| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
IIRC, about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. They want the surface of the road to be about 34, and car defrosters are up above 80 degrees.
Have you seen a blizzard? (not the DQ treat) Snow can and does fall heavy and fast, plus like I mentioned, it has to deal with sleet and ice storms. Yep it's an extreme, but can the road deal with this?, and again records. I think that Florida is workable, I doubt that Georgetown, CO is though.
Car window defrosters also have to cope with stuff that piled up when they were off. And have a lot less thermal mass to work with.
In theory, it'll never have to melt it's way out from under feet of snow, since it won't accumulate. So the pictures of 20' high snowbanks aren't really relevant.
Frankly, I don't know how well this will work, how much power it will take or whether it can be overwhelmed by extreme blizzard conditions. (inches/hour seems like it would matter far more than feet/day). OTOH, our current roads don't function well in thos kind of blizzards anyway.
It's easy enough to test, even beyond any modelling they've already done. Build a couple of panels, hook them up and put them outside in the snow. See what kind of rate they can keep up with.
And even if they can't handle all possible conditions, so what? Use them where those conditions are rare. We've already established they're not going to replace all current roads overnight.
A lot of these criticisms seem like "They're not perfect, we can't use them everywhere, so forget the whole concept." Much like the argument that we shouldn't bother with solar at all, if we can't completely replace all energy use with it.
My point was to the response that we wouldn't need snowplows anymore.
BTW did they plan on covering the dirt and gravel roads too?What does that matter? If they cover some dirt roads, they'll be turning them into solar roads and...
Well, first they will need to turn those dirt and gravel roads into paved roads, because that is what they are using for a foundation for their solar road.
I live in upstate New York. I have seen systems that can keep porches clear all winter. If you continuously melt the snow as it is falling, you can do it. No one is saying that it would fully replace the need for plowing, but plows get sent out for 2 inches of snow, which this system could easily be designed to handle, way more frequently than you have feet in a day. My guess is you could easily design a system that can handle an inch an hour, which deals with the vast majority of things salt trucks get sent out for. Most areas that get regular, non-lake effect snowfall don't see storms exceeding that more than a few days out of the year. Not to mention this would help eliminate that final layer of snow the plows can't get to.
Sleet and ice storms would be easier than snowfall, as they happen in warmer weather and a mild temperature difference is enough to prevent buildup. These would handle them better than salt, which tends to wash away in the more liquidy partially frozen precipitation.
I looked at one of those systems for keeping driveways clear of snow. They use about 50 Watts per square foot, Solar cells generate about 10-15 Watts per square foot. That means in the winter, as long as the road is heated it would need to use about 35-40 to 50 Watts of power per square foot. That means that one lane of Interstate Highway would need 2000 to 3000 Kilowatts of power per mile of road, 4 times that for 4 lane Interstates. I90 is 3100 miles long and the northernmost interstate highway, it would require 31,000,000 Kilowatts of electricity per hour to keep it at snow melting temps. Note that the Grand Coulee dam, the largest energy producer in the US, makes about 6,800,000 Kilowatts of power per hour.
OK it is highly unlikely that all I90 would be snowed on at once. But South Dakota has 680 miles of Interstate highway. that is 6,800,000 or about all the power from the Grand Coulee dam. That doesn't count any of the other 80,000+ miles of roads in South Dakota.
Western Avenue in Chicago, the longest city street (one city) in the world (I believe) is 23.5 miles long and 4 lanes (10 feet wide or so) that would require 175,000 to 250,000 kilowatts of power per hour, the rest of Chicago has another 4000 miles of streets and 1900 miles of alley ways. At just an average of 20' wide, that is 21,800,000 to 31,100,000 kilowatts per hour. That is JUST the city of CHICAGO!!!! (Note that in Feb. 2014 Illinois produced an average of 16,200,000 Kilowatts of energy per hour. That was 3rd in the nation behind Texas and Pennsylvania.) Chicago had around 50 days with measurable snowfall totals this past winter.
Do you now understand why I don't think that the snow removal idea won't work? Even if their system used 5 watts per square foot, Chicago needs 20% of Illinois' electricity production (not really anything new, Chicago has been trying to suck Illinois dry for years).
The bigger numbers above are the total electricity needed assuming the roads aren't producing any electricity. Those number do not include sidewalks.
Since the direct path isn't really going to be changed, what about the indirect damage. How close and how powerful does the tornado need to be to rip up panels? How far does it throw them?
If it only picks up panels in it's direct path and it doesn't throw them very far, I think the difference in presence/non-presence of the panels will be insignificant. I highly doubt anyone here (or possibly anywhere right now) could answer this question to a high degree of certainty. It is something to consider/test though.
I can answer this pretty definitely.
An F2 is a tornado strong enough to rip trees out of the ground, tear the roofs off houses, and even lift cars off the ground. An F3 tears the roofs off most houses. F4 is where you hit the area where neighborhoods are demolished and cars are tossed around. F5 is typically apocalyptic.
So, realistically, unless these are permanently anchored to stone embedded in the ground, direct contact with an F2 is going to turn them into shrapnel. And the higher up the scale you go, the less necessary direct contact becomes. The major reason why it is asphalt roads survive is because they are stone; tornadoes don't do as well against stone construction.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
An F2 is a tornado strong enough to rip trees out of the ground, tear the roofs off houses, and even lift cars off the ground. An F3 tears the roofs off most houses. F4 is where you hit the area where neighborhoods are demolished and cars are tossed around. F5 is typically apocalyptic.
Or, as they put it more colorfully, "[a]n F4 will level a framed structure and leave the mess behind, ... while an F5 "cleans up after itself", carrying away the debris."
Well, as I said... it is a massively costly idea. It may indeed be possible to solve each of these problems... but to do so concurrently merely means it becomes too expensive to even imagine.
Let them try. It means little, since they can't do it.
That depends on a lot of factors. If they can bring these down under 10 million per mile of 2 lane road, they probably have a shot at being viable for future investments. For reference, that is about 10 times the cost budgeted by federal highway projects. In southern environs they can advertise year round power generation and get estimates for how long they take to pay for themselves. In norther states it may be more complicated, as they will need to show cost savings in weather as well, but that may end up being a larger benefit for how long they take to pay for themselves.
To actually be competitive, they need to come in at a cost where this pays for itself in about 10 years, or at least in 10 years they are the same price as traditional roads. At 10% efficiency, that probably equates to about 3.5 million per square mile. At the 15% efficiency they hope for, just over 5 million. This is assuming about 10 cents per KWH.
And not to mention, that the maintenance costs are low indeed. Hmmm... another issue... if you take tiles of a certain size... and you pave a road with them... what happens if the road gets squeezed together or stretched, you know, stuff that happens?
Which becomes a problem when the panels are 150 miles away from the nearest settlement... which happens frequently in the U.S. with roads. That's part of why the power grid is so much smaller; it's actually considered impractical on a good day to have a power grid that stretches the entire nation.Sewer systems are a thing that happens in cities. Speeds in cities tend to be far lower than out on the freeways, no?Which means the trench gets dug a little deeper and the cables buried a little lower, at most. Besides, this system can detect broken panels, meaning if it is designed properly it can trip a breaker on them and prevent them from having significant current.
To quote myself from further upthread
I think these are a terrible idea for most highways. One of the few good points Thunderf00t's video is the power distribution issues that would happen. Far too much of our highway system is designed to not be close to our cities.
Congrats for attacking a point I already conceded.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's more of an issue that the solar roads need to a) be able to store energy, or b) carry power, in order to melt snow when there isn't any real solar generation (snow generally happens when it's pretty overcast...) and it seems to me that both will be prohibitively expensive and dangerous to boot. I mean... for the insulation on those cables to be known to work, there would have to be some pretty extreme testing done. After the first people responding to an accident get electrocuted by damaged high voltage cables in the road itself, do you think opinion on the solar road might, shall we say, swing a little?
In the 1800s, when railways were being built in the United States, there were mass movements to stop their development. When trains were first invented, people thought that the very sight of seeing an object going more than 15 miles an hour would literally drive everyone mad.
People are f*&&ing stupid.
It's always easy to shoot down something with an extreme case. If this system provides benefit to as few as 10 percent of the nation's roadways, we're coming out majorly ahead.
This is a pretty much as meaningless debate as we can get in this venue. The project is FUNDED at over 200 percent of goal.
If I were trying to shoot the project down as not being able to happen at all or if the problem I cited were an extreme case, you would have a point.
The ten percent figure is not a goal I would shoot for; at current, 27% of all roads in the U.S. are in urban areas. Urban areas are the places most likely to have the internal structure necessary to support the power generation capacity of these and are also most likely to get the necessary regular maintenance. Add in the fact that urban areas are also the areas where the heat island effect is most concentrated and the fact these solar panels will absorb some of the heat from that effect (15% of what sunlight hits them), you're looking at a pretty good positive environmental impact and also improving the quality of life of those living within those neighborhoods.
There will be some engineering challenges with this setup, which is what I suspect caused Solar Roadways to advertise these as replacing all roads. One of the major ones will be the transition from solar panel to asphalt; the two will wear and weather differently, resulting in different maintenance schedules needed, and that can result in some cities rejecting this simply because they don't want to pay extra for the necessary maintenance.
That said, it doesn't matter that they have the money; if the Federal Highway Administration does not approve it for roads and communities refuse to allow these for sidewalks and parking lots, this project is dead in the water.
Which becomes a problem when the panels are 150 miles away from the nearest settlement... which happens frequently in the U.S. with roads. That's part of why the power grid is so much smaller; it's actually considered impractical on a good day to have a power grid that stretches the entire nation.Sewer systems are a thing that happens in cities. Speeds in cities tend to be far lower than out on the freeways, no?Which means the trench gets dug a little deeper and the cables buried a little lower, at most. Besides, this system can detect broken panels, meaning if it is designed properly it can trip a breaker on them and prevent them from having significant current.To quote myself from further upthread
I think these are a terrible idea for most highways. One of the few good points Thunderf00t's video is the power distribution issues that would happen. Far too much of our highway system is designed to not be close to our cities.Congrats for attacking a point I already conceded.
I apologize. I should have read your posts more carefully.
It's more of an issue that the solar roads need to a) be able to store energy, or b) carry power, in order to melt snow when there isn't any real solar generation (snow generally happens when it's pretty overcast...) and it seems to me that both will be prohibitively expensive and dangerous to boot. I mean... for the insulation on those cables to be known to work, there would have to be some pretty extreme testing done. After the first people responding to an accident get electrocuted by damaged high voltage cables in the road itself, do you think opinion on the solar road might, shall we say, swing a little?In the 1800s, when railways were being built in the United States, there were mass movements to stop their development. When trains were first invented, people thought that the very sight of seeing an object going more than 15 miles an hour would literally drive everyone mad.
People are f@$%ing stupid.
Do you realize how much crap people have thought was going to solve every conceivable problem? How many beyond-the-horizon visions that turned out to be brilliant only when seriously stoned? And you know why many, even most, of these were never implemented large-scale?
Because not EVERYONE is f&!~ing stupid.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's more of an issue that the solar roads need to a) be able to store energy, or b) carry power, in order to melt snow when there isn't any real solar generation (snow generally happens when it's pretty overcast...) and it seems to me that both will be prohibitively expensive and dangerous to boot. I mean... for the insulation on those cables to be known to work, there would have to be some pretty extreme testing done. After the first people responding to an accident get electrocuted by damaged high voltage cables in the road itself, do you think opinion on the solar road might, shall we say, swing a little?In the 1800s, when railways were being built in the United States, there were mass movements to stop their development. When trains were first invented, people thought that the very sight of seeing an object going more than 15 miles an hour would literally drive everyone mad.
People are f@$%ing stupid.
Do you realize how much crap people have thought was going to solve every conceivable problem? How many beyond-the-horizon visions that turned out to be brilliant only when seriously stoned? And you know why many, even most, of these were never implemented large-scale?
Because not EVERYONE is f!!#ing stupid.
Every point you bring up is addressed in the FAQ.
I crazily assumed you were able to read.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Precisely. Each single question has an answer. Except anything dealing with the sheer cost and energy requirements. But it will not have to solve each of those problems... it will have to solve ALL of them and cheaply.
Plus... sometimes when someone is pitching their idea and want me to invest, I get the sense that I am actually at a religious meeting. It is something in their phrasing. The structure of their arguments. What they do not show and say. At that point, it is time to get out fast. So far, this reflex has saved me from many different types of snake oil salesmen.
And not to mention, that the maintenance costs are low indeed. Hmmm... another issue... if you take tiles of a certain size... and you pave a road with them... what happens if the road gets squeezed together or stretched, you know, stuff that happens?
The watertight seals break and leak, the road buckles, vehicles start tearing up the roadway...
Most of the pieces are supposed to be standard size and shape, what happens when one of the non-standard sized and shaped tiles needs replacement? How long will it take to manufacture a replacement?
Precisely. Each single question has an answer. Except anything dealing with the sheer cost and energy requirements. But it will not have to solve each of those problems... it will have to solve ALL of them and cheaply.
Plus... sometimes when someone is pitching their idea and want me to invest, I get the sense that I am actually at a religious meeting. It is something in their phrasing. The structure of their arguments. What they do not show and say. At that point, it is time to get out fast. So far, this reflex has saved me from many different types of snake oil salesmen.
You must live a very comfortable life indeed, with your stacks of gold bullion.
I'm seriously starting to wonder how many have actually read their homepage, the FAQ and the "clearing the air" page before they start ranting and raving about how this and that won't work.
I think most of what people have been concerned about has been answered already on those pages.
Including the whole "but what if 10 feet of snow suddenly drops out of the sky???! - well, they concede that there might be a Northern limit to where the heating elements wouldn't be able to cope with the weather.
The heating element issue is solved within modern technology; they can get around that by making the heating elements more powerful and using a secondary power source, such as geothermal, to provide consistent power despite latitude or sunlight amount.
Because, admittedly, the states where the heating element would be most useful are the ones far enough north that solar panels typically never actually repay the pollution cost anyway... But a modified form of these could still be highly useful, and geothermal is one that can easily repay the pollution cost of itself and the solar panels.
So, some of us are assuming more northerly latitudes because there's no realistic reason not to keep going north ;)
Honestly? This will never phase out plows. There is nothing as efficient as plows for clearing road ways in a hurry. Short of them being heated to ~80 degrees all winter long, there will be many times that they are covered in snow.
The heating element is best used to clear the layers of snow and ice that remain after being plowed. Living up here in Alaska, there every winter we get times when we received a foot of snow or more in the span of a couple hours. Sometimes we get 4-5 feet of snow overnight. A constant temperature of ~35 degrees is not going to melt that any time soon.
But, when the plows come out and leave behind that thing layer of snow and ice that have built up, that's when the panels come into action and melt the snow/ice.
I live in Minneapolis, MN. We get snow, a fair bit of it, but less than a LOT of other places in the US. It's also a fairly urban place, it's not Chicago or New York, but the streets are busy.
That said, it still takes 2-3 days for the snowplows to really clear the streets and often by then, there is already packed snow that can't be plowed because it's already solid ice. This happened a lot this past winter. Even the most important roads, the freeways, had difficulty being kept clear by plows. They ended up with a kind of washboard effect, with chunks of ice adhered to the pavement.
Having a heating element underneath the ice loosening it's grip to the pavement would have made the plows more effective.
You must live a very comfortable life indeed, with your stacks of gold bullion.Precisely. Each single question has an answer. Except anything dealing with the sheer cost and energy requirements. But it will not have to solve each of those problems... it will have to solve ALL of them and cheaply.
Plus... sometimes when someone is pitching their idea and want me to invest, I get the sense that I am actually at a religious meeting. It is something in their phrasing. The structure of their arguments. What they do not show and say. At that point, it is time to get out fast. So far, this reflex has saved me from many different types of snake oil salesmen.
No. I have enough to scrape by... but if I had bought into that kind of crap, I wouldn't have.
The heating element issue is solved within modern technology; they can get around that by making the heating elements more powerful and using a secondary power source, such as geothermal, to provide consistent power despite latitude or sunlight amount.
Because, admittedly, the states where the heating element would be most useful are the ones far enough north that solar panels typically never actually repay the pollution cost anyway... But a modified form of these could still be highly useful, and geothermal is one that can easily repay the pollution cost of itself and the solar panels.
So, some of us are assuming more northerly latitudes because there's no realistic reason not to keep going north ;)
Did you see my post about the energy required for those heating elements?
The city of Chicago, with it's 4000 miles of streets and 1900 miles (assuming all of those are two lane roads 20 feet wide) of alleys would require 31,000 MEGAWATTS of electricity to keep the roadways clear of snow. That is about as much electricity as Texas produced, or twice what is produced in Illinois. (The electricity, 50 watts/sq foot is based upon an actual commercial product.)
Alright I skipped most of this thread, quick read it.
I own several small Solar Systems, for Backpacking and in my Camper. I LOVE solar.
I'm very familiar with curent tire technology.
I have a better than average understanding of both Gas and Electric.
The entire premise of this project is NUTZ.
The most effective way to use solar panels is to angle them at the sun.
No giant leaps in solar technology will alter basic physics.
The flat mount for roads is dumb.
Solar panels start to seriously taper down in efficiency the farther North you go.
Roads tend to be busier in the daytime. Empty at night. Gridlock prone roads will simply not produce power (think SoCal, the I-95 corridor between Philly and New York). Parking Lots are the same but basically in a constant state of gridlock.
Now commercial fleet parking lots for electric vehicles could be a viable client, but why not just mount the solar on an angled "Car Port" covering like they do, right now, in Several locations. The car port has the added benefit of keeping your car cool (I grew up in Florida) and being angled.
Sidewalks maybe. If the cost gets brought way down per unit. Hard to do considering road applications are a non starter.
Wet tempered Glass is basically "Black Ice" year round. I don't care what texture it has.
These things are never getting installed in heavy snow areas. I don't care what kind of "heating" they use. That's not cost efficient. It tends to be really overcast in snow season. Overcast=Bad.
Tires need grip. The better they grip at speed, the faster they wear. Current Low Rolling Resistance tires will be made completely obsolete by tempered glass roadways. We would all be buying racing tires, not Z rated tires, RACING tires. The end cost to the consumer would be staggering over a 20 year period.
With current automotive technology our cars leak. They leak motor oil, axle grease, antifreeze and condensation from the AC. All this crap accumulates on the roadway along with exhaust particulates. This is not a good thing for a roadway that needs to be basically clean to effectively transfer energy from the sun to the cells. This will still be an issue even if the American population suddenly makes an about face and switches to Electric Cars, because there is still axle lubricants and break dust, not to mention old fashioned dirt.
Oh yeah, Glass is Expensive. That's why your Mt Dew comes in a plastic bottle.
Now if a super strong Plastic could be developed that also angled light (like a prism) and could withstand the rigors of road travel, maybe. That material would need to be cheaper than glass, which isn't likely given current materials.
Then there is the issue of energy transfer.
On my camper, the panel is portable, the farther away I put it, the less efficient it becomes. In this scenario we are talking about 100 feet (my longest cord). The battery system wasn't cheap either.
This is a high end Kyocera Pannel, Blue Sea solar controller, and a dual Deep Cycle Battery system. I didn't skimp.
Transferring the generated electricity to a usable point is going to be expensive and materially intensive. Our current grid is old and inefficient. It's in place though. The video offers that the road integrates a new grid setup (including water movement for recycling and treatment?) that's ambitious. A fully integrated system.
Sounds toooo good to be true.
There is some interesting ideas at play here. But the challenges facing this program are as significant as manned deep space exploration. There is a very real possibility that we could put people in orbit around Saturn and it's Moons, repeatedly, like in tourism, for less money than switching out Americas current asphalt roadways.
Our electric infrastructure is lacking. It needs a serious upgrade. Our roadsystem is oddly current, but our bridges, tunnels and River locks are in serious need of upgrade. An all in one solution is worth researching but not an economically viable solution for cash strapped State Budgets and Federal dollars that will inevitably be awarded to the lowest bidder.
This idea is geared for large govt purchase orders. Given our current political landscape and the "starve the beast" mentality of half of Congress, this company needs a new Buisness strategy altogether.
The heating element issue is solved within modern technology; they can get around that by making the heating elements more powerful and using a secondary power source, such as geothermal, to provide consistent power despite latitude or sunlight amount.
Because, admittedly, the states where the heating element would be most useful are the ones far enough north that solar panels typically never actually repay the pollution cost anyway... But a modified form of these could still be highly useful, and geothermal is one that can easily repay the pollution cost of itself and the solar panels.
So, some of us are assuming more northerly latitudes because there's no realistic reason not to keep going north ;)
Did you see my post about the energy required for those heating elements?
The city of Chicago, with it's 4000 miles of streets and 1900 miles (assuming all of those are two lane roads 20 feet wide) of alleys would require 31,000 MEGAWATTS of electricity to keep the roadways clear of snow. That is about as much electricity as Texas produced, or twice what is produced in Illinois. (The electricity, 50 watts/sq foot is based upon an actual commercial product.)
Yeah, I didn't get a chance yesterday to thank you for grabbing that info. If that is the best energy efficiency you can get for the product, this will never take off. With proper design, they can probably pull off a more efficient system by insulating the underside and sacrificing how quickly it removes snow. They would need to get it down to paying for itself with the energy it would produce as soon as it is cleared, which would probably mean not turning them on until after the storm, among other things.
The fact that I cannot find anyone with a heating system for clearing solar panels is telling.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't get why people say these systems will be significantly affected by cars. Roads are not primarily used during the day. They are primarily used between 7-9:30 and 4 to 6:30. For most of peak time people are at work, parked in office building parking lots that would be dumb to cover. But during this time many businesses are empty, like malls and grocery stores, where this technology would be great.
And others seem to be assuming more northerly latitudes so they can dismiss the entire concept. :)
Thumbs up for the good point!
Did you see my post about the energy required for those heating elements?
The city of Chicago, with it's 4000 miles of streets and 1900 miles (assuming all of those are two lane roads 20 feet wide) of alleys would require 31,000 MEGAWATTS of electricity to keep the roadways clear of snow. That is about as much electricity as Texas produced, or twice what is produced in Illinois. (The electricity, 50 watts/sq foot is based upon an actual commercial product.)
I saw. There is no way I can see these operating that well under the current design, but at the same time I have to admit the current design is still a prototype. They're still correcting the glaring flaws.
That's why I suggested geothermal as a back-up. It's actually one of the more high-capacity alternative power-generation systems. With the roads themselves acting as power lines and sufficient utilization of geothermal, we can easily exceed that amount of power generation. At current, geothermal is highly underused, and the current power plant designs are still crude (which reflects the relative youth of the technology). But, even still, the power source is capable of hitting the Terrawatt category for power generation. In other words, they can power a death ray ;)
I don't get why people say these systems will be significantly affected by cars. Roads are not primarily used during the day. They are primarily used between 7-9:30 and 4 to 6:30. For most of peak time people are at work, parked in office building parking lots that would be dumb to cover. But during this time many businesses are empty, like malls and grocery stores, where this technology would be great.
Because even modern roads are subject to discoloration from people driving on them and all of the dirt and other stuff left by cars. Solar bleaching does play a minor part, of course. That's a major reason why a lot of blacktops fade to a shade of grey.
Also, traffic varies by road; the road in front of my house sees rather regular traffic at all times of day, even well into the night.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Alright I skipped most of this thread, quick read it.....
First, it's a prototype! Seriously, what it's advertising now is simply ideas and possibilities. It may come to be that the final version is only used on sidewalks and parking lots in the north, while the roads are still asphalt. It may be that the heating element isn't practical and abandoned entirely. They don't know, they need to do more tests, which requires more funding, which is what they are seeking.
Also, for the love of god read the bloody FAQ!
You claim of wet glass = black ice comes from your years of experience as en expert in friction and kinetic energy or road engineer or something right? I'm glad you're so smart that they never thought of traction issues. Granted, it's initial lab testing, because that's all they can afford at the moment. For more testing requires more funding.
On the issue of dirty panels and dirty roads, there's a FAQ for that.
Power Distribution? FAQ for that.
While you didn't bring it up, others mentioned people stealing the panels to recycle them. It's hard to do so and get away with it when all of the panels are networked together. Sure, someone who takes the time to destroy the network of a single panel could steal it and get away with it, but the common recycle thief isn't going to do that. Hell, it'll probably take a bit of time to either get to the panels network module that it would be impractical to actually steal the blasted things. If it takes 15-20 minutes per panel to ensure you can't be tracked just to steal it, means you aren't going to be making very much if you spend all night tearing up your road to get to the panels without getting caught.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Seriously, this whole project is in it's infantile stages right now. There are lots of ideas and theories floating around, some are practical, some are not. There's talking about using piezelectrict and thermocouplers to help generate even more energy.
There's talk about running phone, internet and other power lines in the cable corridor.
There's talk about pressure sensitive panels to alert you to road conditions.
There's talk about using them for home or even national security.
These are all just ideas. The product that goes to market may just be a 'solar road panel' and little more. But as time, and the cost of technology goes down, we may see all of these ideas come to fruition if the technology takes off.
[Edit] Damn track pad, clicked on Submit on accident. Can you imagine what kind of boost this technology would give to the Solar industry? It might force technology in that area to advance further than it currently exists. This project may very well result in even more efficient solar panels, which would only go to making the solar roads even better.
"Imagine being able to put “eyes and ears” on the ground anywhere in the world without putting human lives in danger. Drop a Solar Road Panel into the hills of Afghanistan via parachute. The parachute detaches upon impact and is retracted beneath the panel. Camera modules open and aim in every direction. A satellite dish configures itself for communications to anywhere in the world. Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina control the direction of the infrared cameras and watch the images on their computer screens and call in strikes when needed.
Unlike a conventional generator, the Solar Road Panel makes no noise and leaves no thermal footprint for the enemy combatants to detect. No refueling is ever needed, keeping our troops out of harm’s way."
Yeah; it's in its infantile stages.
I think we should send yellowdingo $2 million to start his megacity on Antarctica. It just needs some r&d money.
Retractable parachutes.....heh heh.
Precisely. Each single question has an answer. Except anything dealing with the sheer cost and energy requirements. But it will not have to solve each of those problems... it will have to solve ALL of them and cheaply.
Plus... sometimes when someone is pitching their idea and want me to invest, I get the sense that I am actually at a religious meeting. It is something in their phrasing. The structure of their arguments. What they do not show and say. At that point, it is time to get out fast. So far, this reflex has saved me from many different types of snake oil salesmen.
Having dealt with the ophidian oil venders in the past umpteen times, man; it's hard to explain but it feels like I get a Spiderman danger sense when they start saying the same type of thing over and over again.
Things like "you need to keep an open mind. See, a mind is like a parachute: it doesn't work when it's not open." Ugh.
The worst tell though is "trust me. You trust me, don't you?" F%*~ no I don't trust you. I don't trust anybody period. Especially somebody who asks or tells me to trust them.
It's not a science, it's an art form. Near as I can say anyway.
Precisely. Each single question has an answer. Except anything dealing with the sheer cost and energy requirements. But it will not have to solve each of those problems... it will have to solve ALL of them and cheaply.
Plus... sometimes when someone is pitching their idea and want me to invest, I get the sense that I am actually at a religious meeting. It is something in their phrasing. The structure of their arguments. What they do not show and say. At that point, it is time to get out fast. So far, this reflex has saved me from many different types of snake oil salesmen.
Cost:
1) It doesn't have to be implemented everywhere, all at once. It can be done piecemeal, like ALL OTHER ROAD CONSTRUCTION.
2) We don't know the full cost yet. We don't know how costs will change over time. We don't know all the impacts this will have on the infrastructure of an area.
I agree with the religious aspect of it. People get attached to ideas and as they see the positive, they think that the positive aspects can solve other problems or be applied limitlessly.
Conversely, one thing to understand is that an Indiegogo video is a SALES PITCH. So of course they're going to hype it up, because that's how you get money from people. This is done every time someone tries to sell something to another person. The point of the video is to increase the amount of funds donated to the page. So... duh... it's going to talk about all the great things about the project, because they want funding for their project.
If they didn't want funding, they wouldn't have started an Indiegogo campaign.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
"Imagine being able to put “eyes and ears” on the ground anywhere in the world without putting human lives in danger. Drop a Solar Road Panel into the hills of Afghanistan via parachute. The parachute detaches upon impact and is retracted beneath the panel. Camera modules open and aim in every direction. A satellite dish configures itself for communications to anywhere in the world. Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina control the direction of the infrared cameras and watch the images on their computer screens and call in strikes when needed.
Unlike a conventional generator, the Solar Road Panel makes no noise and leaves no thermal footprint for the enemy combatants to detect. No refueling is ever needed, keeping our troops out of harm’s way."
Yeah; it's in its infantile stages.
I think we should send yellowdingo $2 million to start his megacity on Antarctica. It just needs some r&d money.
Retractable parachutes.....heh heh.
Well, considering he starts the video showing his ignorance in the first 30 seconds, why should I take a single thing he says after it seriously?
I'm a consumer of current year Solar Tech. I actually use Solar Tech not daily but more than once a month. I own a Thin Film system and 2 Hard Cell systems.
What these people have is a bold idea. One that may be worth exploring. But the idea of replacing roads with solar cells just isn't practical. Asphalt is cheap comparatively and it's super expensive on a Macro Scale.
More importantly. This is not a private investment thing. Roads are generally public property and that means public money. Tax Dollars. The morons in Congress haven't actually passed a budget in a Decade, this is seriously a Space Program project. We basically killed NASA for budget.
Solar innovation needs to be practical. Cost effective.
I've been reading their FAQ. It's got some, interesting, claims. His power distribution claims are not grounded in reality or in achievable near future technology. From what I can tell there would be a battery pack every couple 100 feet. Batteries are expensive. The "localized" Power Grid sounds great but that's a major Battery suite in every building in America.
Ive done my homework on this, with current technology, to get my 2000sq ft home off the grid and switched over to a solar power system that would keep nominally off the grid is about $25,000 and that's if I do the work. Right now I'd have to own my home for nearly 2 decades to break even (assuming a static electric bill, which isn't reality either).
One of the challenges I do not see addressed in his plan is battery capacity. Neither is the Converter addressed. Who's paying for that?
Running utilities under an elevated roadway is a neat idea, but think about that. Every roadway in America, elevated. Of course the Utilitiy companies like the idea, piggybacking in his protected environment is a win/win, their lines are shielded, accessible and best of all someone else pays for it, the taxpayer. All they have to worry about is the cost of the Line, which is considerable. There's a reason there is still mostly aerial cable in this country, it's cheap.
Traction is an issue. Stopping a car at 40 miles per hour is great. Now do it 10,000 times. Glass is soft, it degrades. Sea Glass can be produced in relatively quick periods. Glass is not a great idea it's doable in a prototype.
. I'm not a tire engineer but I spent several years in a Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge service department. My boss races stockcars and motocross and I got to do the tire orders. I've got more than a passing familiarity with tires/traction and suspension systems. These surfaces will require a reengineering of the entire tire line up. Aside from All Terrain/ Multi Terrain tires and industrial tires most all tires are designed for asphalt, not concrete, not gravel. The D rated tires that get used in heavy truck applications are already expensive but they are formulated for asphalt. Reformulating tires for a new surface is an end cost to consumers.
I realize they are in prototype stage but he's already spending money on unnecessary add ons. LEDs aren't that bright, you can barely see them in the daylight. Much less at 45mph. As a proof of concept sure knock yourself out but not practical. Even with LEDs dropping in price annually it's still adding $20 per hex for little practical benefit.
If the panels came in at under $200 bucks I could maybe see doing my Driveway in these. That's still a $10k investment. They will have to prove them more efficient than roof mounts (which the laws of physics will make hard) or be 10 times as durable to win out in the marketplace. Banking on govt contracts is a fail in the American political arena. This need to look good to people like me who are already sold on solar.
They need an economist to go with the next round of R&D.
Well, considering he starts the video showing his ignorance in the first 30 seconds, why should I take a single thing he says after it seriously?
All he said was glass is not harder than asphalt, and then rubbed a chunk of asphalt on a glass coffee container.
Spanky, I was unfamiliar with Thunderfoot.
YouTube is dangerous.
Incidentally I live 40 miles from Camp LeJeurne and they can do that stuff right now.
Maybe they can put a laser target illuminator on it!
I'm sold.
I would like to point out that their base system assumes no batteries for parking lot applications. They are designed to work in conjunction with the grid, not to replace it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, considering he starts the video showing his ignorance in the first 30 seconds, why should I take a single thing he says after it seriously?All he said was glass is not harder than asphalt, and then rubbed a chunk of asphalt on a glass coffee container.
Yeah, which shows he knows nothing about modern glasses and is willing to shout and mock on the internet about things he has no knowledge of. He loses all credibility when he shows himself talking out his ass ignorantly.
Running utilities under an elevated roadway is a neat idea, but think about that. Every roadway in America, elevated. Of course the Utilitiy companies like the idea, piggybacking in his protected environment is a win/win, their lines are shielded, accessible and best of all someone else pays for it, the taxpayer. All they have to worry about is the cost of the Line, which is considerable. There's a reason there is still mostly aerial cable in this country, it's cheap.
They talk in the FAQ about leasing the space to utility companies and charging them for it.
I saw this idea a few years ago and the original idea was to start small with parking lots and then spread to highways especially in the south-west where I can assure you snow on the roads is not an issue.
Imagine going to wall mart and being able to charge your electric car while you shop or McDonalds.
I don't think people should po-po the project as too big or too ambitious to work. Everything starts small. A good comparison would be electricity. Edison didn't give up because it would have to run wire to every home and business in the country because it was just too big and expensive to work. It started with one neighborhood in one city and expanded from there.
If the tech works that is how it will spread. First one neighborhood or company then one city, then one state and so on.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, which shows he knows nothing about modern glasses and is willing to shout and mock on the internet about things he has no knowledge of. He loses all credibility when he shows himself talking out his ass ignorantly.Well, considering he starts the video showing his ignorance in the first 30 seconds, why should I take a single thing he says after it seriously?All he said was glass is not harder than asphalt, and then rubbed a chunk of asphalt on a glass coffee container.
Agree'd comparing the glass of your coffee pot to that of the tempered glass used in the panels is nothing more than intentional mis-information. It's amazing how many people think having an english accent and using numbers means someone is intelligent and knows what they're talking about.
On the military thing, their idea isn't that far-fetched. The Air Force has a solar powered plane that has been in orbit for over 500 days. Being able to drop something like the Mars Rover for unmanned scouting missions isn't a half-bad idea. Sure, we have UAVs already, but those are much more expensive than a little rover that they drop into the hills or mountains that then scouts around for hidden things you can't see from the air. That's not to say the Mars Rover itself isn't expensive, but a something that is able to navigate through rough terrain and powered by solar panels isn't a bad idea.
Okay. One step at a time.
1. I never said "LED lights, in any way shape or form, will not be visible during the day," and I had thought that by requoting and bolding what I actually said, it would be bountifully apparent to you that your fallacious statement, i.e. "my claims that LEDs won't work during the day," falls apart under attentive scrutiny.
2. Let me requote what I said for the third time, even though it's quoted above. Tell me if you can see where my statement only superficially resembles the statement you seem insistent on proving I said:
"I think the fact that he's an electrical engineer and he's trying to sell the fact that LED Christmas lights are going to work during the daytime, with the sun shining and everything, to provide traffic lanes/parking lanes/what have you is what we call in the b~&*&+~@ter detection business a big "tell." He's shoveling it pretty thick right there. Nobody noticed except ThunderfOOt."
"LED Christmas lights" is my descriptor of the lights that the engineer has installed on the solar panel hexagons in question.
Now, here's the catch: the burden of proof indeed lies upon you to prove that "LED Christmas lights" is equal to saying "LED's do not work during the day in any and all circumstances."
If you find this insulting, I'm frankly insulted that you not only condescendingly put words in my mouth, want to rinse and repeat, and have the gall to cry foul as well. Until you actually can quote to me where I said the latter, as you seem insistent on erroneously claiming and reclaiming, I got nothing else to add.
Well you did say just above that "Sissyl and I are in total, 100% agreement." who'd just said that "LEDs are not going to be visible in sunlight."
And you've been very dismissive of the possibility of LEDs being usable in sunlight, even if you've never quite come out and said it wasn't possible.
But put that aside. If your only claim was that the prototype had LEDs that weren't bright enough in the day,...
Maybe we're in 90% agreement then; IDK.
re: the moose stepping on the glowing hexagons,
In their sales pitch, they're inferring the moose, the lane markers, the "slow down" letters, are all going to be possible to generate with these LED configurations. The only LED configuration they have is a set of what I've referred to as "christmas lights." This is all I said, glean through all my posts and make whatever inference you wish. Sorry I didn't use sarcasm markers on my 100% Sissyl post. I thought that it was easily inferrable anywhere but in a court of law.
Can we have a sarcasm marker on Paizo please?
Ergo:
I will be pleasantly surprised if they will be able to make these Tron roads with their hexagonal glass tiles which will be able to make the equivalent of LCD screens that light up when a moose steps on them and says "danger ahead," even through the usual amount of grime, oil, dirt, what have you which collects on the typical roadway, but I have a sneaky suspicion that that number of brake light equivalent LED's will be prohibitively expensive over such a vast stretch of roadway, not to mention the power cost.
I assume that the brake lights on your car work due to the alternator being on. If you left them on with just the battery, they would soon run out of power. I may be wrong, but I seriously doubt an array of solar hexagons is going to generate enough stored power to run a lane division line the whole length of the roadways of the United States overnight while the sun is not shining.
Possibly this is why they just went with the embedded Christmas lights, or possibly it is because the array of brake light equivalent LED's capable of creating LCD screen type road displays would get in the way of the solar panels, but I smell a fish. I think it begs the question: why, indeed, did this engineer make this claim without rigging up powerful LED's to create lane lines during the day on the scale of his experimental parking lot? I'd like to see him run it over with a tractor. I think it's also going to cost in the 6 figures to create this for just a parking lot, which over the roadways of the US will bring it into the territory of way too much money.
I think that an actual video of this amazing technology in action would sell a whole lot better than "artist's renditions" showing blinking hexagons under the feet of a moose.
I mean, I cringe every time I have to buy a brake light for my car and all, but it's invariably not even a $200 investment.
A good comparison would be electricity. Edison didn't give up because it would have to run wire to every home and business in the country because it was just too big and expensive to work. It started with one neighborhood in one city and expanded from there.
Edison didn't discover electricity, or even the idea of using it as a power source. It's known that, really, all he did was steal from others before using his clout to drive them out of business. In fact, the type of electricity current that Edison backed was later proven to be unfeasible; the one used most often today (alternating current) was originally advocated by Tesla (the very same person Edison was stealing ideas from).
So, really, electricity doesn't exist as it does today because of Edison. It exists in spite of him.
And the important thing is that this tech is not really designed as a primary power source; it's designed as a secondary power source to replace roads. The lack of power storage within the design means it won't be capable of of powering electric cars (which are not good for the environment anyway), but primarily will be only capable of powering itself. And that isn't a bad thing. It could be incredibly useful for traffic control and a bunch of other purposes without needing to also provide power to most of a city.
new vid from Thunderfoot
Not that I have had any respect for Thunderfoot in a long time, but I find it ironic that he makes claims about being scientific and rational while at the same time claiming it's false that glass is harder than asphalt. As he says, it's a very easily testable claim, and one with a very clear answer.
But I guess he prefers the creationist way of a "well if God didn't create bananas, they shouldn't taste good!" kind of logic.
Agree'd comparing the glass of your coffee pot to that of the tempered glass used in the panels is nothing more than intentional mis-information. It's amazing how many people think having an english accent and using numbers means someone is intelligent and knows what they're talking about.
And still the glass in a coffee pot is by far harder than asphalt.
But the military already has ground based Rovers for short range reconnisance. They have batteries but field charging systems in the military are pretty varied.
Currently there are liquid fueled generators, Methane fuel cells, solar and even some small remote wind turbines.
The military is way ahead of the general public on alternative energy. I drive past fields everyday that have something like Canola that powers M1 tanks, in an extended field study.
On the military thing, their idea isn't that far-fetched. The Air Force has a solar powered plane that has been in orbit for over 500 days. Being able to drop something like the Mars Rover for unmanned scouting missions isn't a half-bad idea. Sure, we have UAVs already, but those are much more expensive than a little rover that they drop into the hills or mountains that then scouts around for hidden things you can't see from the air. That's not to say the Mars Rover itself isn't expensive, but a something that is able to navigate through rough terrain and powered by solar panels isn't a bad idea.If they were actually suggesting dropping the same panel they use for roads it's a mind-bogglingly stupid idea. Something using similar tech, but actually designed for the purpose isn't a bad idea.
Which is, I assume, what they're really talking about, since I doubt the standard model comes equipped with parachutes, satellite dishes and remote controlled cameras.
Or lasers! Musn't forget the lasers! If you're going to air drop solar powered robot crawlers, science-fiction demands there be lasers aboard.
On the military thing, their idea isn't that far-fetched. The Air Force has a solar powered plane that has been in orbit for over 500 days. Being able to drop something like the Mars Rover for unmanned scouting missions isn't a half-bad idea. Sure, we have UAVs already, but those are much more expensive than a little rover that they drop into the hills or mountains that then scouts around for hidden things you can't see from the air. That's not to say the Mars Rover itself isn't expensive, but a something that is able to navigate through rough terrain and powered by solar panels isn't a bad idea.If they were actually suggesting dropping the same panel they use for roads it's a mind-bogglingly stupid idea. Something using similar tech, but actually designed for the purpose isn't a bad idea.
Which is, I assume, what they're really talking about, since I doubt the standard model comes equipped with parachutes, satellite dishes and remote controlled cameras.
It's a mind-bogglingly stupid idea. They pretty much make it clear it's dropping the same panels used for roads. Only with a few military toys added in.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Or lasers! Musn't forget the lasers! If you're going to air drop solar powered robot crawlers, science-fiction demands there be lasers aboard.On the military thing, their idea isn't that far-fetched. The Air Force has a solar powered plane that has been in orbit for over 500 days. Being able to drop something like the Mars Rover for unmanned scouting missions isn't a half-bad idea. Sure, we have UAVs already, but those are much more expensive than a little rover that they drop into the hills or mountains that then scouts around for hidden things you can't see from the air. That's not to say the Mars Rover itself isn't expensive, but a something that is able to navigate through rough terrain and powered by solar panels isn't a bad idea.If they were actually suggesting dropping the same panel they use for roads it's a mind-bogglingly stupid idea. Something using similar tech, but actually designed for the purpose isn't a bad idea.
Which is, I assume, what they're really talking about, since I doubt the standard model comes equipped with parachutes, satellite dishes and remote controlled cameras.
Don't be silly. The solar powered lasers go on the sharks.
Which we also air drop. Into the mountains.
Fine. The crawlers can have lightsabers then. Be all like, solar powered ninja-Jeditbots.