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leonidasruplast Sunday at 2:19 PM2 repliesview on HN

In comparison, averaged over the year and the day, the Earth's atmosphere receives 340 W/m^2 from the Sun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#On_Earth's_su...


Replies

pfdietzlast Sunday at 4:53 PM

This leads naturally to "artificial geothermal", where solar energy is used to heat rocks or soil, and the heat is later extracted. It doesn't have to be anywhere near as deep as ordinary geothermal, which had to accumulate that heat over many thousands of years. Just ~10 meters is about enough.

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JoBradlast Sunday at 4:00 PM

Thanks for that context.