Solar Roadways

[RadicalDreamer31]

The idea of solar roadways is to replace the asphalt of roads, with solar panels.

What is your take on this?

 

[nexion]

Need more data.

 

[Absurdity]

The costs would be astronomical, since you not only have to build and install the panels but then maintain them regularly because there are (depending on the population) hundreds, thousands, or even millions of cars driving over them every day.

 

[Nick]

impractical.

if we only need a small portion of the earth to sustain our electricity needs, then let each country divi up their need for solar... install installations around pre-existing electricity infrastructure… build around similar framework, don’t incorporate other types of infrastructure with completely new systems, its wasteful, problematic and impractical.

So its easy… your local utility company installs their own blend of solar power in preexisting terrain they own, hotwire it to their local subsystems to back feed into the mains…
For nighttime you’ve been funneling solar power into a giant dynamo which will keep turning until sunrise, giving you power all night, or some other likewise battery which will harness the excess produced.
So yeah… I read the article about the guy and his wife who got a grant from somewhere and designed prototypes, but I doubt the DOT will be do a 180 from their regular roadwork and initiate a whole new system.

 

[RadicalDreamer31]

But wait there's more! fundraiser 2.2 million + another 3/4 million from department of transportation.


Dudes solar FREAKIN' roadways. Just think how awesome.

 

[Nick]

No. Think how shitty it'll be, how broken, how much money wasted.

We have a current system that works and we know how to repair, its been designed, implemented and has a proven track record.

The USDOT (DOT for interstate travel) has an annual budget of $79 Billion USD. Those little million dollar grants here and there are to test waters probably coupled with R&D massive Billion dollar budget.

Not to mention that each state has their own DOT, for example, NYSDOT has a budget of $7.4 Billion USD.

We don't need the sharks with lasers, we have the sharks, put the lasers somewhere else.

 

[RadicalDreamer31]

Don't you come at me with that logic! THAT GOT LED LIGHTS! Bitch didn't you watch the videos!!!

Solar FREAKIN' roadways!

 

[Nick]

Please try to read first before you act more childish.

So yeah… I read the article about the guy and his wife who got a grant from somewhere and designed prototypes,

And all it would take is 1 mischievous person who'd find a way to take control of the LED lights and turn every road available into an epileptic nightmare.

 

[RadicalDreamer31]

From the website

How are you going to keep hackers from disrupting your system?

Security is of utmost importance with all intelligent systems. Therefore we need to hire the best and brightest cyber-security team to keep our system safe and secure.

THE JOBS JERRY (can i can you Jerry?) THE JOBS. So many jobs!!

Educate yourself son: Solar Roadways FAQ

 

[Absurdity]

"How are you going to keep hackers from disrupting your system?"

"We'll try really hard."

 

[RadicalDreamer31]

OMG. Thank you guys!

"How are you going to keep hackers from disrupting your system?"

"We'll try really hard."

Fucking perfect!

Okay. I'm done, I had my laugh. Solar FREAKIN' Roadways!

 

[Kuu]

This is so retarded. I've had several people tell me about it like it'll revolutionize our goddamn civilization.

The integrated lighting heating and modularity is ok, but what's just utterly ridiculous is putting the PVs on roads, where they will be constantly occluded by cars, trees and of course buildings. Absolute waste of solar panels. It would be far, far cheaper to put the PVs where they make sense: in roofs or huge desert arrays, where maintenance can be concentrated and you don't need to make fucking tractor-resistant glass (glass roads LOL, what a waste of money).

On top of that, cars are just the most inefficient transportation system humans use. Less money should be put on cars and car-infrastructure, not more. Then again that fact is probably heresy for a large amount of USians...

I'm amazed they actually managed to raise 2 million. Only in 'murica...
To think of the things I'd be able to do with that money.

 

[Cognisant]

Mirrors in space, billions of them.

All the power you could ever want, the means to fry anyone who opposes you like ants and with enough you could thermoregulate the entire planet to a consistent temperature making Greenland green again and arid climates more forgiving.

Did I mention the frying people like ants part?
Yeah? Yeah? Yeeeeah

 

[Cavallier]

I like the idea insofar as there is R&D going into better functioning solar panels. Making them into roads isn't a terribly good idea. But there are a million other places they could be set up that would be more feasable.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Forget solar and if you have any money to spend on energy, spend it on fusion. The gap in potential efficiency is monumental.


The concept of using roads for something more than transportation is great, there could be many interesting things and even commercial solar panels on roads if it ever becomes worth the investment.

 

[pgibbons]

A real INTP would not have asked this question. It would be completely inefficient and it is completely obvious as to why.

 

[Polaris]

I suspect some may have missed the

Spoiler

SUBTLE IRONY

of this thread...

 

[Nick]

twas' a silly thread with silly people.

Spoiler

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjbKYNcmFUw

I like the idea insofar as there is R&D going into better functioning solar panels. Making them into roads isn't a terribly good idea. But there are a million other places they could be set up that would be more feasable.

I wish that was the case, instead I'm fairly certain all the R&D money goes into adapting the existing technologies to rough road environment.

 

[peoplesuck]

Forget solar and if you have any money to spend on energy, spend it on fusion. The gap in potential efficiency is monumental..

doesn't this produce radioactive waste that takes hundreds of thousands of years to decay?

 

[Architect]

Makes a lot of sense. Panels take very little maintenance after installation, just put them up and you're done. I don't know what kind of in-road technology exists, but you could easily install the above road. Plenty of workplaces do that above outside parking lots, then you get the added benefit of shaded parking.

 

[The Gopher]

DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE. SOLAR WALKWAYS MAN! LIKE SOLAR FOOTPATHS!

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE! SOLAR GRASS!

 

[Inquisitor]

Stupid to install this anywhere that doesn't have year-round sunshine, so most of the US is out.

 

[Intolerable]

I saw this about a year ago. Pretty fascinating the advancements being made in pavement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed-jiOXO3aQ


I imagine at some point they will be able to one heat the snow to a melting point and two, totally absorb it.

 

[Grayman]

Stupid to install this anywhere that doesn't have year-round sunshine, so most of the US is out.

My solar panels work with limited light. I'm more worried about the cleaning and repair cists. Keeping them clean with oil leaking cars driving on top of them would be an impossible task.

 

[PaulMaster]

Build more efficient solar panels. Smaller with higher yield. Then put them above everything, not below.

Imagine the following hilarious scenario: solar highways produce the vast majority of power, including automobiles. Traffic jams would last forever.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

doesn't this produce radioactive waste that takes hundreds of thousands of years to decay?

No. Nuclear waste is a problem with fission reactors. Fusion doesn't produce waste material from its fuel and however little it pollutes, it's left in the reactor and decays much more rapidly. 100 - 500 years vs 100 thousand up to 1 million years in case of Uranium fuel byproducts.

Fusion has the potential to be the most sustainable and efficient source of energy for mankind and it only requires hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.

(Thats' a bit of a sales pitch, currently deuterium and tritium is being researched, which are isotopes of hydrogen, ideally we should be able to fuse standard hydrogen)

 

[Grayman]

No. Nuclear waste is a problem with fission reactors. Fusion doesn't produce waste material from its fuel and however little it pollutes, it's left in the reactor and decays much more rapidly. 100 - 500 years vs 100 thousand up to 1 million years in case of Uranium fuel byproducts.

Fusion has the potential to be the most sustainable and efficient source of energy for mankind and it only requires hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.

(Thats' a bit of a sales pitch, currently deuterium and tritium is being researched, which are isotopes of hydrogen, ideally we should be able to fuse standard hydrogen)

Last I heard they were planning on making space elevators to the moon to mine H3. Popular science articles can be a little funny sometimes.

 

[Inquisitor]

My solar panels work with limited light. I'm more worried about the cleaning and repair cists. Keeping them clean with oil leaking cars driving on top of them would be an impossible task.

+1

Dont understand why this idea even got traction in the first place.

 

[redbaron]

Or you could just put the solar panels in the desert.

Also if I remember correctly, almost 100% of asphalt is recyclable anyway so it seems kind of pointless to go to so much effort to replace it all when it's already pretty efficient.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Last I heard they were planning on making space elevators to the moon to mine H3. Popular science articles can be a little funny sometimes.

They are building experimental fusion reactors as we speak.

I don't understand what you are getting at. I'm completely aware those technologies are experimental at best, pointing it out in this case seems fairly pointless.

My original argument was that fusion has a lot more value as a direction for funding as far as experimental techs go.

I get it that you like to be sceptical about relativistic time dilation among other things (maybe you have your own alternate view on modern science), but this thing doesn't come from popular scientific articles.

 

[Grayman]

New existing and practical solar panels

Transparent - Windows, glass uses Filters UV and Infrared rays while allowing visible light through.

Flexible - Allows any surface to be a solar panel including clothes, walls, car frames, chairs, shoes, decks, purses, hats.

They are can 'be' the walls, roof, and windows of your house instead of an ugly square panel on your roof. See Solar roof shingles. Transparent solar windows. etc...
http://inhabitat.com/revolutionary-...-50-times-more-energy-than-conventional-solar
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...d-make-every-window-and-screen-a-power-source
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/im-getting-my-roof-redone-and-heard-about-solar-shingles/


This allows you to build self efficient houses and portable power applications instead of centralized power that utilizes a ton of conduit and various power facilities to move the power to your home. While solar may be inefficient it is also inefficient and costly to move electricity over miles of wire and to maintain that wire. It is inefficent to drill gas and then move it miles through pipe to the power plant and then burn that gas to produce power and while spending millions on ensuring all that pipe and the faculties are safe and functional. Also, using solar panels in replacment of other materials like roof shingles instead of a seperate panel reduces cost and provides a dual purpose.

Eventually centralized power would be more applicable to industrial zones and residential zones would mostly be self sustainable.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Eventually centralized power would be more applicable to industrial zones and residential zones would mostly be self sustainable.

That's an interesting possibility. Not sure if solar is as sustainable as a source in every region. Maybe if coupled with hydro and wind it could work as a reliable power grid.

 

[Grayman]

That's an interesting possibility. Not sure if solar is as sustainable as a source in every region. Maybe if coupled with hydro and wind it could work as a reliable power grid.

I live in the northern region where hydro is abundant but a lot of power is sent south and elsewhere to other states. If California were to utilize solar more there would be more hydro available north and natural gas would be burned less at the power plants.

The window where solar energy is strong enough to use in the winter where I live is 2hrs near mid day. This is near Canada. To get the most of those two hours you have to produce as much as you can and store it quickly in batteries. The current batteries used in electric cars are perfect for charging quickly and lasting a long time. As these batteries become more efficient and cheaper, solar in my region will be able to run all the (LED) lighting and electronics, and fridges, tvs etc... without any issues.

If you want to go completely green and remove the natural gas heaters in homes and have a zero carbon footprint, we will need more than just solar in my region. It wouldn't be economically practical to move away from natural gas since Natural Gas is so abundant an cheap right now but I suppose the hydro work.

Wind is too intermittent to be reliable. It often results in kicking on natural gas power plants last minute becuase of unplanned wind change. Damns can manage it but the reservoirs have been low due to drier climates.

 

[bvanevery]

Not having actually read anything about it, because it sounds far fetched and not worth the time cost of learning about, nevertheless I will say,

but what's just utterly ridiculous is putting the PVs on roads, where they will be constantly occluded by cars, trees and of course buildings.

Cars would not occlude constantly. Some cooling of the panels via intermittent shade is good anyways. They are more efficient when they don't get so hot. I've seen designs, maybe deployed some places, definitely patented, of conical rotating solar panels. They claim that the rotation cools the panels and gets them more juice. Well, I haven't looked up whether anyone benchmarked their claims, or how successful their commercial rollout has been.

The sun does move in the sky. Although trees will occlude at some times of the day, when the sun is highest and most potent they will not. Peak energy production is sometime during the middle of the day, I haven't looked at numbers on that for awhile.

Lots of places have buildings that aren't tall enough to affect roads. For instance, a US interstate.

Absolute waste of solar panels. It would be far, far cheaper to put the PVs where they make sense: in roofs

Although roofs can be a good place to put things, I'd like to see your actual numbers on why anything would be "far, far" cheaper.

or huge desert arrays, where maintenance can be concentrated

Nothing about land grabbing and centralized control inherently makes sense for the public. You're positing a business model. Ever heard of Enron?

On top of that, cars are just the most inefficient transportation system humans use.

They are very efficient at giving a dispersed populace random access to a continent. That's why they are used.

Less money should be put on cars and car-infrastructure, not more. Then again that fact is probably heresy for a large amount of USians...

It's true we have long distances to cover. Myself, I actually live out of my car. I think MORE people should do that, that's my version of a more "efficient" future. Houses, rents, and claustrophobic land ownership are quite wasteful in some ways. But who's gonna follow my future of cars and huts? Not that many people.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

So as expected, after wasting about 2 millions $ the solar roadways team delivered a tiny paved area of LED lights that don't produce electricity and mostly failed immediately after installation and the first rain since nobody thought insulation or drainage were relevant in the design.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pIfo1Dynjg

Maybe some of those dreamy-eyed techno hipsters will someday learn to critically understand or evaluate projects before investing into another futuristic fad and advocating for it as if it was their brand new badge or fashionable piece of clothing they just got.

The team is apparently busy as they prepare to install more LED pavement tiles and they hope to contribute to the global warming by heating vast areas of roads above freezing point in winter (assumedly they haven't yet thought about control inputs and limits). One has to wonder where their marvelous idiocy will lead them next, the sky is no limit.

Feel free to provide sources to the contrary, I didn't research the topic besides recently watching one youtube clip and 2-3 related links.

 

[Kuu]

The retards at the DOT and the politicians that approved this should be fired and executed jailed and all their property sold and the population of that town reinbursed. Idiocracy is real.

Not having actually read anything about it, nevertheless I will say

Not knowing anything about solar power or road construction, nevertheless I will promote solar freaking roadways.

 

[bvanevery]

My own pet energy ideas revolve around woodgas, not solar, because the equipment needed is stuff I can in principle fabricate myself. I'm not sure I can say the same about solar wafers, although I haven't researched it up really. The means to produce energy need to come from people's backyards, not a factory, or individuals will never control energy production.

The team is apparently busy as they prepare to install more LED pavement tiles and they hope to contribute to the global warming by heating vast areas of roads above freezing point in winter (assumedly they haven't yet thought about control inputs and limits). One has to wonder where their marvelous idiocy will lead them next, the sky is no limit.

I would think that the surface area of a road "as it connects things far apart" wouldn't amount to much. In an urban grid it might be different. Anyways if the sun is supplying the energy that will run the LEDs, how would global warming increase in any way? It would be no different than the thermal effect of roads or concrete structures in general... which are effects, to be sure, but getting them to produce light doesn't sound like any additional effect.

 

[redbaron]

Oh it's this thread again? Solar roadways are still really fucking stupid.

 

[bvanevery]

Wouldn't be stupid if it actually worked, but there's the rub.

Going up the wood gasification learning curve, I discover such fascinating details as "your engine will probably run at 1/2 power" and "the gas will destroy propane tanks if you try to store it in those." There are some reasons it's not so popular. The technology was in large scale use in WW II because people had to make do with alternatives. Primary fuels went to the war effort. That doesn't make woodgas wrong, it just makes it more of a PITA than our current consumer society would be willing to put up with. You find this out when you start tinkering with such things. There are often reasons that engineers haven't "gone there" with some alternative energy source.

 

[Architect]

Makes a lot of sense. Panels take very little maintenance after installation, just put them up and you're done. I don't know what kind of in-road technology exists, but you could easily install the above road. Plenty of workplaces do that above outside parking lots, then you get the added benefit of shaded parking.

I was wrong and stupid. The engineering makes no sense with these. Look at what EEVBlog has to say about it. He has a lot of videos, here's just one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obS6TUVSZds

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I would think that the surface area of a road "as it connects things far apart" wouldn't amount to much. In an urban grid it might be different. Anyways if the sun is supplying the energy that will run the LEDs, how would global warming increase in any way? It would be no different than the thermal effect of roads or concrete structures in general... which are effects, to be sure, but getting them to produce light doesn't sound like any additional effect.

If we ignore my excessively sarcastic delivery, as of today the installed panels don't generate electricity as they need to replace the panels broken during assembly (which they were dumb enough to install having that knowledge regardless).

So assuming they will have that fixed, if ever, then comes the part that you should have already figured out on your own if you were seriously hoping to have a substantive discussion on the topic as it's something they claim on their official page.

They claim to have heating elements that will keep the temperatures above freezing point, which is an obvious waste of energy unless the panel is covered with frost and is the opposite of environmentally-friendly thinking that they pretend to adhere to.

As a final point, there's no actual utility in the LED's themselves. They provide insufficient lighting for pedestrian or car traffic during the dark (barely sufficient for cars if one assumes applications outside of cities) and they are virtually invisible when washed out by the powerful sunlight rendering them useless for any kind of traffic management or informative purposes. Knowing this, defending the panels by mentioning the LED's as their only useful element fails miserably.

As a final final point...what? You have to realise that any form of light-generating energy expenditure increases the heat output, even if by a fraction, next even if we have a perfect light source that generates no heat (which we don't, plus any form of energy be it light or other will generate heat as it bounces off other elements within a closed system of reference such as Earth) the energy required to power it is taken from the national grid that to this day relies mainly on non-renewable energy sources that effectively are wasted instead of being used sparingly and strategically where they are unavoidable and not on the practically useless LED's that serve no-one. It's beyond hopeless to manufacture and install useless components as it's also a process that consumes energy and freezes potential resources.

There's so much wrong with the concept, design and implementation on so many levels and I could keep going, but I need to be environmentally-friendly too so I will stop.

 

[bvanevery]

He has a lot of videos, here's just one

I can't sit through 32 minutes of yabbering, waiting for someone to get to the point about something I'm not deeply invested in. Even if I am deeply invested in something, that's asking a lot. It had better be how to fix a problem with my car, for instance. Then I'm capable of painful patience, as I don't have the money to let someone else worry about it.

Does he, or someone else, have a proper text summary of "what's wrong" with this project? That doesn't go to far into TL;DR territory, i.e. is skimmable for the jist.

Not that I thought anything was right with the project anyways. 1st question is the obvious one: why won't the cars and trucks destroy the panels?

 

[redbaron]

Stupid AND lazy.

 

[Architect]

Does he, or someone else, have a proper text summary of "what's wrong" with this project? That doesn't go to far into TL;DR territory, i.e. is skimmable for the jist.

Yeah he's an engineer. I'll give you an idea

• Solar panels at the moment are a borderline payback technology and the proposal is to put them in the most compromised installation (random road orientations/shading/distribution), cover them with very lossy glass for strength which takes a lot of wear/dirt/etc and with expensive/difficult installation costs, and extremely long electrical runs with heavy losses
• Installation cost is at least 230EU/m^2 (for rooftop, so road will be more expensive)
• The best payback you'll get is 10EU/year/m^2, or 150EU/15 year/m^2
• Therefore payback for these isn't even there in 15 years, it's at best 23 years, at which the tiles will be degraded to the point of needing replacement
• Even if the cost of installation were to come down by an order of magnitude, the cost/benefit compared to rooftop and farms still wins, due to the fixed costs of electrical distribution and other factors.

There's a lot more to the analysis but that's the core, it has negative economic and engineering value. This is why real project employ solar farms, there is plenty of open land available to economically throw up acres of panels.

It appeals to our guilt of having cars and pavement, and seems so deliciously a win-win that people fall on the idea, but the originators are hucksters selling snake oil engineering.

I put a large installation on my roof, but it only is economical because of

• 30% federal tax rebate
• Liberal NEM feed in tariffs which lock in for 20 years
• Punitive California electrical rates
• Heavy electrical use household (we get a lot of benefit from our usage)

 

[bvanevery]

Thanks for the summary.

cover them with very lossy glass for strength which takes a lot of wear/dirt/etc and with expensive/difficult installation costs,

I anticipated that. Common sense says "solar cells are feeble". So you'd have to do an awful lot to make them non-feeble. If someone had a totally new materials technology that would be cool, but I guessed that wasn't what they'd be talking about. Just putting things "under a lot of glass".

and extremely long electrical runs with heavy losses

Hmm, not sure I'm seeing the inevitability of that. It might imply power lines running right next to the road, which would mean further installation costs and sight pollution. In an urban area it might not be such an issue. Also the road would have to deliver power as AC somehow. Somehow each plate pushes and pulls the electricity of its neighbors?

It appeals to our guilt of having cars and pavement,

I have none! I like my slightly emissive '84 carbureted vehicle just fine. I'm getting 26 mpg @ 80 MPH. Pretty good for a car of that era.

and seems so deliciously a win-win that people fall on the idea,

Well, engineering is about details and not being stupid. I wouldn't fault the public for thinking something might be kewl. But it doesn't take long to see problems with this, and I didn't even bother with all those websites and whatnot.

 

[bvanevery]

Seems like a more obvious thing to try to do, would be some kind of device that recaptures the rolling kinetic energy of the cars as they pass.

 

[Architect]

Hmm, not sure I'm seeing the inevitability of that.

The costs of simply delivering electricity are a significant part of your bill. Losses (huge), infrastructure (huge), load balancing (reserve sources to manage the Duck Curve) and so forth. You'd have to dig in the EE a bit perhaps but you can trust that it's a well known and obvious fact that power delivery is a major component of the cost and difficulty. It seems simple to just send some juice down a line however its anything but. Just 'running parallel powerlines' is hardly as cheap and simple as you think. You need millions of DC-AC inverters to 240, step up/step down transformers to HT voltages (many kV), all the lines of course (burying them is expensive and poles need lots of maintenance), monitoring and substations, so on and und so weite.

I know an engineer who designs substations for a living, hell just putting in a new line is a major undertaking.

 

[Grayman]

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.

 

[bvanevery]

You need millions of DC-AC inverters to 240, step up/step down transformers to HT voltages (many kV), all the lines of course (burying them is expensive and poles need lots of maintenance), monitoring and substations, so on and und so weite.

"Life is hard." Nevertheless electricity gets delivered to residents in various parts of the country at a rate of $0.10/KWh. So don't cry me a river about delivery. It would be a matter of how much juice a road would put out.