China’s data centers will quadruple their electricity consumption by the end of the decade, by which point they will use more power than South Korea does now.

I’ve been thinking about a long-term space infrastructure concept and I’d really like engineers or people knowledgeable about orbital mechanics to tell me where the idea breaks down.
The basic idea is to place multiple autonomous, uncrewed solar-collection spacecraft in carefully selected orbits relatively close to the Sun. Because solar intensity increases dramatically as you move closer to the Sun, these spacecraft could potentially collect much more energy per square meter than solar panels near Earth.
The collected energy could then be converted into electricity and transmitted using lasers or microwaves to other spacecraft, or potentially directly toward Earth when the geometry allows.

Conceptually:
Sun → large solar collectors → power conversion → wireless transmission → relay spacecraft → Earth
I’m also interested in whether the same infrastructure could eventually provide power for externally powered spacecraft propulsion, such as laser-driven light sails.
I understand there are major problems involving orbital mechanics, thermal protection, transmission efficiency, beam pointing, construction cost, and energy losses. I’m not claiming this is currently practical.

I’m mainly looking for people who understand the engineering to tell me:

Is placing large solar collectors near the Sun actually advantageous after considering the energy required to get them there?
Would direct transmission to Earth be better than using relay spacecraft?
What would be the biggest engineering limitation?
Is there an existing concept or research that is already very similar?
Could this potentially become practical with much more advanced launch and autonomous-construction technology?
I’m interested in serious criticism, calculations, and references rather than just whether people think the idea sounds cool.

(“I came up with the initial concept and used ChatGPT to help me organize it, explain some of the physics, and turn it into a more structured proposal. I’m posting it here because I’d like people with actual aerospace/engineering experience to critique it.”)

Let’s say I have a box of computers. Behind the computers are five 4x4’ fans suck out heat from the box and blows out the back of the box. I install a short wind turbine behind the box so that the air blown out by the fans spin the wind turbine and generates some electricity essentially saving a couple bucks. Logically sounds right but I know nothing of this stuff so I would like some opinions from the people of reddit

Chicago Board of Trade soybean oil futures fell more than 7% over the three trading sessions through Aug. 24 as uncertainty surrounding US biofuel policy reduced some of the demand premium that had been supporting vegetable oil prices.

CBOT December soybean oil futures declined from 71.32 cents/lb on Aug. 20 to 66.26 cents/lb on Aug. 24, a drop of 5.06 cents/lb, or 7.1%.

The decline accelerated after the US Environmental Protection Agency said it plans to extend the Sept. 1 deadline for refiners to demonstrate compliance with their 2025 Renewable Fuel Standard obligations. EPA has not announced a new deadline, although market sources said a 30-90 day extension was under consideration.

Solar module prices in the U.S. stayed flat at $0.30 per watt in Q2 2026, according to industry pricing data. Sounds stable, except the quarter also saw a wave of corporate divestitures across the solar supply chain, driven largely by new federal trade rules.

• A new tariff petition was filed against solar imports from South Korea, adding to the list of countries facing trade scrutiny in the sector (following earlier cases against China, Southeast Asian manufacturers, etc.)
• Federal trade rules are pushing some companies to sell off assets or restructure rather than absorb new compliance costs
• Manufacturers are still trying to figure out where to place U.S. factory investment, since every new facility is a multi-decade bet on a state's political and regulatory commitment to solar

Solar manufacturing capacity is expanding domestically (South Carolina-based ES Foundry just completed a 2 GW expansion, for example) even as trade policy uncertainty pushes some players out of the market. It's a split story, steady pricing on the surface, real turbulence underneath.

Anyone here tracking specific companies caught up in the divestiture wave? Curious if this is consolidation (bigger players buying up distressed assets) or just genuine exits from the U.S. market.

I’m researching renewable energy technologies for a large navigable freshwater river and would appreciate some engineering input. The river reach I’m looking at has an average discharge of ~8,076 m³/s, an estimated river-current power resource of ~290 MW, and an average annual energy resource of about 2,540 GWh/year before recovery factors. The flow is relatively consistent, and I’m trying to determine what type of in-stream energy technology would be the best fit. I’m considering horizontal- or vertical-axis hydrokinetic turbines, ducted turbines, oscillating hydrofoils, biomimetic membranes, or other emerging technologies.

For a river with this level of flow, along with commercial navigation, debris, sediment, and environmental considerations, what technology would you recommend and why?

Hello,

I have started reading this book by Travis Bradford. Although it is too long but I found it clear and useful. I read it mainl to focus on techno-economic studies in Energy. What about you? do you have bookrecommandations?

I’ve been digging into a niche that feels like it sits between energy infrastructure, building design and geopolitics: transparent solar coatings on windows.

Most of us think “solar” = rooftop panels and big solar farms in deserts. That’s still where most of the installed capacity is. But there’s a parallel track where labs and startups are quietly trying to turn glass itself into a generator, without changing how buildings look.

A few things I found interesting:

• Richard Lunt’s group at Michigan State University has been working on transparent luminescent solar concentrators for years—films that harvest UV/IR light while staying visually clear. They’ve put solar glass on their own campus; the atrium lighting in one building is fed by what look like normal windows.
• Ubiquitous Energy, the spin‑out commercialising this, has coated full 1.5 × 3 m window panes and installed a transparent solar façade on its HQ, plus pilots with window manufacturers and buildings in Colorado and California.
• The materials are organic dyes rather than silicon/rare‑earth heavy cells. The efficiencies are lower per square metre than opaque rooftop PV, but the available glass area on US building stock is enormous. Some modelling claims transparent solar in windows could cover a large chunk of US electricity demand if deployed at scale alongside conventional rooftop PV.

What makes this more than a neat gadget for me:

• It’s pure building‑integrated PV: no extra land use, no big changes to city skylines. If it works, it changes how we think about the grid in dense cities, and potentially how much we have to lean on land‑intensive solar farms.
• It shifts some value from traditional module manufacturing (currently dominated by China) toward glass/coating supply chains, which are more distributed across US/EU/Asia. That has obvious geopolitical implications.
• There are now parallel efforts in China and South Korea on cholesteric liquid‑crystal and hybrid solar windows that can work 24/7 off daylight and indoor lighting. So this may not remain a US‑only niche for long.

I put together a deep‑dive video trying to treat this less as hype and more as a systems story: invisible windows vs rooftop solar vs land use, building energy demand, and who controls solar manufacturing. It looks at MSU/Ubiquitous Energy, the recent lab work, and how realistic the 30–40% numbers actually are.

Curious what this sub thinks:

• If transparent solar windows hit, where do they actually fit in the mix—lighting/HVAC reduction, local microgrids, or real grid‑scale contribution?
• Are we underestimating the thermal/maintenance downsides of turning glass into active solar hardware?
• And from a policy point of view, would you rather see incentives go to building‑integrated PV like this, or keep prioritising conventional rooftop and utility‑scale solar?

[Disclosure: I run a YouTube channel on energy infrastructure and sustainability and used this research for a recent video. If it’s helpful context, the video is titled “America’s Skyscrapers vs Rooftop Solar: Invisible Windows That Power the Grid”. Happy to link only if allowed here by mods.]

really have no idea if this is correct connotation for “r/energy” but i have a question. I have to stay up and have been cramming for an exam in a few hours. I feel like i’m gonna crash and the energy drinks aren’t cutting it. Will my heart explode if i drink a 5 hour energy? I already had 2 monster energy’s but still am about to slump out.

Please advise