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Moon bricks could keep the lights on and the heat up in Lunar colonies – TechCrunch
There may be no “dark side” of the Moon, but when and where it is dark, it’s dark — and stays that way for two weeks. If we’re going to have colonists up there, they’ll need to stay warm and keep the lights (among other things) on for the long lunar night. Turns out bricks made of Moon dust could be part of the solution.
Of course they will use the readily available solar power during the lunar day, and you might think that they could just charge up some batteries to last them through the night. But batteries are large and heavy — not the kind of thing you want to pack for a trip to the Moon.
How else could lunar colonies store energy? The European Space Agency partnered with Azimut Space to find out whether a sort of improvised geothermal energy solution would be feasible.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday July 26 2019, @06:14AM (2 children)
You don't want to bring batteries, cause they are to large and heavy, but you are somehow going to be build dwellings and a colony? Priorities?
That said if you are building a colony why not also bring say a nuclear power reactor/plant that doesn't care about if it's dark or not unlike solar panels, not that you couldn't have those to (unless they are bad due to moon dust or something). I recall both the US and Russia has/had plans for a nuclear rocket, you could probably just land that and instead of using it to power flight use it to power buildings?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday July 26 2019, @08:19AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilopower [wikipedia.org]
NASA's Kilopower Nuclear Reactor Exceeds Expectations in Tests [soylentnews.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday July 26 2019, @10:35AM
Using local material, which the Moon has. It's far easier to build structures that have lots of heat retaining walls and such than it is to build a battery factory. Not that the latter is all that hard, mind you.