• @AgreeableLandscape
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    1 year ago

    So, mirror-based concentrated solar generators (the kind that has an array of mirrors all reflecting light to a central heating tower) can already fry birds if they fly into the light beam. I feel like this would be so much worse, like, dangerous to aircraft worse. There’s no real way to avoid it either, if you’re in a beam of electromagnetic radiation with “power a city” energy densities, it’s not like it can be selective about what to transfer the energy to if it’s in its path.

    • @ZerushOP
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      1 year ago

      These are not mirrors, but photovoltaic cells that send the electricity generated via microwaves that are concentrated in a receiver. This fries no birds, by far those that perch right on the receiver itself. The same risk happens with an unhappy bird that perches at certain points on the high voltage lines. Even if they were mirrors, the danger is the same, since only at the right point of focus there is the danger of burning, the same in solar thermal power plants, where a field of mirrors concentrate the light at a point on a tower to heat the water. steam to run a turbine.