Saudi Crown Prince unveils plans for $500bn structure to house 9M people

Re:Saudi Crown Prince unveils plans for $500bn structure to ... by hansword on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @09:31AM (#32238035)

You are missing the central point of the Walkie-Talkie and Disney-Concert-Hall controversies. These are Frank-Gehry(-style) buildings, and in those roughly half of all surfaces is a concave and half is a convex mirror. THIS concentration to one point is what turns the summer sun into death rays.

Reflected sun, by definition, has a little less energy than direct sun. So, given the mirror walls are straight, as the designs show, you get (at maximum) 200% of normal desert sun energy, which isn't comfortable, but not a Gehry-style death ray.

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Re:Saudi Crown Prince unveils plans for $500bn structure to ... by helloworld11 on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @02:47PM (#32242274)

You're grossly understating just how brutal it would be. While you're right about how concave mirror surfaces truly create lethal concentrations of energy, this vast reflective surface would still unbearably heat the land next to it at certain times of day. 200% of Arabian Peninsula levels of solar heat as only "uncomfortable"? You've got to be kidding.

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Re:Saudi Crown Prince unveils plans for $500bn structure to ... by ouid on Tuesday July 26, 2022 @10:21AM (#32238629)

i have been on a street adjacent to a zero curvature mirrored building and it almost turned me into a terrorist

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