Like the death ray of Archimedes!!!
Nice addition on the TL! How is the problem with the batteries and energy storage going? Are flywheels or pumped hydro or liquid salt or any chemical batteries moving along?
Solar Dreams: a history of solar energy (1878 - 2025)
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Nice addition on the TL! How is the problem with the batteries and energy storage going? Are flywheels or pumped hydro or liquid salt or any chemical batteries moving along?
Not lasers, as those work on an entirely different principle than Concentrated Solar Heat.
I can't find the video, but there was a laboratory on Youtube in which concentrated solar heat acted like a lightsaber, vaporizing small amounts of metal.
Combining that with something like a Jacquard Loom, and you could make some complex forms from metal sheets.
The question is how long a real design would have to stay on target, and of course the target can't move.
Also, it can't be cloudy, or at least not too cloudy. And it won't work at night.
Functionally speaking, what Wells is describing is a high-powered infrared laser, which is quite a long ways off in any case.
The thing is that solar energy - specially the kind developed ITL - can't be practically weaponized:
- It's impossible to use half of the time.
- It requires a significant infrastructure that can't be moved easily
- It isn't dense enough to power vehicles. So no solar powered ships or trains to be used by the military.
The only possible use I can see is as an AA system that blinds pilots or causes heat buildup on the plane, but even that would be a situational weapon at best.
EDIT: War itself, however, will change as newer and different technologies are developed. Metallurgy itself will be drastically altered by the wider range of temperatures available for industrial purposes by the 1900s.
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Most certainly... The far faster development of thermal resistant alloys and earlier emergence of Ceramic based materials will boost also the development of Naval and later ground and air Engines, as with such materials, boilers and engines can tolerate far higher ratios of power and have a longer life before requiring replacement of parts.
Furthermore, the creation of thermal stable alloys will accelerate the evolution of Artillery and later Guns... With alloys that can endure far better the thermal stress of repeated firing, and/or higher levels of pressure and temperature, Naval and Ground Artillery will be capable of firing heavier Shells at higher distances...
The French and the British military will be all over this certainly....
Thank god. Not every new energy source or technology needs to be weaponized or find use in the military field to see widespread use in human society.
I'm very interested to see how this develops in the future.
Why wouldn't they be compatible? I would think putting a coat on would further reduce the rate at which the large mass cooled.
Anyways, glad to see another update! The optics able to reduce the focusing area "10 thousand fold" are damn cool- it's not a laser but it can probably be a decent substitute. What sort of technology is needed to focus light that efficiently?
Shame wooden ships were rendered obsolete a couple decades ago
The actual correct approach to storing cryogenic liquids is closer to the "coat" approach, i.e. the vacuum flask (where the "coat" is the vacuum layer between the inner and outer structures). And that was on the verge of being invented, even IOTL...
Would any militaries try anyway, and could anything useful be learned before they gave up?
Why wouldn't they be compatible? I would think putting a coat on would further reduce the rate at which the large mass cooled.
Anyways, glad to see another update! The optics able to reduce the focusing area "10 thousand fold" are damn cool- it's not a laser but it can probably be a decent substitute. What sort of technology is needed to focus light that efficiently?
Shame wooden ships were rendered obsolete a couple decades ago
It's an issue of diminishing returns. The "thermal buffer" approach relies on the square-cube law to retard thermal equilibrium, as the large mass has a comparatively smaller area to exchange heat. Applying a thermal coat would be inefficient.
The coat works by insulating the hot exterior from the inside.
And both approaches are wrong. As @Workable Goblin say, the optimal heat insulation technology is the Dewar Flask, which uses vacuum and a reflective coating to minimize loses to the environment.
As for the technologies that could concentrate light, fresnel lenses and parabolic mirrors (or more likely a combination of both) could achieve it, at least in an experimental setting.
I won't focus much on the military side of things, other than to see how military doctrine and technology follows the different economic paradigm that earlier solar energy creates.
I can see some experimental uses of solar collectors as weapons in Subsaharian Africa, albeit with limited results.
But I was told there would be giant mechanical men, powered by solar boilers and capable of shooting heat-rays out of their eyes. >;k
[ I suppose there could at least be inaccurate rumors of such, in Hearst papers and Frank Reade dime novels... ]
Visual Document II: Cottrell Solar Boilers in Egypt ca. 1890
Cottrell Solar Boilers topping a building on an industrial area of Alexandria. This design was a refinement of the Mouchot-Puig boiler whose manufacturing rights were acquired by the British Empire in the aftermath of the Tarapacá Massacre.
Mobile modification of a Cottrel Solar Boiler for use in rural areas or villages, colloquially called "Widow's Mirrors" (possibly due to its early association with women's work). These devices provided motive power services at an affordable price for the inhabitants of rural areas, heavily influencing the early mechanization of agriculture in Egypt and the Middle East.
(Images courtesy of the Egyptian Museum of Science and Technology)
For reference, this is the size of one section of the solar boiler. It has a concentrating mirror with an area of 18 M2, and has a modular design which docks several sections for additional power. One by itself is only useable for lightweight tasks.
That is indeed quite cool. Nice to have a visual, surprised how small the boilers in the first image are. When was the photo with the mobile version taken OTL?
The size is the same as below, it's just that finding images of 1880s Egypt suitable for photo manipulation doesn't leave me with many options to place the devices. Especially since they have to be aligned with the sun. Thus the awkward angles.