I put $10 on this. Since I started talking about it, they've raised another 80 grand.
What is it? It's a proposal to make modular hexagonal tiles that generate electricity from solar cells, embed them in gorilla-glass that's been textured for traction, and use them to make road surfaces.
Yeah, roads as a power supply.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways
They're also talking about LEDs to light up the surface of the road rather than paint lane dividers, and heating elements to turn snow on the road into runoff, with integrated fiber conduit and water runoff channels.
I figure it's worth a few bucks just in case it works...but damn, I love living in the future. :)
I'd love to see this take off, so I'm pitching in for a coffee mug! :)
Do they have a way to cut past the corrupt bureaucrats who made the last major invention that could have revolutionized roads illegal?
Do they have a way to cut past the corrupt bureaucrats who made the last major invention that could have revolutionized roads illegal?
Yes. It's called bribery.
This thing is funded by crowd sourcing and some grant money. I am not sure they have enough money for those kinds of bribes.
I guess since this is green energy you could pull in support from that lobby BUT then you also have to fight against the energy monopolies as well so I am not sure that helps.
Well, I was attempting to be funny... and cynical.
Most bureaucracies function like organisms. They attempt to continue their existence, even by eating/at the expense of other organisms/organizations. Businesses plugged into our current infrastructures will resist change for multiple reasons, a big one being change costs money... whether its spending now to possibly make more money latter or if somebody else's change cuts into their market share.
I am oversimplifying and leaving out a lot of factors, but it's how I see it.
I saw this the other day, I must say the concept is brilliant, but the logistics are nightmarish to say the least. Not to mention all of the usual interests who would want to see something like this fail.
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From an engineering standpoint, it looks kind of shifty. How do you account for the dirt/oil/etc that would accumulate and reduce the efficiency? That's a huge, daily (or even more frequent) cleaning bill. What about the gorilla glass (or whatever protective surface they'd have to put over the panels) and it's effects on the absorption efficiency? And the potential for corrosive damage. Or thermal stresses. Or the cost/time/scheduling to replace damaged sections? Seems like a lot of buck for not enough bang.
It'd probably be more cost effective on a small scale, but not by much.
It's interesting, though.
From an engineering standpoint, it looks kind of shifty. How do you account for the dirt/oil/etc that would accumulate and reduce the efficiency? That's a huge, daily (or even more frequent) cleaning bill. What about the gorilla glass (or whatever protective surface they'd have to put over the panels) and it's effects on the absorption efficiency? And the potential for corrosive damage. Or thermal stresses. Or the cost/time/scheduling to replace damaged sections? Seems like a lot of buck for not enough bang.
It'd probably be more cost effective on a small scale, but not by much.
It's interesting, though.
A lot of those things are addressed in their FAQ section.
On thing to keep in mind is that the actual "road" part is the very last part of a suggested roll-out phase. Thus it's several years down the... erm, well, road.Years where they'll get lots of experience with the "smaller scale" installations (parking lots, side walks, smaller roads etc.) and continue to improve on the product, through other technological advances too (better solar cells and so on).
With a great move away from oil dependency, the cars on the road will also slowly start getting replaced by Electrical Vehicles (or non-oil using hybrids), reducing a lot of the chemical "spills" you see on the roads today (motor oil, transmission fluid etc.).
And even if they don't get to the "freakin' roadways" part, it's still a product which has lots of uses in the earlier stages they intend to try to get out there. Not to mention the fact that greater technological undertakings like this tend to spawn advances which might be useful in other areas.
A lot of people say that this is unnecessary and why not just put solar panels on every roof top? Well, why not do both?
Then there are also the other intended implementations, such as a them being a place to run power cables (instead of overhead cables), internet fiber optics, storm water drainages and cleaning - all of which can be installed without necessitating the last phase, the actual roads.
Yeah, I don't think the concept as stated today will happen (although it is cool), but it would not surprise me if during the process they improve the tech so that eventually many parking lots will do something like this even if they roadways themselves never get there.
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Yeah, I don't think the concept as stated today will happen (although it is cool), but it would not surprise me if during the process they improve the tech so that eventually many parking lots will do something like this even if they roadways themselves never get there.
If I were them, I'd start out simple: As you say - parking lots, maybe some bike/walking/jogging paths. Prove the tech out on a small scale, fix any problems you find along the way, make improvements, etc.
Yeah, I don't think the concept as stated today will happen (although it is cool), but it would not surprise me if during the process they improve the tech so that eventually many parking lots will do something like this even if they roadways themselves never get there.If I were them, I'd start out simple: As you say - parking lots, maybe some bike/walking/jogging paths. Prove the tech out on a small scale, fix any problems you find along the way, make improvements, etc.
Which is exactly what they intend to do. :-)
Parking lots? As in, an area covered with lots of car during most of the hours of the day? Solar powered? I... don't see this working. Solar power is already at such a low efficiency that any additional limits put on it make it unfeasible. Other areas, certainly.
Well, it depends on the lot, really.
Think of a stadium parking lot. Sure, on gamedays it may be mostly full, but for the rest of the days in the week, it may be empty. Lots of opportunity. (And when it's full, other lots are empty.)
Also, a parking lot is more than parking spaces - it's the drives leading to the spaces, which are not continually covered.
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Parking lots? As in, an area covered with lots of car during most of the hours of the day? Solar powered? I... don't see this working. Solar power is already at such a low efficiency that any additional limits put on it make it unfeasible. Other areas, certainly.
Answered, with photo examples too. :-)
Okay, I have had a long discussion on this item on this topic and want to post the summary of my concerns here (note that one of the original was proven non-legitimate):
1) I have concerns about the heating element. Particularly, how it will affect the heat islands that exist and potentially extend their effect into winter through the use of heating to melt snow. As it stands right now, I suspect the heating itself will actually result in a net increase of yearly heat for a lot of areas and extend part of the heat island effect well into the winter months, potentially even turning it into a year-long phenomenon and completely negating the benefit these have in negating heat during the summer months.
2) I have concerns about the glass. Not that it is not durable, but what it will turn into once exposed to long-term weathering. Specifically, glass particulates resulting from years of weathering and how they could easily be a danger to multiple forms of life. I had suggested using a different material than this on the thread I linked to, in no small part because most modern building materials are not durable enough to survive some modern auto accidents without scarring and gouges resulting; this material is among them and I have reason to think that such events would severely exacerbate the potential weathering issue.
3) I have problems with the effect this may have upon the water cycle. In particular, water vapor is noted for its massive impact upon planetary climate and its necessity for modern climate systems. In particular, the way this deals with rain water may alter the water vapor cycles in the areas in which this project is implemented and a potential severe, and unpredictable, impact upon local and planetary climate. Unfortunately, the only way to predict the effect at current is to put it into implementation on a scale that an effect is easily noticed... at which point, we could be courting environmental disaster for the area affected. Note that it could have no effect at all, but that option is not currently supported by the known scientific discoveries of how water vapor and climate interact.
That said, this project is not a total loss, and I did suggest the following changes:
Overall, modify the panels to remove the snow issue, use a different covering material that is clear enough, and limit them to the areas where they won't see a lot of snowfall (which are areas where solar panels tend to start having efficiency issues in the U.S.) and you would have a pretty good solution to an ongoing problem for a rather significant chunk of the nation. A modified weather-proofed design with wind turbines as a back-up power source would work in some of the snowier climates, and a shift entirely to a mixture of geothermal and wind power to provide the power combined with the panels weatherproofed would work in the areas where solar panel efficiency drops too low for them to repay the pollution cost. In that way you lessen the heat island issue and eliminate the winter issue, you avoid impacting the water cycle on a level that would have a climatic effect, and you introduce redundancy and durability to cover system design weaknesses. There would still be some heavy CO2 pollution from the initial production run, but long-term CO2 production involves a dramatic decrease (which is exactly what would happen with how they're currently designed anyway).
Overall, this has potential, but I have reason to doubt the current design will be a benefit to the environment. As such, I have already moved to lobby to block implementation of it pending reconsideration of the design. Note that I am using specific terminology in this: "blocking" is not the same as permanently ending a project; that would be "killing."
Additional note:
The reason I am so staunch on this is that we cannot afford this to be a disaster in implementation. If it is, there will not be a refinement; the naysayers who say far worse than I did about solar panels will blame the panels for causing the disaster and all the public will see is that solar panels are associated with a disaster. Having this first implementation go badly could easily result in projects like this being permanently shelved and future efforts to aid the environment hampered.
I think they're starting so slowly that all of your concerns would be dealt with long before it was constructed on any grand scale.
As such, I have already moved to lobby to block implementation of it pending reconsideration of the design.
Maybe there's a different use of the term that I'm unfamiliar with, but did you just say you are starting a political lobby against something that is still in the R&D phase? O_o; You do realize that they've only raised ~$2mil and are looking to explore small projects such as parking lots, etc. at this juncture, right? They've said themselves that any Interstate highway implementations would be several product generations down the line expressly for the purpose of working out any issues in the design before they are being traversed at 70+mph. i.e. No one is trying to jump right into putting the American people on the hook for a multi-trillion-dollar project right off the bat.
I realize you are quantifying kill vs. block, but from where I'm observing, there's not really much of a middle-ground in US politics. I'd be very apprehensive over those already invested in massive legacy capital digging their fingers into any such lobby and subverting its goal from reevaluation to termination.
As for the heat island effect, I'd be interested to see what the total impact between an asphalt road absorbing/releasing heat vs. a solar road storing/releasing energy vs. the emissions/energy for a snow-covered surface needing to be salted/plowed. For surfaces such as raised bridges, it may well be worth any potential increase just to avoid the economic and environmental toll of potential accidents. I know that here in Charlotte, NC some of our inner beltway overpasses are heated for just this reason.
I think they're starting so slowly that all of your concerns would be dealt with long before it was constructed on any grand scale.
If they solve all of those problems before getting to the point where a block against it would even come up, then the block gets ignored. Problems solved, after all ^.^
Maybe there's a different use of the term that I'm unfamiliar with, but did you just say you are starting a political lobby against something that is still in the R&D phase? O_o; You do realize that they've only raised ~$2mil and are looking to explore small projects such as parking lots, etc. at this juncture, right? They've said themselves that any Interstate highway implementations would be several product generations down the line expressly for the purpose of working out any issues in the design before they are being traversed at 70+mph. i.e. No one is trying to jump right into putting the American people on the hook for a multi-trillion-dollar project right off the bat.
I realize you are quantifying kill vs. block, but from where I'm observing, there's not really much of a middle-ground in US politics. I'd be very apprehensive over those already invested in massive legacy capital digging their fingers into any such lobby and subverting its goal from reevaluation to termination.
As for the heat island effect, I'd be interested to see what the total impact between an asphalt road absorbing/releasing heat vs. a solar road storing/releasing energy vs. the emissions/energy for a snow-covered surface needing to be salted/plowed. For surfaces such as raised bridges, it may well be worth any potential increase just to avoid the economic and environmental toll of potential accidents. I know that here in Charlotte, NC some of our inner beltway overpasses are heated for just this reason.
You are correct that it is a political lobby. The problem with the system itself is that it can move slow; even with building a lobby and getting into position to where you can affect something, you could easily be spending years dealing with the system before you get into a position to be able to talk to the people you need to talk to. So starting now is a necessity simply because it could quite easily be a decade before the concerns reach the right ears. The American government as a whole tends to move incredibly slow.
The issue with people who are invested in digging their fingers into any such lobby and subverting it... Unfortunately, that's pretty much the standard for environmentalism. It really doesn't matter if you're a small group or large; nine times out of ten, you're probably working for or being manipulated by an oil, natural gas, or coal company. The biggest player in the field of environmentalism is ExxonMobil; there's almost no energy type they don't have a hand in developing, and they fund a lot of the essential science that makes up the current understanding of how climate works. If you go to the website for the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change and check the authors and reviewers of the reports, you will notice that ExxonMobil had an employee working on pretty much all of them. That's part of why there's some rumblings within the environmentalist community that climate change isn't real, but something invented by the oil companies to seize more power; this creates the ironic point that ExxonMobil tends to get more credibility among some environmentalists when it says that climate science is wrong because they think ExxonMobil created the science in the first place.
So, in general, it's safe to assume that every single environmental lobby/project has either been subverted, manipulated, or bought off and that not one single project gets through without the approval of a company that profits from the destruction of the environment. This creates the ironic scenario that one of the best ways to get a project related to forest conservation through is to ask a logging company to back it.
So, let's be honest: I'm going to avoid this getting subverted through the companies I get to back it. I can definitely get a coal company to back it, since they stand to profit from the coal necessary to produce components for geothermal and some wind turbines. Probably get a subsidiary of an oil company to back it, since they stand to profit from oil being used in the production of materials at every single step. And I can get the wind turbine lobby involved in backing it since my alterations would involve increasing the amount of wind turbines used. So, it won't be subverted into a kill attempt because the companies who would back it would profit more from seeing this project go through with the alterations I suggest and will fight any subversion attempt, while it will maintain legitimacy within the environmental sector because it increases alternative energy utilization across multiple fronts. And everyone will go into this knowing they are using each other and being used, but all will agree with it because it furthers their own goals.
As for the difference between blocking and killing: Block attempts are made all of the time throughout the system. It's not unusual for a project's final result to not even remotely resemble how it started because of all of the block attempts it had to overcome. The military itself has also been known to use block attempts in relation to its own funding; they've been trying unsuccessfully to cut spending requirements they feel are unnecessary for over a decade. It's also why it is some of the laws that get passed have rather bizarre attachments to them (for example, a health care law may have an attachment requiring road construction in Iowa). So, all I would be doing is manipulating systems already in place using a standard option that, likely, they had to overcome before they even got the project this far (one of the blocks they have to deal with is they were not allowed to put it on roads during the initial tests).
Now, I will admit I am pondering how the issue of heat island effect works with these. If they don't increase it, that ultimately deals with one of the concerns I have. And, I won't be surprised if they don't increase it; I always go into this with the knowledge that I may be wrong and the assumption I'm not entirely right. Sometimes, I get surprised when what I think is wrong turns out to be far more on the money than what I think is right. And it wouldn't take much to alter the lobby itself from blocking this to suggesting additional support projects along the lines of building backup power generation of wind turbines and geothermal energy; either way, I can use this to further my own goals.
Okay, I have had a long discussion on this item on this topic and want to post the summary of my concerns here (note that one of the original was proven non-legitimate):
1) I have concerns about the heating element. Particularly, how it will affect the heat islands that exist and potentially extend their effect into winter through the use of heating to melt snow. As it stands right now, I suspect the heating itself will actually result in a net increase of yearly heat for a lot of areas and extend part of the heat island effect well into the winter months, potentially even turning it into a year-long phenomenon and completely negating the benefit these have in negating heat during the summer months.
2) I have concerns about the glass. Not that it is not durable, but what it will turn into once exposed to long-term weathering. Specifically, glass particulates resulting from years of weathering and how they could easily be a danger to multiple forms of life. I had suggested using a different material than this on the thread I linked to, in no small part because most modern building materials are not durable enough to survive some modern auto accidents without scarring and gouges resulting; this material is among them and I have reason to think that such events would severely exacerbate the potential weathering issue.
3) I have problems with the effect this may have upon the water cycle. In particular, water vapor is noted for its massive impact upon planetary climate and its necessity for modern climate systems. In particular, the way this deals with rain water may alter the water vapor cycles in the areas in which this project is implemented and a potential severe, and unpredictable, impact upon local and planetary climate. Unfortunately, the only way to predict the effect at current is to put it into implementation on a scale...
So the dangers from melting snow with fairly small heat are greater than the dangers of using tons of salt every year, deploying heavy machinery to plow and remove it, sometimes shipping snow miles outside of a city/into a river or using portable trucks with heaters to melt it? Not to mention the costs associated with whatever alternative you have to produce energy.
Glass particles are somehow more dangerous than asphalt ones? Because inert materials are somehow more dangerous than ones that can release oil-based compounds.
So the dangers from melting snow with fairly small heat are greater than the dangers of using tons of salt every year, deploying heavy machinery to plow and remove it, sometimes shipping snow miles outside of a city/into a river or using portable trucks with heaters to melt it? Not to mention the costs associated with whatever alternative you have to produce energy.
Potentially? Yes. One of the major problems a lot of areas are beginning to face right now is lower year-round water due to lowered amount of snowfall that stays frozen throughout the winter, which in turn is causing a lot of mountains that rely upon that snowfall to maintain their frozen water supplies to face water supply depletion. Combine that with ice cap melting and you can see why this is potentially a worse issue, given that it reduces the amount of water that can be there when the weather warms to supplement water supplies and help water plants as they come out of winter hibernation.
Then again, note the current methods are not helping matters any either. Just this solution may make their contribution to the problem worse.
Glass particles are somehow more dangerous than asphalt ones? Because inert materials are somehow more dangerous than ones that can release oil-based compounds.
Not at all. The roads themselves really should be entirely redesigned. Asphalt has its own dangers, primarily related to the localized heat effect, and the science itself suggests asphalt has a (tiny) contribution to the ongoing worsening of climatic problems. That is why I suggested replacing the material of these panels with something else for implementing them; it removes the problems of asphalt and don't cause an additional particulate problem.
So the dangers from melting snow with fairly small heat are greater than the dangers of using tons of salt every year, deploying heavy machinery to plow and remove it, sometimes shipping snow miles outside of a city/into a river or using portable trucks with heaters to melt it? Not to mention the costs associated with whatever alternative you have to produce energy.Potentially? Yes. One of the major problems a lot of areas are beginning to face right now is lower year-round water due to lowered amount of snowfall that stays frozen throughout the winter, which in turn is causing a lot of mountains that rely upon that snowfall to maintain their frozen water supplies to face water supply depletion. Combine that with ice cap melting and you can see why this is potentially a worse issue, given that it reduces the amount of water that can be there when the weather warms to supplement water supplies and help water plants as they come out of winter hibernation.
Then again, note the current methods are not helping matters any either. Just this solution may make their contribution to the problem worse.
How much heat do you think hundreds/thousands of plows per city generate to remove snow? I will bet money that it is significantly higher than the heat added by these.
Glass particles are somehow more dangerous than asphalt ones? Because inert materials are somehow more dangerous than ones that can release oil-based compounds.Not at all. The roads themselves really should be entirely redesigned. Asphalt has its own dangers, primarily related to the localized heat effect, and the science itself suggests asphalt has a (tiny) contribution to the ongoing worsening of climatic problems. That is why I suggested replacing the material of these panels with something else for implementing them; it removes the problems of asphalt and don't cause an additional particulate problem.
Your basically arguing that we shouldn't make this technology that is better because it is may not be the best, while offering no recommendation as to something that would be better. You have constant friction across the surface. No matter what material is used, it will create particulates over time. Glass is far better than most of the materials currently used, as it contains no oil that will leak into the environment.
How much heat do you think hundreds/thousands of plows per city generate to remove snow? I will bet money that it is significantly higher than the heat added by these.
The issue is not the temporary heat from the plows themselves, but the ongoing seasonal heat from the roadways. It's typically not an issue during the winter because the roads themselves cool down enough that snow and ice can solidify on them. It's normally only a summer worry. My question is if the result of the winter heating will extend the summer phenomenon across multiple seasons.
Your basically arguing that we shouldn't make this technology that is better because it is may not be the best, while offering no recommendation as to something that would be better. You have constant friction across the surface. No matter what material is used, it will create particulates over time. Glass is far better than most of the materials currently used, as it contains no oil that will leak into the environment.
These are being suggested as a solution to a number of problems with current asphalt, some of which was designed to be the way it is in response to ongoing problems with old asphalt designs and how they are even worse on the heat issue. Within the last twenty years, this subject has been visited twice. I don't want to see us visiting it again ten years from now to fix a problem with these.
So, yes, I am. Because we have other areas that could use this funding aside from the roads, but which are not going to get it until the road issue is fixed. So, I'd rather have it fixed sooner rather than be an issue we come back to later.
How much heat do you think hundreds/thousands of plows per city generate to remove snow? I will bet money that it is significantly higher than the heat added by these.The issue is not the temporary heat from the plows themselves, but the ongoing seasonal heat from the roadways. It's typically not an issue during the winter because the roads themselves cool down enough that snow and ice can solidify on them. It's normally only a summer worry. My question is if the result of the winter heating will extend the summer phenomenon across multiple seasons.
Your basically arguing that we shouldn't make this technology that is better because it is may not be the best, while offering no recommendation as to something that would be better. You have constant friction across the surface. No matter what material is used, it will create particulates over time. Glass is far better than most of the materials currently used, as it contains no oil that will leak into the environment.These are being suggested as a solution to a number of problems with current asphalt, some of which was designed to be the way it is in response to ongoing problems with old asphalt designs and how they are even worse on the heat issue. Within the last twenty years, this subject has been visited twice. I don't want to see us visiting it again ten years from now to fix a problem with these.
So, yes, I am. Because we have other areas that could use this funding aside from the roads, but which are not going to get it until the road issue is fixed. So, I'd rather have it fixed sooner rather than be an issue we come back to later.
Its called iterative design. We revisit every issue every ten years or so. New technology makes improvements viable that weren't before. Saying an improvement shouldn't be explored because it doesn't go far enough before it has even been explored is moronic.
Its called iterative design. We revisit every issue every ten years or so. New technology makes improvements viable that weren't before. Saying an improvement shouldn't be explored because it doesn't go far enough before it has even been explored is moronic.
Welcome to infrastructure projects. The one area where iterative design is not welcome.
A lot of the problem with iterative design when it comes to infrastructure is that a lot of infrastructure (including roads) is not designed to be replaced every ten years. In fact, with the U.S., it's not even possible to do so. Part of the reason is how difficult some of the infrastructure is to get to, how disruptive some of it is to upgrade on a regular basis, and how some of it is out in the middle of nowhere. Roads are one area that are often two or even all three of those at once. That's part of why they solve problems with some roads by simply building new roads in other locations.
Also, this is a project where nationwide implementation will probably take twenty or thirty years. Changing design halfway through implementation because you found a problem is not something that will be considered acceptable; more than likely, they would just scrap the entire project as a waste of money and go back to asphalt roads.
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Its called iterative design. We revisit every issue every ten years or so. New technology makes improvements viable that weren't before. Saying an improvement shouldn't be explored because it doesn't go far enough before it has even been explored is moronic.Welcome to infrastructure projects. The one area where iterative design is not welcome.
A lot of the problem with iterative design when it comes to infrastructure is that a lot of infrastructure (including roads) is not designed to be replaced every ten years. In fact, with the U.S., it's not even possible to do so. Part of the reason is how difficult some of the infrastructure is to get to, how disruptive some of it is to upgrade on a regular basis, and how some of it is out in the middle of nowhere. Roads are one area that are often two or even all three of those at once. That's part of why they solve problems with some roads by simply building new roads in other locations.
Also, this is a project where nationwide implementation will probably take twenty or thirty years. Changing design halfway through implementation because you found a problem is not something that will be considered acceptable; more than likely, they would just scrap the entire project as a waste of money and go back to asphalt roads.
Iterative design is a constant, even in infrastructure projects. New traffic patterns are being experimented with constantly. There are hundreds of different types of asphalt to deal with conditions in different areas, not counting other road materials like concrete, with new ones being formulated every year. You have experiments with anti-rust coatings on guardrails, new paints, traffic light designs. Sometimes these aren't fully vetted before being implemented, like the issues with high efficiency light bulbs in street lights not melting snow and causing northern cities that wanted to save energy a headache. Just because something takes years for an iteration doesn't mean that iterative design is not used.
I think your estimates on nationwide implementation are generous at best. It will be at least 20 years before we see the first major roads starting to use this technology, if it ever is used large scale. Hell, it will probably take them 5 years just to get production up to a point that they can be fully commercially viable after they finalize their design. It will be private industries experimenting with it in low risk zones like parking lots for years until it has proven its long term viability. As you said, no one wants to put in a road that will only last a decade.
You're saying early R&D shouldn't happen because it wont be implemented in the near future and we can't change the infrastructure instantly. This technology can be implemented gradually over time, with improvements being made along the way. They aren't pushing for instantaneous adoption.
Iterative design is a constant, even in infrastructure projects. New traffic patterns are being experimented with constantly. There are hundreds of different types of asphalt to deal with conditions in different areas, not counting other road materials like concrete, with new ones being formulated every year. You have experiments with anti-rust coatings on guardrails, new paints, traffic light designs. Sometimes these aren't fully vetted before being implemented, like the issues with high efficiency light bulbs in street lights not melting snow and causing northern cities that wanted to save energy a headache. Just because something takes years for an iteration doesn't mean that iterative design is not used.
I think your estimates on nationwide implementation are generous at best. It will be at least 20 years before we see the first major roads starting to use this technology, if it ever is used large scale. Hell, it will probably take them 5 years just to get production up to a point that they can be fully commercially viable after they finalize their design. It will be private industries experimenting with it in low risk zones like parking lots for years until it has proven its long term viability. As you said, no one wants to put in a road that will only last a decade.
You're saying early R&D shouldn't happen because it wont be implemented in the near future and we can't change the infrastructure instantly. This technology can be implemented gradually over time, with improvements being made along the way. They aren't pushing for instantaneous adoption.
One of the key items those iterative design philosophies is that most of those never, ever have a snowball's chance of seeing nation-wide implementation until after they've been relatively perfected. And, even then, they're often blocked from full-scale implementation just due to the expense of implementing them and keeping up with the continual redesign. And even then, those projects all have something relatively common about them: They didn't make the decision to go public as loudly as possible, so they had the time to properly develop and test and implement.
Unless they have an amazing amount of luck, they don't have 20 years. If they're lucky, they have 10. By going as public as they have, they've drawn a lot of good attention... and drawn the attention of everyone who wants to kill projects like this, including their competitors in the solar panel industry. Right now, I guarantee you the lobby units to make certain this never replaces asphalt is already formed and already campaigning. All they have to do is ask Solyndra how well that lobby group works; that company had a lot more resources and a lot more backers than these people do, and you can see where they are now.
I admit to being generous. That's because, at the core of the tech (solar panels on roads), this is ultimately a tech we need to start really solving problems. So, I'm giving them estimates that are absolutely the best because I want them to succeed. I know how long it will realistically take, and I know it's ultimately probable they don't have that time before they end up being forced out of the industry.
Also, I'm not saying R and D shouldn't happen. I'm saying they should finish R and D before they start building roads with these. That way, when the challenges come to try to stop them and put them out of business, they have everything ready and are rolling out a full implementation that is without problem. Because, as I said, they really only have one shot at this. They fail in that one shot, those who oppose them will make certain they never get a second chance.
Appreciate the lengthy answer, MJ. I'll admit, it sounds like you are talking about manipulating demons to do good works, but maybe you're descended from King Solomon or something. ;)
Not knowing anything about your credentials, contacts, or realms of expertise, the only caution I would advise is that morale is very important in any war. While you may have some valid points for this particular "battle", I'd ask you to reflect on the effects your lobby's choices might have on the will of the general populace, government, and industry to commit to making the hard but needed choices. While some people might get riled up and fight harder if they see a lobby trying to block a promising solution, there's also plenty of others who may become jaded and discouraged and throw in the towel. "Crap, why should I even bother funding innovation if bureaucrats insist on putting up impediments instead of creating opportunities?"
As a side note, the engineers I work with and am friends with are all quite intelligent and far-thinking. Just because you or I have apprehensions over how something might pan out doesn't mean that they might not have already considered those factors. IME it's more beneficial to ask such probing questions and either get an answer or get them thinking about additional factors than to shoot them down because you don't understand it in layman's terms.
From 4 years ago almost to the day, 120 year concrete recipe for roads meets skepticism.
Use this stuff to build the actual road while the solar shinies takes care of the parts that don't have multi-ton vehicles racing along them. ;)
Use this stuff to build the actual road while the solar shinies takes care of the parts that don't have multi-ton vehicles racing along them. ;)
I'm guessing that's where this will all end up.