What would certainly you do if you lived in a town so deep in a valley, the sunlight didn’t also beam there half the year? What? You would certainly relocate away? Okay, allow’s say you really did not relocate. Allow’s state you liked it in Rjukan, Norway– or a minimum of needed people to remain there.
That’s the circumstance that encountered Sam Eyde, a Norwegian industrialist who built manufacturing facilities in this dark valley greater than 100 years earlier. A leader in Norway’s chemical market, he also created a massive power plant to harness hydroelectric power from the nearby Rjukanfossen falls.
So he built Rjukan in the close-by valley to house people who helped him. That worked well for half the year. But from September 28 to March 12, the sunlight primarily skips town, leaving practically six months of color and also evening.
Way back in 1913, among Eyde’s factory employees suggested that big mirrors on the mountaintop might reflect the sun’s rays down onto Rjukan, deep in the valley. However the mirror modern technology wasn’t ready yet, so in 1928 Eyde developed a wire car to take individuals up to the warm mountaintops. Individuals obtained used to it.
Fast-forward to a new century. In 2001, musician Martin Andersen moved to Rjukan. He revitalized the mirror concept– calling it a Solspeil (sun mirror)– and also already, the innovation was closer to prepared. (A village in Italy set up a comparable system in 2006, and a stadium in Arizona utilizes mirrors to beam sunlight onto lawn that expands in a questionable area.) Interestingly, lots of Rjukan residents weren’t pleased regarding the mirror idea– up until it became a reality in 2013.
That’s when 3 twenty-square-yard mirrors went into activity. They follow the sunlight all day, powered by solar energy and also controlled by computers. A brilliant swimming pool of light– regarding 80-90% as solid as straight sunlight– heats the community’s central square, where people gather together in the sunlight. It’s changed the community. Even skeptics like it currently. And also it’s bring in tourists– a valuable product in a town that long earlier lost the markets that as soon as attracted people to this dark valley.
