from Hacker News

An Italian town that built its own sun (2021)

by Amorymeltzer on 12/8/24, 8:21 PM with 42 comments

  • by eh_why_not on 12/13/24, 8:21 PM

    > 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!")

  • by smurpy on 12/14/24, 12:00 AM

    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.

  • by pidge on 12/13/24, 7:57 PM

    Soon available as a service https://www.reflectorbital.com/

  • by labster on 12/13/24, 8:08 PM

  • by tppiotrowski on 12/14/24, 4:48 AM

  • by dtgriscom on 12/13/24, 9:46 PM

  • by frankohn on 12/14/24, 10:23 AM

    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

  • by hrdwdmrbl on 12/14/24, 12:45 AM

    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...

  • by mattyw on 12/14/24, 2:40 AM

    I didn’t realise the Thunderbirds was a documentary

    https://youtu.be/h9kPmX32j9A?feature=shared

  • by alnwlsn on 12/13/24, 8:55 PM

    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?

  • by nikolay on 12/13/24, 8:37 PM

    A clickbait title - they reflected the existing sun.