Synlight: Germany fires up 'world's largest artificial sun' in push for climate-friendly energy

abc.net.au ^ | March 23, 2017 | ABC Australia

[Berlin_Freeper]

Scientists in Germany have flipped the switch on what is being described as "the world's largest artificial sun," a device they hope will help shed light on new ways of making climate-friendly fuels.

The giant honeycomb-like setup of 149 spotlights — officially known as "Synlight" — in Juelich, about 30 kilometres west of Cologne, uses xenon short-arc lamps normally found in cinemas to simulate natural sunlight that's often in short supply in Germany at this time of year.

By focusing the entire array on a single 20-by-20 centimetre spot, scientists from the German Aerospace Centre, or DLR, will be able to produce the equivalent of 10,000 times the amount of solar radiation that would normally shine on the same surface.

[grey_whiskers]

By focusing the entire array on a single 20-by-20 centimetre spot, scientists from the German Aerospace Centre, or DLR, will be able to produce the equivalent of 10,000 times the amount of solar radiation that would normally shine on the same surface.

As ants the world over tremble in fear. NOT a good idea to give Germans what amounts to a giant magnifying glass...

[bert]

If you are German........ take vitamin D3

You are sun light challenged this time of year

[ArtDodger]

I call it the Second Law of thoroughly pick your pockets.

[grey_whiskers]

I prefer schemes such as the attempt to use algae to collect sunlight. I don't think giant pools of algae would be nearly as bad for the environment as some of the other "green energy" schemes have turned out to be.

I think you're being WAY too generous to Congress.

[VTenigma]

So, is this like a perpetual motion machine?

[IncPen]

Hydrogen is a scam.

You shut your pretty mouth. There is agreement among top (progressive) scientists!

[IncPen]

If you want to see a liberal’s head explode, point to a stack of wood and say, “Stored sunlight”.

[IncPen]

If you want to see a liberal’s head explode, point to a stack of wood and say, “Stored sunlight”.

Even better, call it 'solar energy'. Boom!

[VietVet876]

Big deal. The USA fired up two artificial suns somewhere in Asia in early August of 1945.

[VietVet876]

Big deal. The USA fired up two artificial suns somewhere in Asia in early August of 1945.

[C210N]

This remarkable system extracts tax-payer dollars from the government and stores it in off shore accounts until the moment that it needs to suddenly disappear!

Thatcher's Law: government mines the dollars from abundant resources of tax-payer ore, which will never run out.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Solar power growth leaps by 50% worldwide thanks to US and China

[Fresh Wind]

If you can believe in Global Warming™, believing in efficiency over 100% isn’t very hard.

[Freeport]

Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking. But this is just an experimental rig they are using to simulate sunlight.

When/if their experiments prove fruitful, they’ll switch to natural sunlight; focusing that on the receiver instead of the artificial sun.

So now they can run experiments 24/7 instead of only during sunlit hours. Makes sense.

[Buckeye McFrog]

"World burnt to a cinder crisp by artificial sun. Film at 11."

[Telepathic Intruder]

Yes, which is why when someone says “hydrogen power”, you know they’re clueless. E.g. George Cluny when he was pretending to be a politician in some movie I recall.

[Travis T. OJustice]

Except in this manner, hydrogen is not a fuel, it is an energy transfer media, essentially a battery.

[KarlInOhio]

No mention of how much molecular hydrogen they get from each watt of "solar" power and how that compares to other solar methods.

About 130 petawatts of solar energy is constantly hitting the earth. Average consumption is 12 terawatts, or about 0.01% of that. Make solar collection cheap enough and provide a storage method and solar will take over. But this article gives no hint whether this method does that.

[Moonman62]

I love their paragraph headline:

Industrial capacity could be a decade away

...

I hope they bought a bunch of carbon credits to offset the precious energy used for this boondoggle.

In the meantime, Trump is opening pipelines that will get the job done now.

[mikrofon]