Solar Roadways, what a concept!

[gazhekwe]

http://blog.yert.com/2010/06/02/new-...the-prototype/

This seems like a great idea to me, lots of wonderful features and you get power from it, too.

[Retroit]

Amazing! I hope it catches on.

[[I said the same thing about solar roofs on residential homes 30 years ago. )

[MCP-001]

Interesting concept.

[Mama Jackson]

An idea whose time has come! I love this. Would it be too far of a leap to hope the road wouldn't need to be salted because of the electricity generated? Perhaps it could create enough heat to melt ice and snow? Wow, that an innovation this would be! It would a be great investment.

[Bearinabox]

[[I said the same thing about solar roofs on residential homes 30 years ago. )

Those have caught on. Just not in America, because Americans are fucking stupid.

[Stosh]

The concept is good, just too may variables to be done any time soon. They have got to get the glass coating right. Otherwise, a wet road could become like, well, a sheet of glass. And all the fancy LED items just distract from the main purpose of the road, electrical generation.

I can't see them doing too well with the road warrior snowplow drivers we have in Michigan. That, and as mentioned above, the salt. Brutal on asphalt, probably abrasive to glass. Let alone the transmission of the electricity problems. But out west is the probable application site for this stuff, not here.

I think that there needs to be a concerted push toward developing affordable solar generating capacities in other areas that are more proven, as in residential and commercial settings.

[RO_Resident]

An idea whose time has come! I love this. Would it be too far of a leap to hope the road wouldn't need to be salted because of the electricity generated? Perhaps it could create enough heat to melt ice and snow? Wow, that an innovation this would be! It would a be great investment.

How can the road generate electricity if it is covered with 6" or 7" of snow? How well does the surface handle plowing or sweeping, or deicing chemicals?

Do you have to build an appropriate concrete or asphalt base? What is the proper load transfer device at the joints to prevent faulting? What are the joint treatments needed to prevent sand infiltration? How well do the electronics handle water during the spring thaw/load restricted periods? How far do trees need to be cleared from the roadside to allow sufficient light to hit the surface?

Yes, that's a lot of questions. Interesting concept, though.

[wolverine]

The concept is good, just too may variables to be done any time soon. They have got to get the glass coating right. Otherwise, a wet road could become like, well, a sheet of glass. And all the fancy LED items just distract from the main purpose of the road, electrical generation.

I can't see them doing too well with the road warrior snowplow drivers we have in Michigan. That, and as mentioned above, the salt. Brutal on asphalt, probably abrasive to glass. Let alone the transmission of the electricity problems. But out west is the probable application site for this stuff, not here.

I think that there needs to be a concerted push toward developing affordable solar generating capacities in other areas that are more proven, as in residential and commercial settings.

Exactly, if they can make it work, the benefits are incredible....even if maintenance is extremely costly, it's still probably worth it.

[Papasito]

Yay! Another great idea we can't afford!

[Whitehouse]

Do you realize how much energy is needed to produce glass on that scale?? Plus, how long will it take for you to stand still on a rainy day with your semy. Brake on Woodward and end up in Dearborn...

[wolverine]

Yay! Another great idea we can't afford!

Well, you never know. Quite a few steps to get there.

1. Researchers continue to perfect their technology and produce and even more believable and convincing product
2. Fed. gov. and private companies buy into. Hundreds of millions of dollars of research money is cut from other pavement research programs and redirected to the solar road.
3. The research funding assists in developing the technology and even more. A marketable surface is generated.
4. Other researchers develop the installation technology that will maximize employment in construction, but still keep labor costs low.
5. Fed and state gov. begin paving test roads
6. After several years the technology is proven
7. Fed, state, local, governments begin paving roads with new technology.
8. Incentives offered to private sector.

Eventually my hope it would become cheap enough or pay for itself in benefits that the asphalt industry would go out of businesses.

[wolverine]

Do you realize how much energy is needed to produce glass on that scale?? Plus, how long will it take for you to stand still on a rainy day with your semy. Brake on Woodward and end up in Dearborn...

If you listened the video, they mentioned that was a concern, but they can develop glass with the same or even better coefficients of friction than concrete or asphalt.

The energy issue will have to be worked out. I don't know the embodied energy into producing asphalt and concrete vs glass. At the same time, what will our longevity be of the glass surface? If it's longer than other surfaces, we are saving energy not having to repave.

[Detroitnerd]

Delusional thinking. Anything to breathe life into the idea that the personal vehicle can somehow be gentle to the earth. Yes, sure, let's have cars that get better mileage. But let us never discuss the many other intelligent things we could do, from restoring the U.S. railroad system -- which would have the greatest impact on our oil consumption, and quickly, than any project we could do right away -- to reforming our planning-and-zoning codes comprehensively, to promoting walkable communities and public transit on the fine-grained scale. Unfortunately, we're going to sit back and hope the tech geeks save our private automobiles: The most wasteful method of land travel possible.

[Papasito]

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009...solar-roadway/

The Solar Roadway Panel [[TM) is still on the drawing board, but it does promise lots of ambitious features. For instance, it will have smart LED lights to serve as lane markers or spell out messages. It will sense animals on the roadway and warn drivers [[deer totally love the idea). It will be heated so as to prevent icing. You can stop and plug your electric car into it if you ever run out of power. And oh so much more.

But let’s step back for a moment and think about this in the broadest terms: The basic problems with solar energy are that it’s intermittent, low-intensity, and difficult to store. Most definitely not among those problems is a lack of open, sunny real estate for the panels.

Likewise, there are some urgent problems with the nation’s road infrastructure. Not among them is the fact that our streets and highways are not all made of solar panels.

Those issues notwithstanding, Solar Roadways is engineering PV panels to withstand 40-ton vehicles going 80 miles an hour over them day and night for decades. How much more does it cost to make solar panels–already a bit pricey–totally indestructible? We’re guessing a lot. And this all so we can avoid putting them someplace sensible, like on all those empty rooftops in America’s sunnier climes, where cars and trucks don’t drive and where there also happens to be an existing electrical grid for them to hook into.

And all we have to do is tear up all our roads and replace them with solar panels at the low, low price of $35 trillion.

Neat idea, maybe worth persuing, if we could pay off this national debt, get our economy on track, create peace in the Middle East, and have a Government with a balanced budget... or heck, even a Government that costs us less than what they take in.... so they can have the money left over to do batshit crazy things like this!

[wolverine]

Delusional thinking. Anything to breathe life into the idea that the personal vehicle can somehow be gentle to the earth. Yes, sure, let's have cars that get better mileage. But let us never discuss the many other intelligent things we could do, from restoring the U.S. railroad system -- which would have the greatest impact on our oil consumption, and quickly, than any project we could do right away -- to reforming our planning-and-zoning codes comprehensively, to promoting walkable communities and public transit on the fine-grained scale. Unfortunately, we're going to sit back and hope the tech geeks save our private automobiles: The most wasteful method of land travel possible.

Well yes and there is that too that I fully support. But right now the street outside my office is doing nothing but collecting heat when it could be powering the building

[Detroitnerd]

Well yes and there is that too that I fully support. But right now the street outside my office is doing nothing but collecting heat when it could be powering the building

I usually overstate for effect, you know. But, honestly, we could have a very successful conservation program that would go a long way toward reducing demand. Of course, since we've given energy over to business, they don't want lower demand, they want ever more consumption. That's the main crux.

But, the thing is, the time to build all this smart energy infrastructure was 30 years ago. Now that we're essentially broke, we're supposed to embark on a plan to spend trillions of dollars to turn roadways into solar cells? With no discussion of how private autos might not be the most efficient way to move people?

That is so silly, man. When you get right down to it, it's about as silly as running a sound truck around town announcing "STOP NOISE POLLUTION" or running a 1.2 megawatt billboard urging "Conserve electricity!"

[gazhekwe]

Would it be too much of a stretch to think development of this technology could make rooftop use more feasible and less costly than it is now?

Would that adding solar to the roof were just that easy. No, we have the issues of roof angles and orientation, along with ambient shade from trees or other buildings. We have not built to facilitate solar.

In the 80s, we explored both wind and solar power for our log home on the shores of Lake Superior. It was easy enough to get the infrastructure to produce power. Unfortunately, at that time, power storage and interfacing with the existing electric grid were not so easy. All one could produce was six or 12 volt, requiring huge banks of auto or golfcart batteries for storage. Then, you had to have a big inverter to convert the power for use with standard appliances and lighting. Over the next 40 years, many of those problems have been solved.

There is no telling where we will be in the next 10, 20, 30 years. The questions that seem so overwhelming today may well have been solved, as long as we keep on working on the issues. You don't get from idea to full fledged electrical system without a whole lot of work.

[Stosh]

Would it be too much of a stretch to think development of this technology could make rooftop use more feasible and less costly than it is now?

Would that adding solar to the roof were just that easy. No, we have the issues of roof angles and orientation, along with ambient shade from trees or other buildings. We have not built to facilitate solar.

In the 80s, we explored both wind and solar power for our log home on the shores of Lake Superior. It was easy enough to get the infrastructure to produce power. Unfortunately, at that time, power storage and interfacing with the existing electric grid were not so easy. All one could produce was six or 12 volt, requiring huge banks of auto or golfcart batteries for storage. Then, you had to have a big inverter to convert the power for use with standard appliances and lighting. Over the next 40 years, many of those problems have been solved.

There is no telling where we will be in the next 10, 20, 30 years. The questions that seem so overwhelming today may well have been solved, as long as we keep on working on the issues. You don't get from idea to full fledged electrical system without a whole lot of work.

You still need that inverter, although it's not as big. Also net metering will give you a place for that electricity to go once it's produced, but if you wish to be totally off grid, you'll need batteries of some quantity.

I think that the major obstacles to Solar electricity are that it doesn't always shine, the cells are expensive [[although lower) and are relatively inefficient in their common form.

Recent developments and discoveries are happening all the time, so I'm hopeful that soon there will be a low cost way to power your home. I like passive solar heat and cooling better, it's cheaper and you get some use of the heat directly to heat and cool your house. Just need to structurally modify a few things...

[wolverine]

Would it be too much of a stretch to think development of this technology could make rooftop use more feasible and less costly than it is now?

Bad idea. One solution to a problem may conflict with another. There's the green roof movement which is big out here in Chicago. Buildings all over my neighborhood are covered with grass and plant flats. This helps reduce water runoff from building sites among other benefits. If you put a bunch of solar panels on the roof, you are contributing to substantial runoff. It's difficult really to put plants beneath them. Even then, the overall contribution of power is relatively low since most urban buildings have relatively small roof areas. You aren't going to power much more than the security lights. There needs to be a good offsite location for power.

As much as I appreciate the benefits of capturing solar energy, I don't think it's best for the private building owner. It's very expensive and requires a great deal of maintenance. It's better this source of energy be centralized, whether it's a solar farm or integrated with our existing infrastructure.