Is China giving up electricity at night?

No one abandons electricity at night to light houses, streets, etc. But China is getting closer to that. It announced a plan to launch a satellite by 2020 to light up an area of 10 to 80 kilometers instead of relying on light bulbs and the natural moon.

Dispose of electricity

According to official Chinese media reports, the scheme will be implemented in Chengdu, the capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, home to about 14.5 million people. It is a lit-up satellite with a reflective coating to throw sunlight on the floor, using wings resembling solar panels with adjustable angles, for street lighting at night.

The new moon will be eight times more light than the original natural moon and will orbit near the Earth, about 500 kilometers away, according to the scientists behind the plan.

Chairman of the Chengdu Institute for Science Research and Microelectronics Technology, Wu Chunfeng, pointed out that the new moon will not be able to illuminate the whole sky, but it can provide Chengdu about 173 million dollars of electricity costs annually, and can reduce natural disasters In case of power failure.

During his remarks to China Daily, Chun Feng said more tests were needed to ensure that the plan was viable and would not have a detrimental effect on the natural environment. Which will be in an uninhabited desert, taking care not to interfere with the satellite's light beams, with anyone or equipment ground observation.

During the National Innovation Week 2018, the Chinese Ministry of Space announced that the satellite was developed by the Chengdu Institute of Micro-Science and Technology Research Institute, and it does not produce light but reflects sunlight on the ground.

According to the ministry, after the installation of the satellite, will be dispensing lighting lamps from the streets, and can control the level and scope of lighting, ranging in diameter between 10 to 80 kilometers.

The research institute of the Chengdu System of Space, Technology and Micro-Science, says that Chinese scientists plan to send three satellites into space over the next four years. The aim of the three satellites is to rotate in order to reduce electricity consumption, especially during the winter.

In the 1990s, Russia tried to use an orbital mirror to reflect sunlight on some of the northern cities deprived of the sun. According to the New York Times, the project was abandoned in 1999 after the mirror failed to appear and was burned. In the atmosphere.

In January, the US launched the Missile Laboratory on an artificial star into space. The New York Times reported that scientists had criticized the "human star," as it was called the small reflector satellite, to contribute to the pollution of industrial light and the accumulation of Earth's orbit.

On Twitter, an account called "dhmi" said that the idea of lighting the earth at night is an old idea. The Soviet Union introduced it during the 1980s by designing a 25-meter folding mirror and raising it to orbit to illuminate A circle with a diameter of 5 kilometers, and directed to the battlefields of the night.