Slashdot Mirror
Austrian Town Sees the Light
pin_gween writes "The Austrian town of Rattenberg (a 10 minute walk from sunlight during the winter) plans to install a mirror on a mountain to redirect sunlight towards the town. The town was built in the winter shadow of Rat Mountain. The plan is to place heliostat mirrors to shine light in several locations around town, where villagers could 'congregate and get sunned up.' The EU is ponying up half the $2.4 million costs. The company installing the mirrors, Bartenbach Lichtlabor GmbH, is contributing $600,000, and hopes other communities will use their technology."
A while ago there was some research into giant tinfoil equipped satellites which could redirect sunlight onto the earth during darkness. Applications included agricultural (think world's biggest hydroponic setup) and emergency situations requiring 24hr illumination.
I don't know what happened, however between this and Solar Power Satellites transmitting solar generated electricity to earth via microwave I wonder if the research has hurricane implications.
That is, if they could construct an enormous sun-reflecting hurricane death-ray which could be projected/reflected into the eyes of hurricanes, or over oceans to heat the air/water before Hurricanes can form.
Playing with weather... Won't that annoy the hippies!
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
Barrow, Alaska residents say they tend to sleep more during the long months of round-the-clock dark. The sun sets in Barrow on Friday at 1:40 p.m. and doesn't rise again until Jan. 23 at 1:01 p.m.
Diana Martin is an Inupiat Eskimo and a lifelong Barrow resident. She says it's much easier to start the day when Barrow receives round-the-clock daylight in summer.
The EU is not paying for that town. EU doesn't care for some people in some town. They are paying so that that company has something to do. EU does care for companies, or at least for companies that have enough money to lobby/bribe EU officials.
Yeah, good job it doesn't happen anywhere else in the world
no wait,
"America's 25,000 cotton farmers received more than $3bn in subsidies last year, equivalent to 100% of the market value of cotton output. This works out at a staggering subsidy of $230 an acre."
Not that I'm defending the C.A.P.
some depressing reading :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,10
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenberg_(Tirol)
The article says that Rattenberg is famous for its glass-processing industry.
Spelling mistakes: My is english spoken not tongue of mother.
Absolutely! And this is why I live in Switzerland and the not the EU! Granted they might build these things in Switzerland, but at least then the Geminde has to pony up the money itself. I do know here in Switzerland when people move their first concern is where the sun rises and sets! If you happen to live on the wrong side of the hill, the house is cheap and remains cheap.
The worst part of the mirror is that it is an entire waste of money. Consider the following quote from the article.
"So Lichtlabor plans to create about a dozen "hotspots" - areas not much bigger than a front yard scattered through the town, where townspeople can gather and soak up rays. "
Now compare that comment to the comment from the beginning of the article.
"That's because sun is plentiful less than 10 minutes' walk from the town and from Rat Mountain, the 910m hill that blocks its sunlight between November and February each year."
Let's see, the EU pays 2,400,000 Euros for "hotspots", when they could walk 10 minutes to get the exact same thing! Additionally, as I live near the Alps, during the winter you are cloud covered or in the fog for most of the winter anyways.
This is an example of pork, plain and simple!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
The EU should pay for some weird underground heating ...
Actually, that's not at all weird. Here in the US, there are a number of universities that have done this. I attended two of them. In the winter, when visitors commented on the "waste" of heated sidewalks, it was fun to explain that it was a side effect of the cost-saving heating system.
What they do is obvious: There's a big campus heating plant, with underground pipes connecting it to the other buildings. Mostly, the pipes are inside tunnels, which contain other long, skinny things like wiring of various sorts. And, for obvious reasons, the tunnels are usually built underneath sidewalks, so that the leaking heat will keep the walks clear in winter.
The only problem is that they don't put them under all the sidewalks. But in general, such central heating systems cost a lot less than separate heating systems in each building.
Too bad that people in towns generally can't implement something similar. But if they did, the cost would be called "taxes", and no matter how much less they were than per-house heating systems, people wouldn't accept them. Taxes are, you know, evil; paying twice as much to a private corporation is good.
There is technology to do similar things with light. Google for "light pipe". How practical this might be on a town level isn't obvious.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.