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TwentySevenNihilists t1_iqoeuf8 wrote

Reply to comment by MetaLizard in The US's National Renewable Energy Laboratory wants to make decentralized microgrids as simple to set up and operate as diesel generators, and has created a prototype that is much simpler than existing microgrid technology. by lughnasadh

Why not just build the sphere around the Earth? And maybe Mars? Sure the surface area would become a ridiculous number that doesn't have it's own name, but we wouldn't be relying on an engineered solution to keep Earth from freezing over.

Bonus: seemingly limitless habitable area if it's fancy enough to have rock, water, and atmosphere on the inside surface.

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littlebitsofspider t1_iqojtvu wrote

Bad time. Let's say your sphere is 2 AU in diameter, enclosing the inner planets (roughly where the Belt is). Sounds good? No! Because now there's a whole surface that has the same albedo as Earth, pointed at Earth. Kiss your diurnal cycle goodbye and kiss radiative nighttime heat transfer goodbye.

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NiveKoEN t1_iqoshon wrote

This is so bad in so many ways. The point of a Dyson sphere is to capture the radiation of the sun that the earth doesn’t get at all.

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TwentySevenNihilists t1_iqosxsk wrote

I meant a sphere centered on the sun, that's big enough to enclose the Earth too.

Turns out that's still a bad idea, but you'd capture all the radiation of the sun that didn't hit planets and such.

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