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[Stressed Chef]

Yesterday it occurred to me that solar thermal power would make a great addition to DF's many options, and would be a pretty natural fit with much of what's already in place.

(quick definition: solar thermal systems concentrate sunlight, often with mirrors, to do useful things like heating water or other substances to generate useful heat, steam and power.)

Such systems would require construction of an array of mirrors (glass and a metal needed), which would need to be sited on the surface an linked to a central power block (made of some very high melting point substance), possibly with a water source or other material included in the interior of the block. Different regions would have different levels of solar radiation, and hence power potential.

The system could generate motive power like a windmill with the addition of some mechanisms; steam could also be used defensively. And just as some real solar thermal plants use high-temperature molten salts as a medium instead of water, a DF system could possibly be adapted to use a stone medium and make small quantities of magma...

It doesn't seem to me like this should require massive additions to current functionality. Any views? It could make desert locations much more attractive as embark points (lots of sand for glass, strong sunlight).

[Gizogin]

It's a good idea, and almost certainly possible.  Unfortunately, it doesn't really fit into DF.  Solar thermal energy is relatively recent as a power source, where DF is meant to be no more advanced than thirteenth century Western civilization or so.
I know Archimedes may have had a form of solar thermal energy more than a millenium prior to this, but even if that's true, it was used as a weapon, not a power source.  Also, it never really caught on as a practical form of weaponry.

[G-Flex]

I'm not sure how a bunch of 15th-century-ish dudes would create mechanical power out of thermal energy, unless you use steam... and in that case, why aren't they using steam to begin with?

And I'm pretty sure that no tech-level-appropriate device would be able to melt stone.

[Stressed Chef]

I agree that steam power is beyond the established tech level, though making and exploiting steam at more basic levels (steam pipes of death sitting by a guarded entrnce!) could fit.

But with sufficient mirrors, a central block should be able to get very hot indeed. Real world systems heat molten salts to a working temperature of around 566c/1051f, and no doubt with more mirrors for a given mass of receiver block a higher temperature could be achieved if it was useful. DF sneers at the difficulties of channeling magma (some of them, anyway) and magma is an established power source. I envisage a hollow tower of bauxite or similar with a channel beneath it leading beneath workshops. The channel an hollow would be fille with obsidian blocks; gradually they would melt, from the tower down, and as long as the load drawn from the workshops matched well enough the heat input from the mirror array, everything would work ok. If the mirrors were damaged or the load grew too large, the channel would solidify...

Mirrors also useful for melting ice in winter...

[knutor]

I agree it is an awesome fit, indubitably. 

However, DF needs cloud coverage code, before this or the fantasy worlds would suffer global warming .  Its like asking Evil Knevil to jump a big canyon, without his socks on.  I'd like to see more elaborate weather, and aerial designs, and then this.  Also some form of sending our own traders to other civs to conduct trade, would please me.  After that, than I'd be enthralled by sun powered HVAC systems.  But first I want a blimp to float to other mountainhomes.  Or at least a large bin-carrying Stork or two.

Good suggestion!  Scinrely, Knutor

[G-Flex]

I envisage a hollow tower of bauxite or similar with a channel beneath it leading beneath workshops. The channel an hollow would be fille with obsidian blocks; gradually they would melt, from the tower down, and as long as the load drawn from the workshops matched well enough the heat input from the mirror array, everything would work ok. If the mirrors were damaged or the load grew too large, the channel would solidify...

What's the point of melting obsidian, anyway? That would just get you some kind of shitty molten glass, and we already have glass.

At any rate, I'm not sure of the math, but to actually start melting stones and metals and such using sunlight alone, you'd need a very large solar array. This requires extremely high-precision mirrors, and a whole lot of them, and I'm not sure that's feasible given the technology available.

[Jake]

Can't think of very many potential industrial applications with in-game technology, though I daresay the modders could have plenty of fun with it, but when cooking is fleshed out a bit or some other use is found for hot water I can see these being useful in regions with limited wood.

[Neyvn]

Steam Power Yes...
Solar Power No...

Reason for Yes Steam Power--- THEIR DWARVES!!!
Reason for No Solar Power--- THEIR DWARVES, THEY LIVE UNDERGROUND!!!

[Stressed Chef]

The same could be said of windmills - the response being that dwarves can happily stay snug in their tunnels after setting a useful thing or two running up top...

[Drago55577]

I think it would be cool, I see dwarves using a massive pit an tower I built not them I built focusing massive amounts of sunlight into small point to melt goblins and to cook.

I forgot about steam baths and cooking.
It would have doors made out of mirror to reflect and change the direction of sun and if I need a weapon I close all doors so sun its the entrance of my fort melting all that come.

That's what isee.

[Drago55577]

But power no.

[Di]

I summon Footkerchief to this thread!
Apart from 'it has been mentioned hundred times and is mentioned in improved mechanics suggestion' thing:
I do not see how it could be a good fit here. Besides, it would require hell a lot of code for so less of stuff.

[peskyninja]

An wild FootKerchief has appeared!

Back on topic: How mirrors can be implemented in a orthogonal grid?

[Drago55577]

I dunno, when DF goes 3D?

[Stressed Chef]

I was thinking mirrors could be linked to the receiver tower like floodgates to a lever. It may add complexity to check whether there is clear airspace from mirror to receiver. I envisage the mirrors as a bit like a passable wall construction - at ground level there is a pole/frame, and one z-level up is the mirror itself. They'd require light/outside/above ground to function.