Reverse Solar Power
Author: Craig Daniels
Location: North Bend, Oregon
2011-02-02
We often see a figure for the average amount of solar energy falling upon each square meter or acre. Clearly, about the same amount (minus what's immediately harvested into plants and production) gets radiated back into space at night, or the Earth would overheat.
Anyone who does astronomy appreciates the significant "heat sucking power" of a clear night sky. There are many ways to harvest the difference between the average ground and water temperature (10 deg C) and the temperature of space (-270 deg C): radiative plates, refrigeration fluids and state changes, Peltier effect, cooling heat sinks for power generation by solar or other means, and etc.
This would help balance out daytime solar energy generation.
It looks like (and is) geothermal power, but it's ultimately solar --of course. However, since ground temperatures are rather "datum", and since a heat engine would work only because of the temperature difference to deep space, these methods might instead be called "dark power" or some such buzz term.
Of course, all power stations of any type already use night time radiation --indirectly, through water flow, evaporation, or air cooling towers. Such existing heat sink strategies should be examined, but I'm suggesting that the much lower temperature of "black body" radiation to space, against both average and elevated geothermal temperatures be given closer attention.
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