EEVblog 1637- Solar Freakin Space Mirrors - Reflect Orbital DEBUNKED

[EEVblog]

Reflect Orbital wants to put reflecting mirrors in space to sell sunlight to solar farms after dark. The numbers work out exactly as you expect them to. It's Solar Freakin' Space Mirror time!



https://www.reflectorbital.com/
BenNBuilds baloon test video:
First Principles interview with Ben Nowack:
S3 Interview video with Reflect Orbital:
S3 2nd interview with Ben Nowack & Tristan Semmelhack :
Space.com article: https://www.space.com/orbiting-mirror-boost-solar-power-production
ClimateCapital investment: https://www.climatecapital.co/portfolio
Understanding the Duck Curve:  https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/65023.pdf
Real time US energy price tracker: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/real-time-electricity-tracker

00:00 - Reflect Orbital, Sunlight After Dark
01:18 - Ben Nowack from BenNBuilds Youtube channel & the baloon test
02:55 - Sun synchronous polar orbit reflecting mirror satellites
03:54 - A look at the website claims, a 5km sunlight spot for 4 minutes
05:58 - This isn't new, the Russians did it with the Znamya 2, albeit unintentionally
06:56 - Who's behind Reflect Orbital?
08:12 - What is the Duck Curve?
09:31 - CLAIM: A 10m x 10m satellite mylar reflector into a 12U Cubesat
10:09 - CLAIM: 10's to 100's if BILLIONS of dollar per year revenue!
10:35 - CLAIM: $50/MWh energy sale price after dark
11:18 - CLAIM: $175k/year revenue from each satellite & launch costs
11:58 - CLAIM: 200W/sqm? Err, in what universe?
12:24 - DaveCAD calculations
13:10 - 100kW maximum capture is reduced by the tilt angle
14:05 - 5mW/sqm. FIVE MILLIWATTS! Is this a JOKE?
14:50 - But WAIT, what if you combine and focus all the satellites?
16:02 - It gets WORSE! Capacity Factor is a problem.
18:14 - 20MWh/year WOW!, that's a lot, right? Right?
19:22 - Even 20MWh/year become ZERO if it consumes more than it produces!
20:09 - How did nobody do a back-of-the-envelope calculation?

[Xena E]

How does this compare with the energy reflected by a full moon.

I'm sorry, but lunatics have to be involved somewhere, all very teslaesque.

[EEVblog]

How does this compare with the energy reflected by a full moon.

Roughly the same energy per sqm received on earth. Single digit milliwatts.

[schmitt trigger]

This “breakthrough” has received significant attention on the interwebs.
And the unanimous response has been: WTF?

I wonder how many investors have been fooled already.

[EEVblog]

I wonder how many investors have been fooled already.

Just the one so far according to crunchbase

[SiliconWizard]

This one is good.

Good thing that it's complete BS though - because this idea taken to a level that would actually work could be a very nasty one.

[hamdi.tn]

This world is gone mad  I think i'm starting my startup (by that I mean building a fancy website) to put mirrors on the moon, it's already doing just that 

[Zucca]

I wonder how many investors have been fooled already.

Just the one so far according to crunchbase

Honestly if somebody throw money at them thinking it is a good investment, the deserve to loose every single penny.

[schmitt trigger]

There is a sucker born every minute. — PT Barnum

[max_torque]

Two words:

Money Laundering



Yes, it's true, today, a significant number of "ridiculous" investments are simply to use to launder large sums of money, irrespective of the losses!

Say you have $500M of crime money (from what ever source) how do you get that into your account in a suitable fashion to avoid detection and obsfuscate the trail?   Easy, set up a Grant or Fund, and invest in projects that have little chance of success (zero in this case) where few questions are asked, and launder that money through that route.  Lots of financial tricks are possible for obsfuscation, and even if you get 10% of your money back, that's better than having none of it!

Also worth nothing that the middle east investment funds are doing similar, not with crime money, but with fossil fuels money, which they are leveraging at what would appear to be a massive loss to simply divest the middle east out of it's fossil fuel dependence......

[Gyro]

I thought Musk was already trialing this with his Starlink satellites.

The astronomical community seem to think so anyway!  https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html

[golden_labels]

As long as somebody betted their own money, I’m happy with that.

From the government, which is funded from taxes and shouldn’t spend them frivolously, I expect some rationality. Local authorities pouring money into questionable experiments (e.g. solar roadways) is worth of outrage. Same for institutions, that manage funds on behalf of a specific cause.

But if somebody wishes to burn their own money, I prefer them to be burned in a “certainly failed” enterprise, than in engines of their yacht.

[iMo]

30y back taxpayers already funded their government with that experiment.. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(satellite)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-russian-space-mirror-briefly-lit-night-180957894/

[jancumps]

I asked chatGPT how much energy is burned to get the satellite in low orbit: "Energy Spent: Approximately 1,223 kWh is required to launch a 12U CubeSat."

(details on e14)

[.RC.]

It is probably a ruse and in actual fact they are launching sun reflecting satellites complete with 400V death beam capacitors to produce super death ray devices in space. Then from the safety of their volcano lair complete with sharks with laser beams on their heads, will hold the world to ransom and demand.......................................................................  one MILLION dollars.....

[golden_labels]

30y back taxpayers already funded their government with that experiment.. 

Of all things I’d expect from a government and governments like that didn’t deliver, I would say questionable scientific experiments are among the least offensive.

That was also hardly a waste or comparable. NASA still develops this technology and JAXA successfully used it for their Venus mission.

We’ll probably never know the truth, but I also suspect Znamya to be a publicity thing for both the internal and the international audiences.

[Xena E]

This world is gone mad  I think i'm starting my startup (by that I mean building a fancy website) to put mirrors on the moon, it's already doing just that 

PV panels on the moon would of course be of a much more predictable performance than in some locations on earth due to the lack of atmospheric attenuation.

(Ignoring the earth shadow thing).

Just the tiny technical mater of actually getting the energy to earth.

[6gv5]

PV panels on the moon ...

Oh my... Now I can't unthink this vision about some company proposing PV panels on the Moon with beefy lasers beaming back the energy, then some enlightened politicians complaining that it could cut the Earth in two 

[Ranayna]

Reminds me of a disney comic i read as a kid, where someone used an orbital mirror satellite to melt the money in Scrooge's Money Bin
Even that knew better: They fokused the beam to a small point to actually get more energy to a smaller area, the mirror was specifically concave to do that.

[Dr. Frank]

Thanks Dave for another funny debunking.

They can probably sell their idea to our German 'Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action", led by a guy from our 'Green' Party.

They are always desperately seeking for Free Energy, as Sun and Wind do not send a bill, but they have the problem that at night and in winter time, Sun does not / rarely send light as well. They waste tax money on the craziest 'environment' projects worldwide.. and they can as well not do any reasonable calculations.

Dave, could you please next time debunk our German 'Renewable Energy System'?

THX - Frank   

[thm_w]

They waste tax money on the craziest 'environment' projects worldwide.. and they can as well not do any reasonable calculations.

How about you find a specific project that they invested in that you disagree with, that is relevant to this thread, and then post the details? Instead of just whining about xyz political party.

[SiliconWizard]

This world is gone mad  I think i'm starting my startup (by that I mean building a fancy website) to put mirrors on the moon, it's already doing just that 

PV panels on the moon would of course be of a much more predictable performance than in some locations on earth due to the lack of atmospheric attenuation.

(Ignoring the earth shadow thing).

Just the tiny technical mater of actually getting the energy to earth.

And so we may want to ask why the heck we would bother having to cover about 400 000 km to get energy back to Earth, when merely installing PV panels on Earth distributed over the whole perimeter would receive energy 24/7 and would be much easier to share. Of course that would require worldwide agreements, which sounds complicated.

So let's go to the moon because we can't agree on anything on Earth. Basically.

[EEVblog]

And so we may want to ask why the heck we would bother having to cover about 400 000 km to get energy back to Earth, when merely installing PV panels on Earth distributed over the whole perimeter would receive energy 24/7 and would be much easier to share. Of course that would require worldwide agreements, which sounds complicated.

The Australian government just approved a huge solar farm in Australia that will power Singapore via a HV cable.
It was proposed a long time back.

[Xena E]

This world is gone mad  I think i'm starting my startup (by that I mean building a fancy website) to put mirrors on the moon, it's already doing just that 

PV panels on the moon would of course be of a much more predictable performance than in some locations on earth due to the lack of atmospheric attenuation.

(Ignoring the earth shadow thing).

Just the tiny technical mater of actually getting the energy to earth.

And so we may want to ask why the heck we would bother having to cover about 400 000 km to get energy back to Earth,

We wouldn't.

But you could sell the Idea to some irony impaired politico for vast amounts of cash.

It seems that the more costly and completely impractical something is the easier it is to get funding.

It's just a case of keeping a straight face whilst you're asking for the money.

[Kleinstein]

It is odd that they find money for such crazy ideas, that are so far off from getting a benefit. I could imagine finding a few stupids, who don't belief in math, but these usually don't have big money. It would be only some corporate where the management does not really care about the loss, but get there bonus by the investment sum.

A longer cable on earth makes way more sense. It some 1000-1600 km to get 1 hour shift for the sun. Especially in the desert the area to install extra PV is usually plenty.  A large grid can also average out weather related variations, not just the time zone. PV can be decentalized production, but it can still benefit a lot from a good grid. One can compare the grid to a form of storrage.