VERY interesting, "Solar roadways"

[Panama]

I am not the most environmentaly minded person, in fact, some that know me say I am nearly, "anti" green.
But this is really interesting!
The guy had me, until the end when he said the magic words, electric car!

I do love me a good ol' big horsepower gas or diesel, GUZZLER!

Anyway it is VERY interesting concept.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep4L18zOEYI&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Solar Roadways: The Prototype[/ame]

 

[shibumiseeker]

I have said for YEARS that if we took the amount of square footage we have in verge areas of interstates, parking lots, and commercial building roofs, and covered them with PV, we could generate the entire nation's residential and commercial (not industrial) electrical usage. The actual back on the envelope numbers I came up with was that it actually only took about 25% of the land area mentioned.

 

[T-rav]

Pretty interesting concept. Is this something we think may have a future? Did anyone notice where they got their funding from?

 

[matthewdanger]

That is a very clever solution. Think of the amount of surface area that all of our roads currently represent!

 

[sur+rifle]

Yep. This is spot on thinking.

The problem is that PVs haven't been strong enough for such applications. I saw a design iteration of this 10 years ago. But instead of glass they used transparent/translucent concrete specifically tuned to the frequency of the PVs involved. This allows for traditional construction techniques to be used.

Another cool thing I saw in the past was electrical cables covered with PVs. The power cables eliminated the losses of normal transmission lines increasing efficiencies. It was something like 7% of electricity is lost in distribution.

The main hurdle to all of these is government regulations. Most utilities are government monopolies with many having cost+ regulated rates. So there is very little incentive for the existing players to implement and very difficult for new entities to gain ground. And building codes are trapped in the construction techniques of the early 1900s making it hard to utilize new techniques. But not all is lost. Demand is finally getting to the point to overcome these government produced market distortions. So we should start seeing some of these technologies deployed soon. And yes, that will include electric cars.

 

[rambone]

The cost to lay a mile of this road would be monumental.

And using this system, if there is a power failure, they have to close off [and tear up] highways to fix it.

Interesting, but I think flying cars will happen before this type of infrastructure gets laid.

 

[Panama]

Interesting, but I think flying cars will happen before this type of infrastructure gets laid.

I'd be like ay cool on havin' me one of them flyin' cars!

HELL YES!