Have your cake and drive it too... - by Nicker
Nicker on 3/6/2010 at 06:16
Given the horrible mess in the Gulf of Mexico, it seems that even the most hardcore advocates of fossil fuels must begin to realise that no amount of petro-dollars can equal the value of the lands and waters they have poisoned. We know that there is a only a small supply of increasingly risky to extract oil to be had, and that using petrochemicals to run surface vehicles is an absurd indulgence.
But what can we do!?
Here's a rather promising technology - one which could lets us have our cars and roads while replacing our aging infrastructure, improving the safety, esthetics, efficiency and functionality of our decaying asphalt highways. (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep4L18zOEYI&playnext_from=TL&videos=_XXInurPrFw&feature=recentf) The Solar Roadway.
(
http://www.solarroadways.com/main.html) And their website...
Ulukai on 3/6/2010 at 15:45
Quote Posted by Nicker
using petrochemicals to run surface vehicles is an absurd indulgence.
Hang on a second. I'm not sure if you mean in a general sense, but it's currently a neccessary evil for the majority of people, given the current electric/hybrid/hydrogen fueled market and infrastructure (or lack of). And no self-respecting person wants to be in the Cult of Prius, do they? Also, I'd like to get between London and Glasgow without having to stop for seven hours to plug my car in before I get to Watford Gap.
As for the Solar Roadway, nice idea, but I'm betting it'll never come to fruition in my lifetime.
"Imagine a world-wide system where the "lit" half of the world is always powering the "dark" half of the world!" I'll eat my hat if I ever see China powering America.
Enchantermon on 3/6/2010 at 16:08
That's a really good idea. Ulukai may be right, but this is still a huge step forward.
Martin Karne on 3/6/2010 at 23:05
Oh come on, you sure love eating oily fishes.
Besides they can be thrown into the fire for more value added.
Soon there will be no clean fish to eat, isn't human technology great?
Paving the road their own doom since the tool age.. hay guys I just killed the last Mammoth!
Turtle on 6/6/2010 at 02:48
I'm currently pitching my idea for a full scale slot car racer highway system to the US government. From there it's just a question of who gets to hold all the little yellow controllers.
Tocky on 6/6/2010 at 04:40
Damn. That beats my hotwheels idea. I was having trouble figuring how to make the whole world downhill both ways anyway.
SubJeff on 6/6/2010 at 10:28
Great idea. Will never happen.
Gryzemuis on 6/6/2010 at 12:10
This looks interesting.
Indeed, the idea of driving on glass seems ridiculous. But I know very little of glass. And all that is needed is actually a transparent surface to drive over.
Energy needs are highest where there are a lot of people. Where there are a lot of people, there usually are the most roads. Maybe not inside inner cities. But for suburbs, smaller cities and the country-side, this is kinda true. So the amount of solar-roads is relative to the amount of people nearby. The reduces some of the need of energy transport.
When I drive to my nearby city, I drive past an old farm that has 80% of its roof covered with solar panels. And damn, it's ugly. If conserving the environment means that we're gonna give up on architecture, that's a drawback, imho. This crazy idea of these solar-roads might have more potential than you think.
Nicker on 8/6/2010 at 08:15
According to their videos the material engineering is not the problem. All of the technologies already exist. The glass would have the same reflectivity as asphalt and actually be stronger and more enduring. Being modular, once the road beds are built or modified, repairs would be a matter of swapping out parts, not scraping and resurfacing (and all the attendant delays and hassles that entails).
Since the whole roadway is also an electrical grid your car can charge on any attached section. I suppose it could even take power from the roadway while in motion.
The real obstacles are not technical but attitudinal. If the incentives and advantages offered the petroleum industry over the last century, were diverted to such alternate technologies, the challenges could be managed relatively easily.
Turtle - Slot Cars? The inventor says that is where the germ of the idea came from.
Tocky - the roads don't all have to go down hill, silly, just the cars. Put big wheels on the rear and small ones on the front... TADA!
Koki on 8/6/2010 at 09:53
Great idea. Of course, replacing every road in the world with a solar panel is ridiculously expensive if even possible at all material-wise, it would constantly require ridiculous amounts of maintenance, the energy production/consumption is really sketchy because traffic means energy loss both for the cars and their shadows, illumination at night is energy loss, skyscraper shadows are energy loss, thawing snow/ice is energy loss, clouds which are not evenly distributed around the globe is energy imbalance and it doesn't say how you want to get energy all the way from China to USA with small enough loss for it to be feasible, of course it couldn't work in dirt/unpaved roads and people would steal power from it all the time.
But all that stuff I came up in ten minutes and I'm not even an electrical engineer... yeah. Great idea.
