Solar Roadways

[bvanevery]

Instead of having 9 million cows stand around all day put them on power generating treadmills. This will promote animal health and make life better for the cows. It is udderly logical.

Why are they going to walk forwards on a treadmill? Do you propose dangling something in front of them that they can't get? That sounds like the plot of a cartoon, not anything that actually works. What happens if a cow slips on a treadmill and breaks her leg? The medical costs may outweigh the energy profit.

Horses have been put on long levers and made to walk in a circle, to mill corn and so forth. But I think those horses are supervised and directed by a human, same as for plowing. You have to pay a human to get that energy from the horse, they don't just do it naturally.

 

[Hadoblado]

Maybe we could dress them in padding to prevent injury? We could go one further and make the padding also an electric blanket powered by the treadmill, we could then sheer them and make rope from their hair, or more blankets!

The idea is bad because while it sounds efficient (making use of plentiful resources to generate valuable resources), it's not space that is the bottleneck for solar energy. We have roofs. We have deserts. There are plenty of areas we could utilise that don't involve reducing the efficiency of the technology by armoring it up or obstructing light exposure. There is no demand for idle space.

I actually really like the kind of thinking, but when you're coming up with innovative solutions like this you need to be prepared to discard the chaff, of which there will be a lot.

 

[bvanevery]

Padded cows will die of heat stroke.

 

[Clearleaf]

Instead of having 9 million cows stand around all day put them on power generating treadmills. This will promote animal health and make life better for the cows. It is udderly logical.

You're probably joking but this kind of seems like a cool idea. It makes me wonder what the actual surplus would be after the energy needed to feed them.

What we should do is create a paradise for dogs. It will be a closed self-sustaining ecosystem where every puppy has an AC generator attached to it at birth. The dogs will be free to run around and wrestle each other. There will be dog jungle gyms, dog wave pools, and employees will be paid to play with the dogs and get them as hyped up as possible. The corpses of livestock, humans, and other dogs will be ground up as food for them. This might not solve the problem of needing to generate electricity but it would be a lot of fun.

 

[Cognisant]

The corpses of livestock, humans, and other dogs will be ground up as food for them. This might not solve the problem of needing to generate electricity but it would be a lot of fun.

I just wanted to take that out of context.

 

[Rixus]

Your flesh will be added to the protein back in order to serve His Divine Shadow.
I worship His Shadow!