk we’ve shot into orbit.
Your idea could be interesting on a small moon or large asteroid in our system if we want to mine.
There is enough crap in orbit already. Why not place something at L1 and nudge asteroid resources into it. It takes much energy to get stuff into LEO, up or down.
Logically, I think this would actually be pretty terrible to be honest. For a thought experiment, let’s assume we could cover 100% of the earth with 100% efficient solar panels. In order to set a baseline, we’ll say that with an earth covered with total energy absorption receives “100% solar energy”.
If you created an orbital blanket that somehow fully covered all of the available space around the planet in order to increase our energy capture… You’d still only be getting like 102% energy, because you aren’t significantly increasing the available energy-capturing surface area. It’s going to be the same size as your earth-only energy capture, minus the thickness of the orbiting zone.
Not to mention that both of these attempts would very kill the planet. It turns out that if we reduced the sun’s luminosity by 1%, it is theorized that we would suffer a runaway cooling affect that would bring more ice, bringing more cooling, and that we would suffer a catastrophic ocean acidification. https://youtube.com/shorts/Cc3DRRJxhB8?si=fuO1PmlEbYth1-eo
This is a fun watch that just came out yesterday.
There is no reason to even consider this at our current level. If you want a big empty area, just put solar farms in the deserts, there’s enough of them to go around on earth. They’re kinda difficult to access but still easier than space.
Solar panels… We’re talking about solar panels right?
TBH I thought I was in r/worldbuilding for a moment and was thinking the reverse Dyson Sphere was being used to block other star systems from “seeing” the solar system.