zlacker

>>g-mork+(OP)
> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power

We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon.

edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial percentage of the Sun's power. A few trillionths per year.

>>gok+h4
In fairness, solar cells can be about 5x more efficient in space (irradiance, uptime).

>>moeadh+Lf
The quoted "1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally" is the peak output, not the average output. They're only about 20% higher peak output in space… well, if you can keep them cool at least.

>>ben_w+Bp
But there are no clouds in space and with the right orbit they are always facing the sun

>>pantal+gt
The 1TW is the rated peak power output. It's essentially the same in space. The thing that changes is the average fraction of this sustained over time (due to day/night/seasons/atmosphere, or the lack of all of the above).

It's still the same 1TW theoretical peak in space, it's just that you can actually use close to that full capacity all the time, whereas on earth you'd need to over-provision substantially and add storage, so 1TW of panels can only drive perhaps a few hundred GW of average load.

>>jrk+uv
> the whole capacity

Wouldn’t something like half of the panels be in shadow at any time?

>>single+Ew
Depends where you put them. The current vogue option is a sun-synchronous orbit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit