An Italian town that built its own sun (2021)
44 comments
·December 8, 2024eh_why_not
nine_k
The hardware may cost very modestly. But consider the salary of the people who designed it, built it, transported it, and installed it. These must be several pros, working on that full-time, at a salary near the competitive level (even if they agree to take a hit out of being charitable). Much of that salary would go to the taxes.
Xmd5a
I began designing a kirigami-based orientable "parabolic" mirror-mesh with the goal of creating an affordable solution. My primary design objective was to minimize the number of actuators relative to the number of "pixels" in the mesh, enabling me to control the position of the focal point using just a few servomotors. The project originated as an exploration of redirecting sunlight onto plants by mounting these mirror meshes on my house walls, though I did not complete the design.
The actuating system I developed can tilt pixels in a row at an angle proportional to their distance from the mesh center. This approach creates a "focus parabola" rather than a precise focal point—which would require actuators to tilt pixels according to an arctangent function relative to their center distance. Despite this limitation, I believe the design remains viable for my intended use, notwithstanding the significant incendiary risks involved.
While this approach might not be suitable for the scenario discussed in the article due to wind conditions and the need for a flat surface, it offers advantages over costly hydraulic systems. The mesh could be rolled up and transported in a bag, providing a potentially more portable alternative.
bayouborne
Interesting. It's hydraulically controlled -
https://youtu.be/kWiilCH1AO0?si=PxE3UuB9DE9sB0Hq&t=124
Norway's Rjukan seems to have implemented it better
moffkalast
"It's a Ferrari!"
"It's a steel box!"
yohannparis
This reference was such a classic for years after the release of the Fifth Element!
notahacker
my thought was the opposite: "only EUR 100k for a giant sun tracking device mounted above a village? Maybe Montgomery Burns' idea of doing the same thing in reverse wasn't so ludicrous after all..."
smurpy
I lived in Inuvik, NWT (Canada) for a decade in my youth. It's above the Arctic Circle and has 30 days without sunlight, bracketed by months of near darkness. Each year a new crop of noobs would move in and there would be a little exodus when the folks who just couldn't hack the dark would finally realize what they had signed up for. Summer was grand compensation though, three or four months of the sun being up whenever you might be tempted to be. An odd thing was, in the summer, being up at 3 am and seeing things uncannily lit from an unfamiliar side! Quite a fascinating place to experience, all in all, and well worth the couple thousands of kilometers of driving to get there too.
pidge
Soon available as a service https://www.reflectorbital.com/
alnwlsn
I refuse to believe this project isn't some sort of elaborate troll.
notahacker
I'm sort of torn between that reaction and "hey, this seems similar logistics-wise to that space solar project I'm kicking off next week"...
LtWorf
Asimov described a similar thing in I Robot. I imagine it'd create very unpredictable climate issues.
kjs3
Some people have convinced themselves they can disrupt anything.
lxgr
Assuming this works (which might be a big if, even with recently greatly expanded launch capabilities), it raises the question of who gets to decide whether a given piece of land should be illuminated at night or not.
Hopefully not just the highest bidder, without any veto right of the (other) people that are there too?
ChiefNotAClue
Dave from the EEVBlog did a take on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM
perdomon
Scrolljacking makes it impossible to get info from a website at a glance.
IncreasePosts
That seems outrageous. Do they make any claims about how many watts or lumens they can deliver, and to what area?
margalabargala
"As many as VC money is prepared to pay for" is the answer here.
TrainedMonkey
Astronomers: Starlink constellation solar panels are ruining the astro photography. Reflect Orbital: That sounds like a startup idea! /s
Russians also seemed to think that math could work out, but fumbled on funding and engineering - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(satellite)
bee_rider
I’m pretty sure it is the eternal fate of Russian physicists to have worked out the math, but to not have the funding or engineering to implement a thing, right? So, I guess that fact, at least, doesn’t tell us much of anything.
artificialprint
Eternal fate of Russian physicist is to work it out on home soil, move to USA and help get it built there.
labster
Another one in Rjukan, Norway: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170314-the-town-that-bu... (2017)
dang
Discussed here:
A Norwegian town built a giant mirror to deflect the sun (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19910305 - May 2019 (97 comments)
Sort of related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34056620
Others?
hakonjdjohnsen
There are also two systems in Sydney, the big tall one on Rhodes Central [1] and the slightly smaller on One Central Park [2].
I think the idea is that by removing some of the shadowing from the high-rise buildings, the local authorities allow the buildings to be taller, which makes this type of system pay off.
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-13/heliostats-bringing-l... [2] https://good-design.org/projects/one-central-park-heliostat-...
vidarh
There was also a planned (but scrapped) project in Rattenberg, Austria:
tppiotrowski
Lighting conditions seem to check out:
https://shademap.app/@46.05225,8.19394,11.38803z,17341770702...
frankohn
I think we as human beings do not actually invest almost anything in these kinds of quality of life improvements. Everything is based on commercial interests driven by capitalism, so big projects are undertaken only when there is proportionate commercial interest in them. I feel we could improve people's quality of life significantly if only we put our resources and technology in service of this purpose.
In this case, you may notice that this project was done just by the municipality, not by any government or commercial entity, and only because of the goodwill of a few people in this town. I would say we need political will at the state level to accomplish these kinds of projects.
I feel that with modern day technology could do marvel to improve the quality of life of people. Instead technology often ends up making life of people subtly more miserable.
Edit: fixed writing error
hrdwdmrbl
It's surprisingly small! In order to deliver enough light, I would have assume it would need to be maybe half the size of the area it needs to illuminate.
Would it ever make sense to build one for ones own home? I guess it must be far enough away for the light to spread out enough...
mattyw
I didn’t realise the Thunderbirds was a documentary
null
alnwlsn
panel = 40 m^2 sunlight = 1370 W/m^2
So some amount less than 50 kW. Maybe about 2x photonicinduction garden light bulbs, or a few dozen normal streetlights. Seems like about the right amount to light up a very small town.
But it makes me wonder why anyone would choose to settle in an area which is in shadow 1/4 of the time. Why found a city there?
vidarh
Presumably it's pleasant the rest of the time, or near a suitable travel route or natural resources, and because it's easier to build there than higher up the mountain side.
E.g. while much newer, the town of Rjukan in Norway which also has a small heliostat, was built specifically due to the nearby waterfalls that provided easy access to power for industrial use, and the valley floor was where most of the town was constructed because that's were the easily accessible terrain was.
gpas
It's a small hamlet founded by iron miners, they were familiar with darkness. Foundries and blacksmiths also worked well in the shadow i think.
Here is a quick history of the village https://www.comune.borgomezzavalle.vb.it/en-us/vivere-il-com...
kgdiem
I assumed it was a safe place to live in the year 1300 through the 1800s when Napoleon was romping through Italy on through to the 1940s.
Duckyroad
[dead]
> The mirror was designed by Bozani with the help of engineer Gianni Ferrari, and cost about €100,000...
First reaction: why would a mirror cost this much?
> Eight metres wide and five tall, it reflects the sunlight for six hours a day, following the sun’s path in the sky thanks to a software programme that makes it rotate.
Also saw elsewhere that the reflectors are made of steel. So a giant, software-controlled, motorized structure, reflecting just the right amount of sunlight to a precise location, sitting out there in the elements...
Totally worth it, and what a cool project!
Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliostat ("Aziz, Light!")