Reply #143: Wow! That's a really, really, really GOOD POINT!!! [View All]

[DLnyc]

We have a working hydrogen fusion reactor based on gravitational containment placed conveniently about 90 million miles from the surface of the earth so that it delivers energy at a rate of about 220 BTU per square foot per hour, mostly in the visible spectrum with most of the damaging radiation filtered out by the atmosphere and the magnetosphere. Also convenient, our planet is turning on its axis to give a relatively even distribution of this energy. So alls we need to do now is figure out some way to convert this relatively diffuse visible wavelength energy either directly to electricity or to high grade heat. Hmmm, how could we do that? Oh yeah!!! Photovotaics and concentrated solar!!!

Congratulations, friend, your amazingly perceptive wit has solved the energy problem!!!!!

(Of course, to be fair, in about ten billion years we might need to figure out what to do with all the accumulated iron in the core of the damned thing.)

(edit to correct units from "BTU per square foot" to "BTU per square foot per hour") ;-)