Solar Roadways Seeks $1M to Replace Streets with Solar Panels

[immortalfrieza]

Good thought, but I see two practical problems with it.

{1} The wear and tear. All the crap that ends up on regular roads - from treadmarks to garbage to animal carcasses and so on - will end up here too, without fail. This will gradually, then greatly, inhibit the process simply by blocking the sun. You get significantly less than this on basic solar panel areas because they're not being driven on or are in generally public areas where other things happen in their midst.

Didn't they state in the article that these things are designed to take punishment? They'd have to be pretty stupid if they didn't create these things with making them resilient enough to handle what a typical asphalt road can or better in mind.

[sup]Unless you make your money from an oil well, of course...[/sup]

This^ is the reason I don't expect this to actually happen, especially not anytime soon. The corporations that make so much money off of oil and other consumable power sources would lose BILLIONS if this was actually implemented on a wide scale, so they'd do everything they can to prevent this from getting off the ground until they absolutely positively needed to.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

Why do futuristic things always need to have so many features? You want to make a new form of roads? Fine. You want it to collect solar energy? That's crazy, but let's go with it. You want it to melt snow and light up? And, what was that with the wires, have the power lines underground? I just don't get why all these things have to happen at once. Revolutions almost always go back to the way things were, while small changes actually get stuff done over time.

 

[jetriot]

deleted

 

[FalloutJack]

Zip

Ah, no no, I mean like stuff getting all over the panels. They wouldn't let people drive on it if they didn't think it could remain intact. I mean more like all the crap of the world getting all over it and inhibiting the process.

 

[PhiMed]

This would be a fantastic idea if it's practical.

We should really devote some attenti...

Wait, what? Some rich racist said something condescending and racist?

News cycle, SWITCH IT UP!!!

 

[zumbledum]

i just dont like the blind optimism that goes along with "renewable" im no expert in any of the fields of science touching this , but correct me if im wrong , you cant create or destroy anything you can just change its state, e=mc sq and all that and we know we cant predict effects this complex that chaos theory thing.... i just dont see how blindly removing such huge amounts of energy from the weather system can possible be a good thing.

 

[Avaholic03]

i just dont like the blind optimism that goes along with "renewable" im no expert in any of the fields of science touching this , but correct me if im wrong , you cant create or destroy anything you can just change its state, e=mc sq and all that and we know we cant predict effects this complex that chaos theory thing.... i just dont see how blindly removing such huge amounts of energy from the weather system can possible be a good thing.

The Earth isn't a closed system. Sunlight is constantly bombarding the planet, which is energy coming into the system. We are simply harnessing some of this energy with solar technology.

Or, if you want to think about it another way, the sun is basically a massive nuclear reaction and we're just harnessing a tiny fraction of the energy it's producing. It's not truly limitless since one day the sun will burn out, but for our needs it's practically limitless energy.

At any rate, renewable energy certainly doesn't violate any fundamental laws of nature or energy conservation or anything like that. Like I said, the key thing to remember is that Earth is NOT a closed system, so mass and energy conservation laws can't be applied.

 

[zumbledum]

i just dont like the blind optimism that goes along with "renewable" im no expert in any of the fields of science touching this , but correct me if im wrong , you cant create or destroy anything you can just change its state, e=mc sq and all that and we know we cant predict effects this complex that chaos theory thing.... i just dont see how blindly removing such huge amounts of energy from the weather system can possible be a good thing.

The Earth isn't a closed system. Sunlight is constantly bombarding the planet, which is energy coming into the system. We are simply harnessing some of this energy with solar technology.

Or, if you want to think about it another way, the sun is basically a massive nuclear reaction and we're just harnessing a tiny fraction of the energy it's producing. It's not truly limitless since one day the sun will burn out, but for our needs it's practically limitless energy.

At any rate, renewable energy certainly doesn't violate any fundamental laws of nature or energy conservation or anything like that. Like I said, the key thing to remember is that Earth is NOT a closed system, so mass and energy conservation laws can't be applied.

yeah i do get all that , but whatever energy we take from the system , be it solar wind tide whatever, means that energy isnt going where it used to that has to have an affect?

sticking this solar powered road surface downs isnt going to magically make the sun shine brighter is it? no its going to redirect that energy from where it currently goes.

butterfly wings... but sucking enough energy out of the weather system to power a country np! i just dont see it.

 

[Creedsareevil]

Hahaha.. no.

This is a dumb idea because we have cities full of houses that have roofs that really could use a solar power upgrade....

Noone drives on fckns house roofs....

Germany was well on its way subsisding houseowners to install solar panels and alas it had a positive impact, but then the energy lobby won the lobby war and now its fucked.

 

[Areloch]

snip

I think you're thinking about this a bit too hard. But hey!

Consider how energy from the sun impacts earth. Currently, light that comes in is largely refracted in the atmosphere, or bounced back into space from the cloud layer.

If it GETS to the surface of the earth, right now, you've got part of it hitting asphalt roads, some of which bounces off back into the atmosphere. Some of it, however, is absorbed due to the asphalt being a dark color, and is retained as heat.

However, this heat is non-permanent, and is bled off back into either the ground or the air over the course of the day as it gets cooler.

Percentages-wise, I don't imagine it's likely to impact things on a large scale.

As they're using glass, you're still getting some reflecting back off of it into the atmosphere(actually likely a much higher percentage than the asphalt), and some of it is being absorbed into the solar cells for energy instead of heat, as in the case with asphalt.

From there, the cells could either heat the cells, making it act identically to asphalt, or whisk it away to be used elsewhere as electricity. So at most, you'd get a very minute variation in ground-level temperatures during the daylight hours where roads are. Given that the glass surface is likely to reflect back a comparatively larger percentage of light and energy than the dark asphalt, it would likely even-out the amount of energy going into the atmosphere at ground-level.

So the likelyhood of it being an appreciable enough difference to have huge impacts on the weather or environment is pretty astoundingly unlikely.

Obviously to be sure you'd need to run some kind of simulation to see if there's any real impact, but but a rough thought-experiment and my gut says it wouldn't.

 

[Something Amyss]

This biggest issue here is that they're promising the moon. I mean, smart roads offer everything but a back rub, and while I get futureproofing something designed for massive infrastructure, it increases the cost and doesn't all seem necessary. Some of the features are neat, though.

Good thought, but I see two practical problems with it.

{1} The wear and tear. All the crap that ends up on regular roads - from treadmarks to garbage to animal carcasses and so on - will end up here too, without fail. This will gradually, then greatly, inhibit the process simply by blocking the sun. You get significantly less than this on basic solar panel areas because they're not being driven on or are in generally public areas where other things happen in their midst.

This operates on the assumption that they cannot or will not be cleaned. Otherwise, there's no issue from any of the listed items.

{2} Wouldn't the heat of the panels absorbing sun all day cause tire blowouts?

As opposed to normal asphalt, which doesn't absorb sun? Most of the panels I've dealt with get less hot than your average city road, so the major difference is that one converts sun into potential to do useful (for us) work, while the other solely heats.

I worry more about how they're going to simultaneously make these things transparent enough for the solar panels to work and rough enough that it won't be like driving on ice.

Even without the raised sections, the glass appears textured.

I mean, we have the technology to stick solar panels on roofs where they don't have to worry about being driven on. Most roofs don't have these...why try to stick them on the road?

I really don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

yeah i do get all that , but whatever energy we take from the system , be it solar wind tide whatever, means that energy isnt going where it used to that has to have an affect?

I'd be more worried about the drag the moon causes on the earth. And I'm not very worried.

We're talking about a fairly trivial amount, even if we're talking huge sections paved. solar cells aren't even that great at conversion and still do put off a fair amount of heat. It's not going to be significantly worse than putting pavement there in the first place. And there's a lot of other factors, which I'm almost positive if someone crunched would make any net loss not worth the energy it took.

I mean, we actually have people painting buildings to reflect more light/heat and contribute to counteracting climate change, which is going to do (comparably, remember) way more. And it's been suggested we do this for roads.

But still, everything we do takes energy from the system. Existing means we have an effect.

 

[zumbledum]

snip

I think you're thinking about this a bit too hard. But hey!

heh once again i get all that , all im saying is every joule amp or whatever you measure raw energy in goes somewhere. and renewable energy gathering methods do alter it.

i also know very small changes can have very massive impacts. hurricanes only become possible with a certain sea temperature for an example.


now i recall seeing a meteorologist saying that the most we can really predict ahead is 2 hours with real accuracy we simply cant model the system it has far too many interacting parts

it just seems to me the only things we can definitively say about renewable energy, it will have an impact on the weather, and we dont know what it will be.

if its good bad small or world altering we dont know and we dont have the ability to tell. and as we have set up according to how it is, isnt any change going to be bad news

 

[Therumancer]

The way I see it is that any sudden, radical, change is going to be really bad for quite a while. It all comes down to long term benefits. Overall if this could be made to work, it would be great for humanity in general *HOWEVER* the problems I can see with this are legion (some of which have already been mentioned), and that is to say nothing of
what will come up later. My basic attitude is that if this is going to work the government needs to go "all in" despite massive inevitable political and public backlash on an unprecedented scale, and work on the problems as they occur once the infrastructure has been installed. I do not however see that happening though, so I imagine this will be one of those ideas that might see some limited trials, but will likely never go anywhere because it will never see the necessary backing until all of the problems are dealt with in a way that could never happen without implementing the technology on a large scale first. We are incapable of achieving the needed level of perfection to get a consensus for radical changes like this, especially when you consider all the old fogeys who will oppose anything this radical figuring it's something other people can do once they are gone.

That said, a big thing that needs to be considered here is that a LOT of states have trouble maintaining their roads, and especially when your dealing with areas away from the coast, the so called "flyover states" unpaved roads become increasingly common due to the state simply being unable to afford paving everything, never mind maintaining it. Heck, some states are under constant fire for not even being able to maintain their most vital highways without assistance.

 

[Strazdas]

there is a road in my city where i can release my steering wheel because the traffic has work ditches so deep the car steers itself inside them. they replaced that road couple years back and the ditches are back, because thats how much cars drive there. and i live in a eastern europe country where what we call traffic jams are a joke to westerners.
can these panels deal with wear and tear hundred times better than actual asphalt? no? well then its not going to work.

That, and I'm not sure why you think having cars occasionally covering the surface would be any more damaging to efficiency if a regular solar farm has a cloudy/stormy day. .

actually clouds do not hamper solar panels much nowadays. theres plenty of sun going through clouds. for example the UV is going through clouds completely.

 

[nevarran]

Why?

I mean, we have the technology to stick solar panels on roofs where they don't have to worry about being driven on. Most roofs don't have these...why try to stick them on the road?

Why would you want to make them keep free of snow and ice? You really want to start putting the things where the sun in mostly shining, which is why they build solar plants in deserts.

You have a point, but most of the buildings in a city are private, the city cannot come and put solar panels on my roof.
They own the most of the roads tho'.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I mean, we have the technology to stick solar panels on roofs where they don't have to worry about being driven on. Most roofs don't have these...why try to stick them on the road?

I really don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

Certainly...but we've not really achieved the much easier one, I think it's a bit early to talk about getting a much more complicated one.

You have a point, but most of the buildings in a city are private, the city cannot come and put solar panels on my roof.
They own the most of the roads tho'.

Ah, you have a point there.

Still, why use the roads, instead of building a dedicated solar plant somewhere?

 

[likalaruku]

I think they should spend the cash on a prototype; build a single road in a place with extreme weather & have semis drive over for a year, see how it holds up.

 

[Skeleon]

Good idea, but I can already see them being misused to flash advertisings at people driving over them, distracting folks from the road...
Still, it is a pretty damn good idea, considering how little use roads are besides transportation. Wasted potential. Less complex, less nifty would be solar panels "on stilts" if you will, spanning across the road in intervals?

 

[Tsaba]

I just want to know.....
all joking aside, what's its weight tolerance?

 

[Avaholic03]

yeah i do get all that , but whatever energy we take from the system , be it solar wind tide whatever, means that energy isnt going where it used to that has to have an affect?

sticking this solar powered road surface downs isnt going to magically make the sun shine brighter is it? no its going to redirect that energy from where it currently goes.

butterfly wings... but sucking enough energy out of the weather system to power a country np! i just dont see it.

The sun delivers more energy to the Earth in an hour than humans use in a year. The relative amount of energy we'd be taking even if we were used 100% solar energy is still insignificant on a global scale.

Besides, humans have already caused much more significant impact on global climate by releasing millions of tons of CO2 and affecting the greenhouse effect. If anything, going to solar would mitigate these effects and lessen humanity's overall impact on the Earth.

That being said, I still think this idea is fundamentally flawed because of the economics of it (there's very little chance each section of road would generate enough energy to pay for its initial cost AND ongoing maintenance). Without a plan to make it profitable, it just isn't going to happen.