They're Making Solar Panels... Work at Night | Reflect Orbital

Solar power is the future - it's rapidly getting cheaper and is inexhaustible. But, it only works 50% of the time... during the day.
Reflect Orbital is challenging that by building a fleet of mirror satellites to power solar farms at night in Episode 50 of S³
Startup: www.reflectorbital.com/
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[@asandax6]

$40B is nothing in the grand scheme of cheap solar energy

[@ThreeAngrySquirrels]

That's the moment I tuned out.

[@bored833]

it's not about money, it's about an investment in those muslim/north african countries and making sure it won't bite you later... no way!

[@volovodov]

Their whole premise is that having a ton of satellites in space is cheapter than transmitting power from solar farms on the other side of the planet. I don't believe that for a second.

[@WaltersWatching]

Main problem seems to be the size of the mirror? You can only hit solar panels that are as big as the mirror itself, unless you spread the light out, but then it loses intensity. I like their optimism but it's so hard to see how adding all these moving parts to solar panels could be cost-effective.

[@bradallen1832]

It's not complicated. It's just about the cost numbers. That's all it is. Your question is right, and the answer is simple. They'll come up with an answer to that question eventually.

[@david7384]

​@@bradallen1832the answer is don't do it lmao

[@id104335409]

Warlords: A sun beam from space? I love this idea!!!

[@spelright6370]

Rip to any planes that’s get a nice beam of fresh sun in there eyes while flying at night

[@zbjz]

All pilots have maps that indicate hazards such as mines with explosives, military areas etc. so these solar farms would likely receive prominence on these charts as a potential hazard to aviation

[@joey_wittmann]

As much as i love the concept i feel like this is going to be multiple times more expensive than it is worth. Like orders of magnitude. They at best will need areas in space of reflective material equal to areas on the surface of solar panels to achieve the same output assuming perfect redirection. Percentage of light hitting the ground will be higher the closer it is to the earth, and low earth satilite space will have more value that will eventually likely require renting / insurance to send sattilites to. Reflectors for energy are unlikely to make the economic cut. Although I'm sure they already know this. The actual data and estimates they're coming up with will have actual value and be interesting to learn about, but I think talking about the problems openly by asking hard questions in interview format would reveal too much about their buisness. Hoping you dive into it for the extended interview but i understand why theyd keep that data / knowlege close to their chest.

[@dertythegrower]

I agree.. also, solar is getting super efficient now, and dual sided as well. There is also going to be limited space with all the stuff floating already at low earth orbit.. also, will the cool sunsets be ruined by this? 😅

[@s3_build]

I don't go too much into that in the sit down interview - but I do know they're thinking a lot about it. The value of S³ is that we'll be back for follow up episodes as they develop, we'll know more then.

[@bradallen1832]

"Like" is not engineering studies. "i feel like" is not a good financial numbers source. Sorry. Your data is insufficient.

[@cmlxjcky]

Depends on how big they can make the reflectors and how cheap rockets get. If they can harvest football field sizes areas of sunlight and focus them onto a regular 2 x 2 (or whatever) solar panel, that could provide a lot of power.

[@manup1931]

Sometimes people forget that most of the people sleep at night.

[@rexmann1984]

This has got to be one of the smartest dumb ideas ive seen lately. The size you'd need to make this feasible and the horrible land use vs output of even the best panels. It's absolutely absurd to think this is worth even five minutes of thought.

[@RedRyan]

It's worth way more than 5 minutes of thought. These solar farms are already there. They are already built and they are already profitable. If you can sell them some sunlight and make them slightly more profitable you get some of that profit too. Business works like that

[@MemeMan_MEMESQUAD]

yeah.. I mean you can do the math of energy/area from the sun, and then mass/area of mylar, and find this is about 1000 times too expensive to be worth it

[@asandax6]

​@@RedRyan Yeah No one is going to be happy to see bright objects floating at night especially Observatories.

[@rexmann1984]

@@RedRyan anything is "profitable" with enough government subsidies.

[@RedRyan]

@@rexmann1984 sure, but it's not profitable for society. Something has to be profitable above the subsidy is to be profitable for All of us

[@GoodBaleada]

i'm positive someone in the future is building a time machine to come back and rescue us from these people

[@JesbaamSanchez]

As much as I love technology and science. The question I think many people are forgetting is "should we". There is a reason why the sunshines one side of the planet and we already have a natural "mirror" in the sky (for those that don't know what I am talking about, I am talking about the moon) and the intensity of the reflectiveness of the moon isn't the same intensity as a mirror which can reflect the same intensity. So these are things to consider and also other environmental impacts as well.

[@bradallen1832]

I'm worried about the atmosphere scattering light all over. I wonder if there's a way to get around that. Just one thought, obviously not what they said in the video and not complete on my end: I'm starting to think about diffracted light bleeding into the night sky during humidity causing issues at night, so one way to circumvent that problem on humid nights is only target panels during dawn, dusk, twilight, and evening, so that the bleedover effect doesn't interfere with sleep and darkness. This would mean the space array is best used closer to the land panels on humid nights, and means they don't lose space reflector capacity due to double and triple hop networks on humid nights. On dry nights, diffraction is less of an issue, so the space reflectors would get to consider multihop network issues while they consider lighting up ground panels more of the night.

[@einerus]

They could make some extra money by bending those mirrors little bit to create space death ray for hire.

[@bradallen1832]

That will happen, so it might as well be the good guys doing it, not our enemies.

[@jtmg11]

Icarus. Tomorrow never dies

[@1943vermork]

Imagine cooking a small town with that technology

[@sadface7457]

You combine this with a spin launch system and it might be cost effective.

[@tomblaise]

Unfortunately spin launch is highly unlikely to ever work. Their massively publicized tests got their payload to an altitude of 7.6km. They haven’t even reached the height of a normal commercial airline flight, let alone space, and the problems with launching it faster increase exponentially. Maybe on the moon one day.

[@ericschoeman6613]

This is not gonna fly

[@807800]

Interesting, but they went too far with the hype. Like, they are being dismissive of batteries, but this thing would only give like an extra hour or so of sunlight. The batteries are still crucial.

[@KurtZoglmann]

This is an innovative solution. The devil will be in the details, both from an engineering and economics perspective. Thanks for sharing! It is thought-provoking.

[@sadface7457]

Type 1 civilization here we come

[@ddzz3927]

I think it's going to be expensive to maintain, and to launch aluminum foil into space, you have to withstand light pressure, so you have to push it regularly to maintain orbit. Moreover, the aluminum foil will be blurred and rough by high-energy particles/high-speed cosmic dust, which means that the life of a single aluminum-plastic film spacecraft is very limited, which requires low-cost transportation capacity support. And then there's the issue of orbit, and of course the cost of launching from this high-latitude orbit is slightly higher ❤from chinese

[@ddzz3927]

If they wish, they can also practice the orbit control technology based on light pressure ( ) Then the Earth-Moon transfer is performed using light pressure and electric thrust ( )

[@ChristopherReevesNZ]

I never like knocking someones idea and always try and see the positives but the challenges involved in this is just insane. I'd love to be proven wrong and be the idiot that was the doubter

[@Mike-fk9xj]

won't this create a giant sky flashlight? when its suppose to be night time.

[@BK-uf6xm]

will be more like a narrow beam of light

[@bradallen1832]

Only where they point it. That can only go wrong two ways: (1) evil people do it. That's why I want these people to do it, since they're not evil. (2). They fail to control it.

[@guiximenes]

​@BK-uf6xm still, atmosphere may scatter this beam of light in a way that there will be light in a greater area than predicted

[@casperdong]

It’s a beautiful concept and plan except execution matters the most. If they pull it off though? Amazing, but doubt creeps in and skepticism is inevitable with newer technology. If it can work economically, produce energy viably, and they are able to launch this ambitious plan? Changing the game.

[@casperdong]

Thank you S3 for supplying this amazing content though :)

[@user-gi7vi9gm4t]

i feel like there are many challenges that need to be overcome to turn this idea in to reality , i am happy that you are finding commercial uses for space which should lower the cost to get there (economies of scale) and unlock even more uses

[@bradallen1832]

Feelings aren't engineering.

[@FandangoJepZ]

Proof that big idea != good idea

[@ChristopherReevesNZ]

"!=" = perfect lol

[@bunger8658]

time for light pollution 2.0

[@FinancialShark]

I really want to hear a follow up on this story. It's a crazy idea, but a practical nightmare. I do want to hear their economic calc behind it if I would own X amount of MWp

[@gubmentchz3570]

Incredible idea. What a time to be alive. Ad astra gentlemen. Thank you S3 for this.

[@FPVREVIEWS]

Won't the reflectors only work for an hour or so near the termination point? I guess that's a really good thing. just wondering how it can be better... I suppose using a two stage reflector system may make sense?

[@dusselElite]

That's probably the plan looking at the orbits.

[@zaired]

But if they are adding one hour or 2 of peak solar electricity to solar farms all around the world, at peak times, that is worth billions!

[@bradallen1832]

Just one thought, obviously not what they said in the video and not complete on my end: I'm starting to think about diffracted light bleeding into the night sky during humidity causing issues at night, so one way to circumvent that problem on humid nights is only target panels during dawn, dusk, twilight, and evening, so that the bleedover effect doesn't interfere with sleep and darkness. This would mean the space array is best used closer to the land panels on humid nights, and means they don't lose space reflector capacity due to double and triple hop networks on humid nights. On dry nights, diffraction is less of an issue, so the space reflectors would get to consider multihop network issues while they consider lighting up ground panels more of the night.

[@somenygaard]

I feel sorry for these guys, they are doomed to fail.

[@tomblaise]

I love this idea! It always fascinated me after learning about the Russian Znamya satellites. I did some back of the napkin calculations a few years ago, and even if we’re talking micron-thick tinfoil, it would be far too expensive to put into geosynchronous orbit at anywhere near the level necessary for much power generation. In LEO the surface area necessary decreases dramatically for the same power output, but then you have the problem of whizzing around the world every few hours, meaning you don’t get much time over your target solar farm. In theory, you could have centrifuges control the angle as they orbit the earth so they can hit multiple solar farms through its orbit, but this will be more difficult the larger the reflector. There’s also the issue of light pollution. People complain about Starlink which are really tiny and designed to be as non-reflective as possible. Imagine when instead they’re huge and as reflective as possible. The light pollution in the night sky would cause some serious complaints. It would take something like a super cheap starship, or massive moon production to get something like this set up. Unfortunately what they’re building is too dependent on the rest of the industry progressing dramatically to really succeed. Unless they have billions of their own money to throw at the problem, the timeframe for a payoff is going to be far, far too long for any reasonable investment. Maybe there’s some government or military applications that would be warranted though (giant mirrors warming Siberian towns in the winter or something, or reflectors lighting up an enemy position to blind any night vision, and make them easier targets. Best of luck! It’s a really cool project either way.

[@bradallen1832]

The expense can be lowered if launched on Starship. This is another Starship enabled tech. Those sails would quickly capture masses of excess atmosphere in low LEO. High LEO, MEO and HEO might be better, but optimizing the benefits of LEO (autofail cleanup and less beam interference) would have to be balanced. Going higher up means transferring more light further. Probably they're looking at high orbits. They can say that the amount of light hitting other satellites is equal to sunlight if they don't concentrate the beams, causing very little disturbance to other satellites, so perhaps that's the best approach.

[@parcos79]

THESE 2 ARE BATSHIT INSANE. KEEP GOING GOOGGOOGOGOGOGOGO

[@crezzlin]

Just think if SpaceX incorporated this onto the starlink satellites,

[@jacobhall8092]

Or, hear me out, we could just mass produce a lot of Small Modular Molten Salt Reactors using thorium as fuel and put them all over the place. Put one at every current power substation and create a highly redundant distributed grid that doesn't rely on delicate and expensive high voltage transmission lines.

[@M3W3]

If someone hack the satellite, will this become a horrible weapon?

[@demonhogo]

it's not a maginfied laser. it's just sun light

[@snwconeyt]

two words... space junk. game over, thanks for playing!

[@RedRyan]

Because of the SpaceX starship this is totally possible. And it might be our best way of having in-space power production. Screw those microwave ideas I like direct sunlight reflection better

[@oO0Xenos0Oo]

Microwaves can penetrade the cloud layer, so putting the solar panels into space and sending the energy back to a receiver on earth via microwaves makes more sense to me. Just adding one more hour of light to existing solarfarms depending on the weather is kind of limiting. And if we have to put reflectors into space, why not already use super thin solar cells, which will be not much thicker? There are ceveral companys who are working on solarpanels, which are 100 times thinner than existing ones and in space, they obviously don't need the strucural support and glas panels like earthbound solar farms do.

[@lukaswinterr]

so much is gonna happen in the energy world in the next decade

[@aidanw6725]

Why not just use nuclear

[@demonhogo]

lol

[@lukepapamadrid]

Fukushima. Zaporizhzhia. Three Mile Island. Chernobyl.

[@aidanw6725]

@lukepapamadrid bad response nuclear has made so much progress since then and you should probally look into why those meltdowns happened instead of spreading fear

[@volovodov]

Why not have both

[@jeanbaptist6255]

I work at a electric Hydro company and we have wind farms that does 40Mw almost around the clock but we get to use the river systems as a battery by holding back water or using less while wind it high

[@ddzz3927]

It is difficult to use reservoir energy storage in the plains

[@jeanbaptist6255]

@@ddzz3927 the wind farm is in the plains but the rivers im talking about are not.

[@FPVREVIEWS]

this could also be used to boost solar powered Psudo Satelite aircraft. let me know if you want to test it. I have a solar plane.

[@sadface7457]

I don't know if they get high enough for continous power delivery. It might be possible if you get 2 extra seconds for every meter you go up then you need to be up about 50000ft. So higher then most passengers planes.

[@onurmemis3618]

Now there's a cool idea. These mirrors would effectively shorten the night for the plane by a couple of hours, which would let you use smaller batteries.

[@PureCosmos404]

Some very rough calculation: Assuming 10m x 10m reflector, each sat of 100kg; Launch by Falcon 9, 100 sat per patch, which is 10t to SSO, not crazy. Cost 60M per launch. Each sat reflects about 100kw solar energy and assume 10% convert to electricity overall. Each sat produce 240 kwh per day, rounding to 200kwh for other loss. Assuming night electricity price of 50 cents per kwh and morning price of 20 cent, which just say on average is about 30 cent per kwh. Each sat produce 60 dollar. Each patch of sats produce 60*100*365, roughly 2M per year. So you will need these satellites to work over 30 years to make it profitable. Sounds bad at first glance but far from practical. Just need some improvements on cost, the economy may be just in reach. Great! Are you guys interested in taking interviews?

[@xBIGMUSCLEx]

Instead of beaming solar energy back to Earth, why not convert that solar energy into electrical energy in space and use powerful laser beams to beam it straight down to Earth? This approach might be far more efficient, I'd think.

[@BlueSkys-Ever]

For advertising use long exposure photography to capture you writing a message on the ground with sunlight at night. 😎

[@Muonium1]

Sometimes an idea is just so spectacularly stupid it's not even worth explaining in detail exactly why.

[@alabeid1762]

It also has to be something secure, for the planet and it people

[@nickazg]

I would be very surprised if they could reflect the same power as the Sahara solar farms for less than 40b$. Also considering the power consumption to get the mirror into orbit is quite significant (even on a future starship), how long would it have to operate to become net positive?

[@Luke-Barrett]

This sounds like a pump and dump company.

[@Subsurface2]

TECH BRO. Hope it works but I can already hear their thoughts about funding rounds.

[@aayushnarayanofficial]

China will do it at scale with a little twist. You can make the mirrors curve and voila, you have a huge concave mirror which you can use as a solar weapon. 😂😂😂😂

[@iOsasu14]

I'm a strong supporter of green technology and making solar panels an increasingly viable solution to our energy needs. However, I dont know how to feel about the concept of turning the sun into a SaaS "Sunlight as a Service" business model. A fundamental principle of solar panels and renewable energy is that sunlight is free and universally available.

[@JamesNeilMeece]

What a good idea Could this cause more global warming though?

[@pbm___000]

Couple of concerns. Ben just being so dismissive of batteries as a reason to do this is naive. Storage is both fundamental and a necessity. Weather will always occur. Light will naturally diffuse through atmosphere. This is harder than it sounds.

[@albertpaquin7876]

If you launch the sats in geostationary they would 1. work 95 % of the time 2. Could be positioned considering demand 3. LEO mirrors would experience lots of atmospheric drag and space debris, this Wouldn't be so much of a problem in GEO If you used a secondary mirror the primary mirror would face the sun directly instead of doing it at an angle, combined with 95% uptime that would more than make up for the higer cost of GEO . I mostly thought about this when I wondered how we could get rid of the winter, you would aim beams of solar infrared and possibly visible light to heat up large urban areas, i roughly calculated that you would need between 1/5 and 1/20 of the city's area as a mirror depending on whether you use visible light during they day and of the desired temperature.

[@sadface7457]

I would build a statite. You can use radiative pressure to achieve a unique geostationary equalibrium. Geostationary orbits are quite valuable resource that don't want to fill with competing space debris. These mirrors need to outside that or they turn up with space junk.

[@Drakoman07]

geostationary is a specific spot in orbit for each location on earth and each of those spots are really high demand (expensive). Might mess with the economics of the business model.

[@albertpaquin7876]

They would provide more power and they could last longer because they would experience less drag which on a mirror as light as this would be considerable in LEO but much less so in GEO@@Drakoman07

[@tomblaise]

Geostationary orbit is also far more expensive, and would require far larger mirrors due to the increased distance.

[@YordanGeorgiev]

It migh be so that SpaceX will invest couple of billions into this ...

[@barnowl6807]

When they look at the energy involved the global warming nuts will come at you with everything they have. Right now the solar farms take sunlight during the day and convert, lets say an average of 25% to electricity. (The 25% is just a talking point.) This energy can be transported with wiring somewhere else. Let's say the average energy is about 1 KW per square meter. The rest of the sunlight is absorbed by everything that doesn't convert it to electricity. Eventually it is Heat. At night some of the heat is radiated into space, creating a micro environment. As I see your plan you will intercept sunlight in space that would not normally fall on the earth. (Otherwise you make someone mad because their tomatoes won't grow). To be viable you need to reflect enough to at least be near the daytime intensity. That means you have doubled the amount of heat hitting the area of the solar farm. How do you think people will like a 75% (times 2?) increase in heat in that area that doesn't have time to "cool" during the dark? Also, the "loss" through the atmosphere means you need even larger reflectors to maintain the same energy from the farm. I suspect the math will show that you have a problem.

[@onurmemis3618]

I remember watching watching ben's youtube channel back in the day. I know for a fact this dude is one hell of an engineer. Im having a hard time reconciling how smart he is with how dumb of an idea this is. What the hell am I missing here? If the mirrors are in a sun sychronous orbit, wouldnt that only give the solar panels on the ground an extra hour or two of sun? So these solar farms would still need batteries, just slightly less? They want to sell sunlight cheaper than a battery can provide it? That cant be right.

[@onurmemis3618]

Big, lightweight satellites like these would experience a significant amount of orbital decay, so they would need to be in a high enough orbit that they would need some form of propulsion, like an ion thruster, for collision avoidance. What about orientation? Reaction wheels or can they rely on magneto torquers alone? The mirrors will need solar panels and batteries of there own as well. Dont forget about communication equipment also. They will need to build these and launch them super cheap to provide energy cheaper than a battery. I'm no expert but I find that hard to believe.

[@rubblestacker]

its still clouldy by night

[@bradallen1832]

It's not complicated. It's just about the cost numbers. That's all it is.

[@onurmemis3618]

I wish they would share those numbers because, for now, this sounds ridiculous.

[@sarcasmo57]

How much extra heat does the extra sunlight produce? Is it really the best way to produce / use energy at night?

[@HisLoveArmy]

Seems silly, battery cost will keep falling, so this doesn't seem like it is a need.

[@appliedgt]

Nuclear puts them out of business

[@demonhogo]

glad you secretly solved the waste problem lol

[@IntegrityProyect]

astronomers are going to be angry 😮

[@BNugget69]

11:31 LMAO, some of the funniest tech bros yet... And to admire them for wanting to make the world a better place, they said it themselves, they just want money....

[@bradallen1832]

I want money too. Give me your money, since you seem to imply that you don't want money.

[@thecatsupdog]

cool

[@pieman2656]

Because the distance earth is from the sun it's rays are almost linear or hitting earth perpendicular to the ground. So to light up and area with the same intensity on the ground you will need a similar size reflector in space, if the area being lit is larger then the intensity will be lower. One proposal would be light up urban areas equivalent to light intensity of 3 full moons, so less power would be used on street lighting and general urban environment would be will lit it city area's. Now I'm not a scientist but the surface of the earth being illuminated is pretty consistent, so on that basis if you are adding light to one area you are taking light away from another creating shade, so you will have areas that are warmer and colder. I do note that the arrangement of satellites were in shaded areas at altitude so still able to bring in extra light, so based on that logic you are introducing more light / energy however infinitesimal back to earth. My conclusion, don't use to illuminate solar panels but illuminate major city areas so less money is spent using electricity to power street lights?

[@larryslobster7881]

10:02 gps and imu is hilariously stupid

[@jondonron]

In space, you basically need to use physics to fight physics

[@Krounder]

Holy f. One superb idea after another. Can't wait for Perpetual motion machine from a random Indian dude in a couple of years

[@yousefosman8094]

why not build reflectors on the moon that aim at the farms

[@sadface7457]

@yousefosman8094 The moon doesn't allow you to aim and required almost double the delta-v to get to the moon

[@SemGabelko]

Second. Great work

[@PolskiRoland]

Great idea, but it is not right from an environmental point of view. Now we challenge light pollution after deployment this mirrors the problem only will be grater...

[@toozydude2]

This has so many problems. These guys just want some bigger company to acquire them and capitalize on the cash

[@chavita4321]

are u guys hiring lol

[@NitishYadav-lb7zc]

40 billion too much And then 1000s of satellite and launching them and all that

[@kesameg7657]

Just use nuclear. Thank me later

[@ROBOROBOROBOROBO]

Great idea but I see a major red flag. I am just gonna say it, Cofounder dynamic isn’t right. That CTO isn’t happy he is the CTO. I have seen it before and unfortunately it never works right.

[@masterchafer]

Just a thought but this would add a lot of heat and energy to earth and would exacerbate climate change. Honestly kind of a ridiculous idea.

[@mrneveryoumind]

what could possibly go wrong

[@Rouleau84]

This will not work. 1. Light reflecting downs from a mirror like this will be diffused in the atmosphere, yes you can get light to those panels but it will be weak and spread-out. 2. They assume that the mirrors in space will be cheap to place into space and to keep it in there. 3. How do they plan on the station keeping for these mirrors - to point them at exact points will need to be significantly nimble. 4. Also even if all those things were not a problem, then how do they plan to make this cheaper than alternative power storage, such as pumped hydro, liquid air batteries, etc.

[@bradallen1832]

You seem overly presumptive: 1. Sunlight mostly goes direct. Diffusion won't scatter the majority of the energy light. You know how I know? Watching clouds block the sun: my generation drops by 75%. Do you even have solar? I do. 2. Starship. (Anyone reading this that hates Starship, go on hating. Those of us who understand it will leverage it. I don't need you on board.) It is yet to be seen how much this costs, but don't go by Falcon 9 for your prices. 3. Station keeping. These will be huge sails. They'll need to figure out a way to counteract atmospheric slowdown. I'm concerned by that too. But maybe there's some optimum orbits where that will work out. 4. Storage is awesome. I have storage. I want more storage. I was probably the biggest energy storage advocate in the world in the 1980s through the 2000s. But it's expensive. Even in the future when prices drop dramatically, it will still be relatively expensive. Having a viable option available would be nice, if it is cost competitive. I haven't seen the numbers yet, so I can't answer that question. So, it's not for sure, but your initial statement "This will not work" seems presumptive.

[@sadface7457]

@@bradallen1832 It's not storing the energy but transmitting it long distances where you encounter losses

[@balajimundhe763]

Not good for Environment.