If You Need Any Convincing That Solar Roadways Are The Future, This Video Will Help

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

I figured it was in jest lol

I'm just sick of potholes in my neighborhood! They're crazy out of control. The nice high end neighborhoods have immaculate streets that seem to be repaved more often than the lower-middle class areas, not surprising.

They'd be useless for heavy traffic, trucks would lift those tiles off in no time.

originally posted by: Jennyfrenzy
a reply to: bobs_uruncle

I figured it was in jest

lol

I'm just sick of potholes in my neighborhood! They're crazy out of control. The nice high end neighborhoods have immaculate streets that seem to be repaved more often than the lower-middle class areas, not surprising.

Yeah, the potholes are nuts! I am all for getting rid of potholes and I would love to see single purpose "space" being turned into dual purpose energy producing space, but at what cost? Certainly not at 10 to 20 times the cost of conventional technology. Then there is the obsolescence problem, what if a new technology comes out, as I expect it will, do we trash the job half way through and start over again with the new technology? A couple of million dollars of tax payer money, sure, but 7.5 to 75 trillion over 10 years, no, that is too great a risk in my opinion.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

it's a cool idea....what would happen in a state like california that has earthquakes...would the tiles be damaged? how big an earthquake would do that...

a reply to: research100

I would think the tiles themselves would be fine considering each one is rated at 250,000 pounds. Concrete structures that support them would be as susceptible as any other structure in that area however they already have developed and implement techniques in that area for such things.

a reply to: pirhanna

You are thinking too small.

If TPTB get in on the ground floor, they will own a controlling interest in the technology that - according to this thread will either liberate us from fossil fuel dependency, or drive us into bankruptcy. Either way, they will own all the travel and movement data for everything and everyone, everywhere, which has got to be worth a fortune in soul control chits, or whatever currency they trade among themselves.

In all seriousness, the notion that "TPTB will never let this happen!" assumes they don't buy it in the first place.

Has this been asked and answered? What about places where it snows and there is plowing. That stuff tears up the road.

originally posted by: boredsilly
They'd be useless for heavy traffic, trucks would lift those tiles off in no time.

Well... Then you find a solution for it? Seriously, we got such an advanced society today that we can do pretty much anything. Fixing this "problem" - if it havent been fixed already - is probably a simple matter.

Either way, its a brilliant idea. Makes you wonder why they arent just pouring money on it. And I'm not talking millions, I'm talking trillions. Stuff like this is worth every penny, in contrast to making new stealth drones to kill your civi... errr I mean terrorists. Why is it that when we're at war we're capable of putting together the Manhattan project, but when we're at peace its just "meh, not going to pay for it, just let a couple of enthusiasts do some hobby work on their free time"? Bah! Makes you loose complete faith in humanity.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

In areas that get snow and ice in the winter, the plates will heat up just enough to stop accumulation or freezing, eliminating the need to salt or plow roads.

a reply to: nighthawk1954

Super cool and exciting. There are many issues however. First being cost. I think the estimate cost to implement this country wide would be 54 trillion. Then you have cost of maintenance. How reliable are the led lights. How the car rides on the glass, seems like it would be bumpy.
Also when it shows the moose crossing the street and talks about the glass being pressure sensitive, wouldn't that mean that the cars riding on it would also cause the street to light up.
Over all it's a super cool idea and I would love to start an installer business if it ever takes off. One last thing on the indigogo campaign, you have to donate $10000 just to get one working tile. I hope that doesn't reflect the actual cost.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: OccamsRazor04

In areas that get snow and ice in the winter, the plates will heat up just enough to stop accumulation or freezing, eliminating the need to salt or plow roads.

Do you live in an area that gets lots of snow? A good storm will not only coat the surface completely, it will pretty much block out what little light there is to be harvested during a decent storm. There goes the melt effect and you have to come up with another way to clear the snow and ice off of them.

The expectations of this technology on this thread are overally optimistic. People need to see how the testing works before being sold on this product. Not saying it's not a step in the right direction, it's just very untested in real world conditions is all I am saying.

a reply to: nighthawk1954
HOLY CANOLI! That's friggin AWESOME...
And ... you can put the whole country out of business.... lol

So, many great things about this.

- Great financial investment opportunity
- Lots of manufacturing jobs - Lots!
- and, even if the mfg takes place outside the country, well... the installation certainly won't...
- until we export this technology
- Clean
- Safe
- Smart


Is there a DOWNside, here? I mean, other than the obvious:
- inevitable plummet of the oil industry which so many things are tied / pegged to

I want to get involved - in some way. In many ways!

a reply to: SquirrelNutz

originally posted by: SquirrelNutz
Is there a DOWNside, here?

Here are ten reasons the money could be better spent:

1: Cost/return ratio. Current solar technologies that use photovoltaics have sliver thin initial build cost/life expectancy/yield ratios, making the reflective fluid heating methods far more efficient and easier to implement and repair. For example:

tawafoundation.com...
These mirrors have the advantage that they can track the sun as the Earth rotates, something the road tiles will never do which is part of their inefficiency.

2: Supply/Demand for rare elements that go into the making of said photovoltaics is what makes them expensive to make. If we start wasting those resources on low yield road cells, their price will skyrocket, making their viability plummet farther.

3: Durability. Do you know why we use asphalt for roads? Because its incredibly resilient to YEARS of constant driving for the cost of installation. Making on site and installing asphalt is easy, and its the only viable option for the IMMENSE number of square miles of roads across the globe.

4: Power distribution: Cabling that power through the roads to the cities would waste nearly all of it. The wires used to transmit power across great distances have inefficiencies which make them heat up and generate wasteful EM fields. Roads would exacerbate the low returns already present in the panels technology. There is a reason AC won out in the AC/DC wars between Edison and Tesla/Westinghouse, because AC is far more efficient at carrying electrical power long distances.

5: Blocked light: Roads are not the best place to put photovoltaics. Many roads have coverage by the cars on them for actually meaningful amounts of time. Both with general traffic and durring traffic standstills. Bad solar panels, losing power through miles of cables with cars covering them would be useless.

6: Wear and Tear: Much wear on roadways is from vehicle tires carrying rocks in their treads. These rocks chip away and scratch the roads year after year. Even if texture could be made on the surface to make safe traction possible while minimizing its effect on the photo cells, cars would grain and scratch the surface further. quickly destroying the quality of light that gets through to the cells. farther reducing their yield.

7: Durability versus efficiency: Because of the above mentioned effects. the solar yield and safety/durability of roads would be inversely proportional. If you can manage to make them as safe and durable as asphalt, then they are likely to be inefficient.

8: Better places to put solar technology: Many roads don't get much sunlight due to rain, clouds, latitude, etc. The main areas where the sun shines long enough and hot enough to make solar technology really worth while are areas like deserts, where nothing lives anyway, and these areas have hundreds of square miles of open, pointless desert with nothing in it.

9: The alternative uses for funding solar projects would a: be cheaper alternatives in the long run, b: yield far greater power returns, c: cost significantly less to maintain, and d: have less of an overall impact on any other areas of everyday life. Traffic jams for construction and maintenance are bad enough already.

10: I agree with Pavil about the snow melting claim having some issues:

originally posted by: pavil
Do you live in an area that gets lots of snow? A good storm will not only coat the surface completely, it will pretty much block out what little light there is to be harvested during a decent storm. There goes the melt effect and you have to come up with another way to clear the snow and ice off of them.

Based on what I saw of the texture, it gave the tiles such a rough surface for traction that plowing it may be an issue. I agree about the snow blocking the very light you need to melt it. Snow is highly reflective.

The expectations of this technology on this thread are overally optimistic. People need to see how the testing works before being sold on this product. Not saying it's not a step in the right direction, it's just very untested in real world conditions is all I am saying.

Yes, the expectations are overly optimistic.

Wonderful idea s&f plus I tweeted it too. I could imagine this tech would work wonderfully well in a place like las Vegas or those theme park places, just to get it off the ground so to speak.

but roads are owned by the government....... if the roads produce electricity and much more of it than could ever be used in the united states....... the electric company would go out of business

this is an excellent and potentially viable idea however it will take a lot of time and a metric #%^& ton of lobbying money to ever get this even discussed in a serious way

(would change a bunch of things to keep costs down though ......could use a whole lot less leds in most areas and probably go with more conventional roads in areas that dont get a lot of sun etc)


ehh...... on second thought...... maybe a better idea for a road that produces power would just be to use thermal energy (some kind of heat engine)
just think how hot asphalt gets and its everywhere thats a lot of energy (at least in sunny areas) and the technology is much cheaper and less prone to problems
if you do it right even the heat from the friction of the cars driving across should be able to produce power

still digging the light up future roads though

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: OccamsRazor04

In areas that get snow and ice in the winter, the plates will heat up just enough to stop accumulation or freezing, eliminating the need to salt or plow roads.

You obviously do not live in New England. 6 feet of snow won't be done away with that fast and will need to be plowed.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

I live in Boston actually. The concept is already proven, heated driveways are getting popular, and they work... even in Nor'easters. So it's doable, question is can these solar roadways do it? I guess we'll have to see once they've done some testing with their prototype.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: OccamsRazor04

I live in Boston actually. The concept is already proven, heated driveways are getting popular, and they work... even in Nor'easters. So it's doable, question is can these solar roadways do it? I guess we'll have to see once they've done some testing with their prototype.

First, it costs $15,000 per driveway about (on the low end). So where are the Trillions and Trillions of dollars to install this going to come from? And then it would have to be heated almost 24 hours a day to prevent freezing, because using salt would block the solar panels. So let's use all the energy to heat the panels, and spend hundreds of trillions of dollars installing it all. Genius.

originally posted by: Kali74
I live in Boston actually. The concept is already proven, heated driveways are getting popular, and they work... even in Nor'easters. So it's doable, question is can these solar roadways do it? I guess we'll have to see once they've done some testing with their prototype.

You mean the concept of heated driveways is proven? As in heating from the grid? Or from using solar power from the snow-covered driveway?

Of course heating from the grid works, that's not what's being questioned. It's trying to heat the driveway using solar power generated by these panels when the panels are covered by snow. I don't see how that's possible but if it's proven link some source please.