Was in an email today and I thought it was a very interesting idea! We should do something like this and be the first just like Woodward had the first paved mile. I like the light up part alerting of anyone in the roadway too! Seems like tough deal though to make it durable enough for roadway use and especially in our climate.
Still! :cool:
http://www.wimp.com/solarhighways
Interesting, I don't have sound where I am so I quickly scanned it and am not sure what it all addressed.
If we could make it work here with the corrosion from snow salt and potholes it would definitely be a good thing. I am wondering would something like this be able to do things such as recharge cars like the Volt or Leaf allowing them to ride longer and making them less dependent on current electrical supplies from nuclear, coal or hydro?
The first mile of paved road was great because it was an innovation that people would actually use. Kind of difficult in tough times to get people behind an innovation that only a fraction of a percentage of people would be able to benefit from.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
If we're serious about transportation solutions, and not just promoting palliatives, why not build ... um ... light rail?
How about a solar powered train? Paneled tracks and cars!
One-shot, you must not be familiar with the limits of solar power to propose a solar-powered train.Quote:
Originally Posted by One Shot
http://blog.cleantechies.com/2010/11...ered-motorway/
Not the same, but way more practical with current technology. I like how they built an entire sound barrier out of solar panels.
One thing I don't think people understand is that all these efforts to somehow have cars use some kind of free energy to get around is that it's only slightly less wasteful than running them on gas.
More than half the energy that goes into a car is that used for its creation and disposal.
Trying to sustain car-only systems, at massive expense, doesn't give people transit choices.
Coming up with cars that can travel farther at less expense only ensures that people have to travel more to get the necessities of life, dissipating the savings on energy with poor metro design.
Think of it this way: Cities are the best way to conserve energy because people have to travel less to get the daily needs of life. When you plug in a transportation medium that would be cheap, you will only create a system where people have to travel more, not less, and the less dense the population, the more energy you waste.
No reason [[other than no funding for either) that we can't have both! Only a fraction will benefit from light rail too. As it is only about 1 percent of the trips in the area are made with transit. Light rail if it is a huge success will be able to bring it to two percent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitnerd
If you can harness the solar to recharge the car as it rides on the road, you can toll the road accordingly. Seems like a good zero carbon solution to me.
Nice bullshit line, considering that most of the Detroit metropolitan area has about ZERO transit service in the first place. You can't use something you don't have. In related news, nobody at Lafayette Coney Island orders pizza. Therefore, people hate pizza.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
Think about that the next time you hop in the car to buy a gallon of milk.
Um ... so nobody except the people who RIDE light rail will benefit? That's a very narrow view of light rail, DP.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
Light rail benefits the people who ride it, because they will not need to use a car or park a car.
But it also benefits the businesses along the line, who cater to the riders.
It benefits the people who work at the businesses that serve the riders, and, through its multiplier effect, the people whose jobs depend on their income.
It benefits the people who work maintaining the line, and, through the multiplier effect, the people whose businesses rely on the income of those people.
It benefits the motorists who drive on I-75 and the Lodge to work, taking hundreds of cars off the road during peak times.
It benefits the motorists who drive on Cass and Second, John R and Brush, freeing up road space for them as well.
It benefits anybody who has an emergency, or needs a cab, as excess road traffic is taken off the road and point-to-point vehicular access is improved.
It benefits people who live in the area, as less auto exhaust improves health.
It will raise land values, spur investment and create jobs, all of which will be felt beyond the area and will provide a living to people who live all over.
It will encourage density, saving money and energy as people live closer together, money that can be used for other purposes.
Given your credentials, I wonder why you frame light rail in such narrow terms. In short, you should know better, shouldn't you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
Yeah, except that it's not a zero-carbon solution at all. It will still take the same energy to produce the vehicle and to dispose of it. It is regressive in that it will still encourage people to live far from where they shop, play and work. When everybody lives far from where they conduct their activities, you are ensuring they spend much of their time traveling, and you can't say all that wear and tear on photovoltaic "solar roads" won't translate into expenses. It will be more expensive to deliver services to people who live far from where they work.
I am sick and tired of people who posit unrealistic plans to extend the life of the design failure that is late 20th century America. You want to free up cars for what they're good at? Give people transportation choices and don't make them drive everywhere, and don't make them design every environment for these space-hogs.
Gotta have ideas! And with all ideas come nay sayers. Some things work and some don't but we gotta try.
Nerd, the taxes generated from personal vehicles support the building and operation of light rail. Let me know when you figure out how to build and operate it without that support. Without cars you will not have light rail unless you tax the hell out of the surrounding land owners to the point where using light rail is not attractive.
Redardless, if the road can become the solar grid it puts us in a much better position than we are in now. I watched the video, have you even bothered?
They do? Where?Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
The solar road idea is bogus. It still doesn't solve the dilemma of driving everywhere for everything. You're still going to sink ever-increasing amounts of money into building ever-wider roads to accomodate an ever-growing number of vehicles. A planner should know such things.
Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble had the best of both worlds; mobility and fitness, and they managed this without burning fossil fuel. They had no choice; the fossils were still brewing...
I saw a demonstration of this awhile back. The road was designed in North Dakota, where they laugh at our definition of winter. It can handle anything that Michigan dishes out.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
The roadway also has the option of installing a heating element under the outer most layer of panel, which enables it to melt away snow and ice.
The technology isn't there yet for the road to charge an electric car while it's in motion - unless we make changes to every vehicle on said road. However, in the long range, that is definitely an option.Quote:
I am wondering would something like this be able to do things such as recharge cars like the Volt or Leaf allowing them to ride longer and making them less dependent on current electrical supplies from nuclear, coal or hydro?
The world knows we need roads so we have surfaces to walk on, and spatial boundaries for separating buildings. Really there's no point in debating cars. They represent but a thin fraction of world history, and roads certainly predate them. I repeat,This is not about cars, this about the vast amount of paved surfaces in this country that could be replaced with this technology. What are the alternatives? hay, grass, mud, gravel? Or should we continue to put down petroleum based products?
I don't know why DetroitYES can be so obtuse in these discussions. Forget irrelevant arguments like light rail and cars. There's a sidewalk in front of my building that's doing absolutely nothing right now. I think the concept has potential. Even if we lived in a world of 2 lane streets and highways the fact remains we've created vast expanses of artificial surfaces that could be put to work.
"This is your conductor speaking. The train will be delayed two days on account of cloud cover."Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitnerd
If only I could tax stupid ideas, such as these, and I would have enough money to build a maglev from my home to work.
I don't pull this stuff out of my @$$! The Highway Trust Fund!Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
"The recurring potential for severe cutbacks in federal funding for state highway and transit programs combined with the significantly reduced purchasing power of motor fuels taxes is creating a near-term crisis for investment in our nation's transportation assets," said an AASHTO report issued last week. The organization's members include PennDOT and similar departments in the other 49 states."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11038...#ixzz1E4B8qmAf
Money for transit does not grow on trees. It is a user fee paid by those who buy gasoline. In theory those who buy gas are rewarded by those who use transit because that means fewer cars on the road. This however has not been the case over the last several years because the taxes collected are barely enough to keep transit and highway infrastructure going. With the addition of cars like the Leaf and Volt, this is dispairity will continue to grow.
Having a solar road will help provide the funding needed to keep the system in good shape.
The trust fund that's been going into debt building car-only projects across America? That's rich.
I think it's because [[a) this idea sets off my highly sensitive bullshit detector, and [[b) I am sick and tired of the idea that we're going to keep our high-consumption lifestyle by finding some miraculous miracle fuel that will save us, and that America will go on and on building roads and freeways and moving farther out every year.Quote:
Originally Posted by wolverine
Not only is this all wishful thinking, every moment we delay -- building denser cities, installing serious, multi-modal mass transit, changing zoning, codes and laws to allow for energy-efficient cities, heck, even stuff like laying down bike lanes -- is another nail in our collective coffin.
Oh, shit, whatever. Go ahead and design your solar whatevertheyares. Have fun. Pay no attention to that DEAD END sign getting closer every year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
How about instead of adopting an expensive and unproven bullshit technology that will allow you to sit in twelve *solar-powered* lanes of congestion, maybe we can find a CHEAPER solution that already uses proven technology.
The highway trust fund has gone into debt the past three years, where it has been subsidized by the General Fund. And the HTF doesn't even cover externalities, like time wasted parked on the 15-lane I-75/85 Downtown Connector in Atlanta.
More pavement [[of any kind) won't fix a damned thing. We've built infrastructure over too wide an area, while diluting our tax base over an ever-wider geographic area. If we haven't learned that in the past 60 years, then our country DESERVES to go belly-up. Any future that assumes personal cars as the sole means of transportation is D.O.A. Get your head out of the 1950s, man!
Ha my head ain't in the 1950's. I point this stuff out because we need to change these policies. A solar road will help change them,and we can debate that. Incidentally, land use policies dictate transportation needs, not the other way around!Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
Change the land use and you can change the transportation mix. Streets are never going to go away. Buses will need to use them, bikes will need to use them, light rail will need to use them, IF cars go away. Roads pre-date cars and they will be around long after they are gone.
Roads that can be used to power stuff need to be explored not quashed because they will provide funding needed for other transportation improvements. You're the one assuming that I am talking about the car, but I am multimodal in my approach.
A "solar road" [[whatever that is) isn't a policy-shift. It's an enormous and unnecessary expense, at questionable gain [[if the shit even works). It still presumes that everyone will be transported by personal vehicle.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
Land uses in most places, I'm sure you know, presume two goals:
1. That everyone will be transported by personal automobile, and
2. The primary objective is to move as many cars as quickly as possible.
This paradigm is what has to change. Until it does, we'll be stuck with nothing but cul-de-sacs, collector roads, and cheap-ass buildings awash in a sea of parking lots sized for the Saturday-before-Christmas.
You don't need solar-powered pedestrians, bicycles, or transit vehicles to create the kind of communities that we had prior to World War II, and the so-called Greatest Generation made illegal through zoning.
You never bothered to watch the video have you? Can you stick to the topic of the solar road?
The "solar" road is no solution to anything. Build the roads out of chocolate, or sheets of LSD, or rock salt. I don't care. It doesn't fix a damned thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
The problem of oil dependency isn't that cars run on gasoline, or that asphalt is made from petroleum, it's that we have to drive for every fucking thing.
Its kind of like the space program,not very cost affective to run but the technology that is passed on through the research and passed onto the consumer for everyday life ,well you cannot even began to put a price tag on.
Interesting that the Chinese now produce the cheapest solar on the market,but what is even more interesting is the technology was produced here first.
Not to deviate from the OP but this is interesting reading .
http://www.en.iwm.fraunhofer.de/pres...details/id/27/
You don't get it do you? Roads are needed for buses, bikes, walkers. We had roads before cars and we will need them after cars. We will need to pay for their maintenance. We will need to pay for any public transit or other improvements. The gas tax is a carbon tax where some of the dollars are used to fund public transportation. We have madated higher fuel economy cars which will allow people to sprawl out even further and have the effect of reducing the dollars going into the trust fund. Alternatives are needed to fund roadways and transit or the cost of transit will soon be $10 a trip and the roads will turn to crap. Niether of these options will get people to jobs or goods to market.Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
You continue to pontificate and question me without looking at the video or checking out any of the other sources I have posted. Here is another one for you not to read from the Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123611793346923071.html
You can continue to rip on me all you want but planners have to work within the confines of policy and economic reality. The reality is that without you or others contacting your representatives to support reasonable policy there is only so much we can do other than try to educate the voters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
Nobody is proposing to obliterate roads. But you pretend we can continue to build 12-lane monstrosities into cornfields [[and then be surprised when they get clogged with traffic from new subdivisions and office parks). And somehow, these pixie-dust coated solar panels are supposed to fix everything. The problem isn't petroleum dependency, good sir. The problem is an AUTOMOBILE dependency. But you can't get that through your skull because you just know EVERYTHING about place-making. Everything, that is, in the plug-and-chug post-World War II era.
This solar road bullshit is a solution looking for a problem. Sure, it's cool to look at, but you're INSANE if you think we're going to install those panels over every existing paved lane-mile. No one here has even asked the big question, which is COST. For all you know, these panels cost $10,000/sf. [[and I wonder how robust they perform when subjected to freeze-thaw cycles).
Never mind that we're not even close to solving the problem of automobile-dependency, so factor in more magical solar panels for a few bazillion more beige plastic subdivisions and Soviet office parks. Then we can just all sell our homes and move into our cars permanently! YAY!
GP if you don't like solar roads, what is your solution for generating energy and funding transportation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
1. More trains, which can be powered by electricity. This includes streetcars in cities and towns.
2. Creating places where we can FUCKING WALK to things without getting plowed by a car travelling at 50 mph.
How do you generate the energy to run the trains and how do you propose to pay for them without a gas tax?Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
As I'm sure you're well aware, electricity can be generated through numerous means, including hydroelectric power, nuclear power, and coal. This technology already exists, and already powers trains worldwide, including some in the United States. No reinventing the wheel necessary. Even better, if we can retrofit our existing shitscape to become negotiable by pedestrians and bicycles, we wouldn't have to worry about producing energy for completing most of our day-to-day tasks.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
You might also be flabbergasted to know that gasoline taxes aren't required to fund trains. You could use whatever mechanism you like. Nothing requires trains to be funded by gas taxes [[Amtrak sure as hell isn't!).
But of course, you'll continue to insist that you don't exist in a 1950s idealized automobile-dependent world.... What a joke. All you know is roads, cars, and oil.
Yep I'm the idiot living in the past, you showed me good! [[God help us all)Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
I guess I need to start fighting public transit agencies, the biking community, and stop being for quality of life issues! Lets burn coal, gas and nukes instead of using clean sustainable power to fund transportation needs. You have made me see the light, I guess being for the economy makes me a socialist!
This is the antithesis of the city. I cannot believe there are so-called "city planners" who advocate this as the solution to our problems. More cars, more movement, more travel, more hours spent in traffic, enable by more technology.Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
It amply illustrates why our city center is failing: People have forgotten why we have cities in the first place. They obviate the need for all this frantic travel. They allow a person to walk to work, to walk to the pub, to walk to the store, to walk home, to walk for pleasure. No high-tech fix is going to undo this essential truth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitnerd
And that is the next crisis to which we're steering our society. Look at all of this "sustainability" crap that we're funding through research: hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, fuel cells, solar roads.... They all operate under the base assumption that we must continue driving for every task.
My solution is infinitely cheaper. Build sidewalks. Ban six-lane divided highway collector roads. Introduce transportation redundancy, instead of focusing on peak-hour throughput. Ban cul-de-sacs. Legalize mixed-use town/village/neighborhood centers [[vis-a-vis the plastic chain-store shopping malls designed to MIMIC town centers). Designate bicycle lanes. Rehabilitate rail lines. Putting these low-cost solutions into effect can not only accommodate greater numbers of people, but will also cost less than expanding and maintaining our roadway network and parkingplexes.
We already have this technology, and in the other 90% of the civilized world, it works. Our projected population growth isn't going to allow us to have an automotive appendage affixed to our bodies, because if current traffic congestion is any indication, we're already running out of physical space to do so. "Sustainability" doesn't mean jack shit if you have to schedule your bread-and-milk run for 6:00 on a Sunday morning.
Free the car to do what it's best at: Point-to-point travel for shared vehicles [[taxis), emergency vehicles [[police, fire, EMS), and delivery and work vehicles [[smaller, smarter). Offer so many options in the city that the private vehicle owner will use his car for what Ford originally intended: Driving out into nature.
Wow! I never thought something as simple as solar panels in a roadway could prompt such a flame war. Okay - as someone who was looking into this long before this thread got started - I feel a need to beg folks to pause and take a breather.
Here are a few points.
#1. The Solar Roadway has been around since 2008, when it grew out of a US DOT project.
#2. Prototypes have been built and tested. It's also been done on a small scale in parking lots. The technology that this is based on has been done to death for almost half a century. This is simply a matter of taking that technology and using it in a different manner.
#3. The major barrier to a Solar Roadway is its upfront cost. However, with the electricity that is generated, it will pay for itself over the course of its lifespan.
#4. Conventional asphalt or concrete roads, however, do not pay for themselves.
#5. Did I mention that Solar Roadways pay for themselves but conventional road don't?
#6. Because a Solar Roadway pays for itself, and a conventional road doesn't, the roadway vs. mass transit debate is a moot issue, in my opinion. A significant portion of our infrastructure budget goes toward maintaining conventional roads. If we replace them with roads that pay for themselves, we eventually free up cash for other things - like improved mass transit.
I see what's going on.
You can take time-honored design principles, that cities should be densely settled, encourage people to walk, have excellent services and appealing human scale. And nobody will do anything about it because "we like our cars."
You can take any old technology that has worked for more than 100 years moving thousands of persons per hour through dense urban environments -- trains, light rail, trams, trolleys, cable cars, subways -- and it's a boondoggle. Too costly, unproven, people won't ride them.
But as soon as you link some brand-new, unproven, just-thunk-it-up idea and link it to CARS, why, everybody will LOVE this new thing, tinker with it, imagine it as a vital and necessary way to solve the problems of maintaining all this roadway [[which is not needed if we honored cities and built dense) and allow us to drive all these CARS [[which destroy cities and density.)
How about this: Not one thin dime of my tax money for this idea. Until we have light rail on all main thoroughfares, we shouldn't even consider building one friggin' INCH of "solar roadway." Jesus-fuck, no.
Wintertime. Frost-heave beneath the road thrusts the concrete slab roadbed upward. Solar panel driving surface moves upward with it. How many tires get blown out driving over the edge of the panel at 75 mph? How many rims get bent to shit? How *does* one fix a pothole in a solar roadway, anyway? And how does the coefficient of thermal expansion compare to that of concrete, which will certainly need to be constructed as a structural sub-base?
If the solar roadway pays for itself by producing electricity, how much money do we spend on wasted electrical production capacity? How much do we spend bulldozing our existing power infrastructure? How much do we spend to pave a mile of road with these solar panels, and how long before we recoup our investment?
Again--this is a solution looking for a problem. This solar roadway business is a complete and utter gamble that doesn't fix anything that isn't already addressed by making better, smarter, more affordable choices. What's next? Prescribing cocaine for chronically depressed people?
Wow! I actually need a moment to regroup from the collective stupidity of you two.
Show me where anything I've written is factually incorrect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
And since you're the expert on all things solar roadway, including your claim that "they pay for themselves", sure you have numbers that demonstrate this.
How is sitting in 12 lanes of gridlock in this mess any improvement over asphalt? Oh wait--it's SOLAR-POWERED!!! That's why!
Any asinine excuse to not have the four-wheeled appendage surgically-removed from your ass.... How WILL we ever function if we have to use our own two feet? The irony is, Frank, YOU OF ALL PEOPLE KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY AND LAND DETROIT SPENDS ON PARKING LOTS AND GARAGES. Yet you see no need to reduce or eliminate such a ridiculous expense. You'd rather run childishly to an unproven, impractical technology that solves no practical problem.
How many Madison-Lenoxes get demolished for solar-powered [[and landscaped and lighted!) parking lots, Frank? How many Book-Cadillacs are restored because they don't have to come up with an extra $20 million for solar-powered parking garages, Frank? How many buildings will be demolished for widening the solar-powered main road to 10 lanes, Frank?
#1. I think your general frustration over a lack of progress in mass transit in Detroit is effecting you. Seriously. Log off. Take a walk. Do whatever to clear your head and come back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitnerd
#2. Even in the densest of cities, there have always been a need for roads. Those roads have always required maintainance. We either continue to pay those costs or we can employ technologies that solve the problem.
Oh, yeah. I'm sure all these solar roads will produce electricity that's "too cheap to meter."Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
Let me just add:
If photovoltaic surfaces need sunlight to produce power, why do we want to build them on the bottom of everything? I can understand building panels on top of buildings. I can even understand building panels on the south side of a building that's exposed to light. But, um, aren't roads kind of on the bottom of everything? Sunken down into depressed freeways? Along dense thoroughfares where no light falls for hours a day? Sometimes covered with traffic, sometimes with snow?
In other words, if you wanted to install photovoltaics, would you want them up in the air with plenty of light, where you can have access to them when they need maintenance or upgrades?
Or, put it another way, is there a stupider place to put solar cells than in the middle of the fucking road?
We'd have money to maintain STREETS if we weren't busy spending it all constructing bypasses, connectors, beltways, flyovers, "express" lanes and all manner of automotive sewer out to every half-assed cardboard-and-plastic subdivision and Soviet office park.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
"Gee, these solar panels were a great idea until the snow plow done gone and busted 'em all up!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitnerd
Of course, all the brilliant materials scientists are forgetting the principle of DUCTILITY that these solar panels just do not have. Without ductility, you have stresses induced by horizontal movement of the concrete structure below, caused by natural temperature fluctuations. You can't make a spot repair to a solar panel if it gets busted--you have to replace the whole damned thing. And of course, any old $10/hr employee can do that work, yes?
#1. Nothing "rises upward" in a Solar Roadway, regardless of the season.Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
#2. The edge of a Solar Roadway isn't any sharper or more severe than the seams that are already present in a concrete road.
#3. Potholes don't form in a Solar Roadway.
Our current electrical production capacity has to be replaced periodically, just like our roads do. If we phase in Solar Roadways, we can phase out the current capacity as part of its natural attrition.Quote:
If the solar roadway pays for itself by producing electricity, how much money do we spend on wasted electrical production capacity? How much do we spend bulldozing our existing power infrastructure? How much do we spend to pave a mile of road with these solar panels, and how long before we recoup our investment?
An emotional reaction to something stupid may be a sign of fatigue. But when you have a problem and, year after year, week after week, day after day, people float unsuitable, untested, unworkable plans that allow us to KEEP DOING STUPID STUFF, an emotional reaction may be suitable. Why don't you clear your head, look into why other cities in the world are LIGHT YEARS ahead of Detroit, and stop giving this twaddle any serious credence. We don't even have bike paths yet, let alone light rail.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
So, we're going to solve the problem of road maintenance by putting maintenance-heavy panels right down the middle of the road where 100,000-pound trucks drive over them every day, crushing them under snow and salt and gravel?Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
Um ... who needs to go clear his head here?
I support having solar panels on the light rail cars and at the rail stops and maintenance stations.. whatever power it would generate, should be welcomed; off-set costs at least somewhat..
Umm... Did I say that? Did I say anything even remotely like that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitnerd
Snow is dealt with by a heating element that is embedded into the Solar Roadway. Snow gets melted away and is drained just like rain does.Quote:
If photovoltaic surfaces need sunlight to produce power, why do we want to build them on the bottom of everything? I can understand building panels on top of buildings. I can even understand building panels on the south side of a building that's exposed to light. But, um, aren't roads kind of on the bottom of everything? Sunken down into depressed freeways? Along dense thoroughfares where no light falls for hours a day? Sometimes covered with traffic, sometimes with snow?
As for the other variables that you mentioned, not every road and/or parking is a good candidate for conversion to a Solar Roadway. However, there are lots of them were it does work.
For every place where it works, it means more green energy and less resources needed for road maintainance.
Says Frank Nemecek, P.E. Frost heave--the phenomenon that causes potholes--occurs when water in the soil migrates beneath the roadbed and freezes. As you know, water expands in volume when it freezes, applying upward force to the roadbed above. But of course, real-world engineering principles don't apply in the world of SOLAR[[!).Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
Unless solar panels magically make water dissipate from soil, or prevent the temperature of the ground from falling below 33 degrees F, guess what happens, chief?
Concrete roads also don't fracture with straight, pre-engineered, horizontal metal edges and corners projecting up from the road surface.Quote:
#2. The edge of a Solar Roadway isn't any sharper or more severe than the seams that are already present in a concrete road.
See #1 above. Potholes aren't a function of the pavement. They're a function of the drainage below the roadbed. Frost depth in Michigan is a minimum of 24 inches. So unless you're going to build your solar road on a 24 inch-thick slab embedded in the ground, you're talking out of your asshole.Quote:
#3. Potholes don't form in a Solar Roadway.
No, just reprising a familiar strain in arguments about power sources. You know, remembering other failed promises about power generation that may be apt to consider at this point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
So you're going to use the power generated by the "green" "solar" road to melt water. So, how much power is left over after this? If you're going to heat the roadway surface to keep it free of snow and ice, doesn't that mean there will be some times when the "green" solar panel will actually be a power consumer? That would be a sight: A "green" technology that uses electrical power to keep the roads free of ice so we can all drive. Talk about regressive...Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
I trust this ice-melting device will produce water, which will mix with particles of rubber, fuel, vehicle fluids and other materials into a toxic runoff we'll need to keep treating.
Of course it works. That's why nobody has built a mile of it. Pffffttt ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
Yeah, Solar Roadways are a "unsuitable, untested, unworkable plan."Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitnerd
The 2008 study from the U.S. Department of Transportation doesn't really exist.
The prototype, and larger pilot project, in Idaho were complete fabrications.
The presentation at TED 2009 was a complete lie.
The Solar Roadway has already been tested to withstand the weight of a fully loaded 18-wheeler. 100,000 lbs. trucks do no damage to them whatsoever.Quote:
So, we're going to solve the problem of road maintenance by putting maintenance-heavy panels right down the middle of the road where 100,000-pound trucks drive over them every day, crushing them under snow and salt and gravel?
You would know if this if you read some of the materials that are out there on this thing.
No, so says the engineers who designed the thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
Believe it or not, the U.S. Department of Transportation actually employs a couple of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
So they got a few of these panels to work in a controlled experimental setting. That's fantastic. Where's the next step--the real-world application? Surely, this is such a slam dunk we can pave at least one cul-de-sac in a 2-year time frame, yes?
Provide source with claim by US DOT engineers [[licensed P.E.s) stating that Solar Roadway panels are not subject to damage through frost heave.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
Oh, yes. Some egghead-gearheads at the DOT did a study. Woo-hoo! We're in business! Start laying it down, at great expense, everywhere! Whee!Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
Except we don't have the money for it.
And that it won't solve our problems.
And that there are myriad other things we can do to prepare ourselves for the 21st century.
But forget all that stuff. Let's just build this new technology that has never existed outside of a testing situation. Even though it's not right for every situation. And, clearly, not every road is appropriate for it. And, given the fact that we haven't instituted it outside of a laboratory environment, we really have no idea how much power it will actually produce, or whether it will be a net consumer of power during cold, cloudy spells. WHO CARES ABOUT ALL THAT! LET'S JUST DO IT!
So you're saying that, through ice and snow, through thaws and freezes, though a stream of 164,000-pound trucks spilling gravel all over the road, so that slamming on brakes and scraping gravel across the surface, bumping and braking, crashing scattering metal everywhere, nothing will happen to this magic surface?Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
The heat and thaw cycles will mean the road will be impervious to potholes?
Let me tell you something: My father was a construction worker for many years. He said that you could be a billionaire overnight if you could design concrete that would never crack. You know why he used to crack that joke? Because it's impossible. When you say you will build a road that will never have potholes, that will never have problems, that will have a miracle fabric on it that produces free electricity, you have basically offended my critical thinking skills. And you are worthy of whatever contempt is heaped upon your fantasy. Sorry, friend. It ain't me. It's reality talking.
And we haven't even scratched the surface [[no pun intended) of geometry. Real roadways have curves: concave, convex, and horizontal. Does that mean we have to custom-fabricate each solar panel? Sure, that's cheap. And certainly, we can fabricate a perfectly curved surface that won't be the least bit discontinuous. Because, as we all know, the concrete contractors who pour the roadbed are always inhumanly perfect in their execution.
And what about things like manholes and storm sewers? How do we accommodate those? Sure, you can manufacture a panel that has the same thickness as asphalt--in theory. But each manhole rises to a different height above the concrete roadbed. How do you match the top of manhole elevation? And can you obtain panels with "cut-outs" that accommodate the manholes?
How can you say all that, GP? You haven't even read my study of the perpetual motion machine that only needs a slice of the cheese the moon is made of to run forever.Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
I have a ridiculously naive habit of considering constructibility and practicality when I...Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitnerd
*** LOOK! SHINY BRIGHT THINGS!!! ***
Where was I?
Oh yes, I was applying for a loan from the City of Detroit to bulldoze the outdated, obsolete Guardian Building to construct Michigan's very first solar-powered parking lot. That'll bring the tourists in! Detroit has nothing to worry about ever again. Ever.
Wow! I'm all in favor of healthy skepticism, but you two are just off the charts.
Because solar roadways are bullshit off the charts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek
Wow what a great rebuttal! You showed him like you showed me! Who needs to construct an arguement based on research when you can just give a flippant response!Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
Hey ass, maybe you can go up and read the 12 or so posts I wrote above, where I do construct an argument based on facts and engineering science. I see you have no answers to any of the constructibility, practicality, or cost questions.Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner
But hey, solar panels are COOL, man! Don't let facts get in the way of that!
Cul-de-sacs aren't a good option because of the curves, as you point out in a different post.Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
However, after the prototype was built, they went on to build a short test version of it outdoors. From there, they installed it in a parking lot. [[Oh, and no signs of heaving in the 2 years years of it being outdoors in northern Idaho.)
The technology needs to be fine tuned and improved. It's not ready for a full-scale role out yet. However, it shows promise.
This is true. The more curves in a road, and the more severe those curves are, the less viable a Solar Roadway is. However, not every road is filled with curves.Quote:
Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto
For those that are fairly straight, a Solar Roadway shows promise.
Not sure. The version that I saw didn't accommodate for manholes. However, I'm reasonably confident that this isn't an insurmountable challenge.Quote:
And what about things like manholes and storm sewers? How do we accommodate those? Sure, you can manufacture a panel that has the same thickness as asphalt--in theory. But each manhole rises to a different height above the concrete roadbed. How do you match the top of manhole elevation? And can you obtain panels with "cut-outs" that accommodate the manholes?
I'm not sure. Each panel in the Roadway generates 230 watts of electricity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitnerd
If that's not enough to raise its surface temperature above freezing, there's no law that one has to turn the heating element on.
Well, 230 watts isn't a whole lot of electricity, depending on the voltage. Of course, if you don't turn on the heating element, then you can't even harness the 230 volts on a snow day. All this makes it into a worse bet than it at first appears.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnemecek