A balance between energy and habitability
Ian Marius Peters from the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy delved into whether such a megastructure could be built using materials available in our solar system while maintaining Earth’s habitability. His study reveals that small-scale Dyson structures positioned within Earth’s orbit would be ineffective, as they would either overheat or block too much sunlight from reaching our planet.
On the other hand, a large-scale Dyson swarm, while efficient at energy collection, would drastically raise Earth’s temperature. This outcome underscores the dilemma of such an ambitious engineering project—how to harvest vast amounts of solar energy without compromising the conditions necessary for life.