>The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free!
From the surface of the Earth we can capture 1/100000000000000000000000000th of its output per square meter, for $100.
That's because it's not really in the sky, as a bird or plane might be. It's 93 million miles away.
As a result hardly any light makes it to Earth over a small area. You need like $1000+ of paneling and many square meters to capture enough of it to operate a hairdrier electrically. Which makes sense because a hairdrier uses a lot more energy than drying your hair by standing in daylight. On a cool morning you'd start sniffling from cold before the sun dried your hair. No animal gets its energy from photosynthesis, they wait for stationary plants to do it over months and years and then eat them. The sun is just not that energetic seen from Earth.
So yes it is a 384.6 yottawatt nuclear power plant. But we're so far away we can get a hundred watts of it for $100, on a good day.
Could be cool to send something there to collect and ship us electricity in bundled form though.
From the surface of the Earth we can capture 1/100000000000000000000000000th of its output per square meter, for $100.
That's because it's not really in the sky, as a bird or plane might be. It's 93 million miles away.
As a result hardly any light makes it to Earth over a small area. You need like $1000+ of paneling and many square meters to capture enough of it to operate a hairdrier electrically. Which makes sense because a hairdrier uses a lot more energy than drying your hair by standing in daylight. On a cool morning you'd start sniffling from cold before the sun dried your hair. No animal gets its energy from photosynthesis, they wait for stationary plants to do it over months and years and then eat them. The sun is just not that energetic seen from Earth.
So yes it is a 384.6 yottawatt nuclear power plant. But we're so far away we can get a hundred watts of it for $100, on a good day.
Could be cool to send something there to collect and ship us electricity in bundled form though.