[soup]

This looks like it could be a promising solution to a lot of things. I don't get how LED lights would be visible during the day though..

[vinman]

I would rather spend money on this than bullshit wars and welfare for corporations, and people.

[Zengling]

Oh man this sounds so sick!

So does this mean that we won't need any goal burning facilities that produces a lot of pollution and Nuclear Power Plant (and thus not have to worry about any meltdowns?

[Genghis Khan]

This seems super badass. I love it. I heard the statistics a while back as well (if all highways were covered by solar panels, we'd be set in terms of energy production).

As for leds, if I had to take a guess you would need diffuse encapsulation to ensure the light goes out in every direction. The white stripes on the road do nothing more than reflect all light from the sun into your eyes. Hence for LEDs you would just need to make sure the diffuser/filter creates a similar spectrum.

My biggest question is cost: how much will it cost to put down these panels? Solar panels are not super expensive but add on the LEDs, circuitry, heating material, etc. etc.: what's the cost breakdown? And how does it compare to asphalt?

[soup]

I think they should still use paint so you can it during the day.

A basketball court in the middle of the day can't be seen if it's in LED lights.

I'm just imagining if they used these not just on roads and streets, but on building and peoples houses. That would be insane. I think the energy production would be exponentially greater than what the project if they just used it on road ways.

I like the elegance of the idea.

[Genghis Khan]

In terms of buildings and houses, there's already several companies out there who make solar panels in different colors. As you may imagine, every colored panel has a different efficiency rating (since each color panel absorbs a different amount of energy, e.g. red panels absorb everything except red light, blue ones absorb everything except blue. The most efficient panels would be black since they absorb everything.)

For example, this person has made some amazing artwork with solar:
http://www.sarahhallstudio.com/solar-photovoltaic

Soup, valid point on the paint. I'm not disagreeing with you. Also LEDs have one drawback that paint doesn't: it needs power. A huge concern is what happens when the power goes off: roads without any lines? Not sure if any politician is willing to take on that risk.

Full disclosure: I'm in the solar field, so I'm more than happy to answer any questions regarding it.

[soup]

(05-24-2014 01:41 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  

In terms of buildings and houses, there's already several companies out there who make solar panels in different colors. As you may imagine, every colored panel has a different efficiency rating (since each color panel absorbs a different amount of energy, e.g. red panels absorb everything except red light, blue ones absorb everything except blue. The most efficient panels would be black since they absorb everything.)

For example, this person has made some amazing artwork with solar:
http://www.sarahhallstudio.com/solar-photovoltaic

Soup, valid point on the paint. I'm not disagreeing with you. Also LEDs have one drawback that paint doesn't: it needs power. A huge concern is what happens when the power goes off: roads without any lines? Not sure if any politician is willing to take on that risk.

Full disclosure: I'm in the solar field, so I'm more than happy to answer any questions regarding it.

Do you think this thing has legs?

[Genghis Khan]

(05-24-2014 01:44 PM)soup Wrote:  

(05-24-2014 01:41 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  

In terms of buildings and houses, there's already several companies out there who make solar panels in different colors. As you may imagine, every colored panel has a different efficiency rating (since each color panel absorbs a different amount of energy, e.g. red panels absorb everything except red light, blue ones absorb everything except blue. The most efficient panels would be black since they absorb everything.)

For example, this person has made some amazing artwork with solar:
http://www.sarahhallstudio.com/solar-photovoltaic

Soup, valid point on the paint. I'm not disagreeing with you. Also LEDs have one drawback that paint doesn't: it needs power. A huge concern is what happens when the power goes off: roads without any lines? Not sure if any politician is willing to take on that risk.

Full disclosure: I'm in the solar field, so I'm more than happy to answer any questions regarding it.

Do you think this thing has legs?

Hard to tell. From my experience, only one thing really matters and that's money. In other words, are these solar highways going to save the state/federal government money compared to traditional highways? If not, then it's dead in the water. And that's not even mentioning any asphalt lobby there might be (guaranteed there's some consortium of companies who will lose out if solar highways become a reality and will fight tooth and nail to do so)

As from a practical point of view, I haven't considered everything yet, but:
- the paint vs. LEDs is definitely a big issue.
- Another issue is longevity. It's one thing for the panels to survive the impact of a tractor, but what about years and years of heavy duty trucks going across?
- Car accidents: how strong are the panels. What happens when say a truck flips over or something? How well can they resist the impact or will the solar panels (and thus the entire road) simply get scrapped off? And then will it completely wipe out all LED lane stripes?
- Flammability issues? Especially the heating material...an entire highway on fire?
- Maybe a stupid one: how easy would it be to steal the panels? From the video it seemed like it's really easy to install. So I'm wondering how easy it would be to simply pull a hexagon or two out.

That said, I do think it has legs. No doubt there's numerous advantages to a solar highway. But like any other technology, economic, practical and safety issues will need be addressed before it can be scaled up.

I also want to emphasize that electricity prices are going down due to natural gas/fracking. The Department of Energy has a cost goal of 5 cents/kWh for 2020. Gas goes for 3 cents/kWh already (does not include environmental costs). There's some other factors involved, for example solar power generation peaks at the exact time that demand is largest (during the day) so that help solar be competitive. However from a purely electricity generation point of view, solar highways are not the best option. Natural gas is.

[soup]

I think another issue is malfunction or malfeasance.

What if the LED road lines get switched up? Lots of accidents could happen.

[Rotisserie]

Was about to post this, nice find. It's an interesting idea, but Khan has some very good points against this. The stealing bit is not as stupid as you say it is. Also, props on the flammability... nice thinking man.

Anyway, here are some more disadvantages according to How Stuff Works:

Quote:

Disadvantages of Solar Panel Highways
Sure, roads made of solar panels sounds like a great idea and one that could possibly get this country truly running on solar power; however, just how feasible is this plan?
For one, it would be quite costly. Each panel costs about $7,000 to build, and the plan calls for billions of them to cover the roadways [source: Telegraph.co.uk]. Installation would take huge amounts of time and money, and so would training crews to maintain them properly. Most likely, it would take several years before the electricity generated by the panels would recoup their own cost. For this reason, the company suggests smaller-scale projects are the best place to start.
Then there's the question of durability. Our roads take lots of punishment from cars, trucks, motorcycles and tractor trailers, not to mention the fact that they could be damaged in traffic accidents. How would these glass panels hold up against that kind of punishment? And if we depend on the solar cells for traffic signals and power for electric cars, what happens if the sunlight collectors become damaged?
In addition, the cost of repairing these solar panels is likely more expensive than it would be for fixing ordinary, asphalt roads. The company says it could utilize a type of self-cleaning glass to keep the surface clear of dirt and grime, but this process is yet unproven.
Then there's the big problem with solar energy: cloudy days. Current solar power technology is very inefficient -- in fact, most solar panels only convert about 14 percent of available energy into electricity [source: Northwestern University]. And on days when sunlight isn't readily available, like during the long winters in many parts of the country, you have to wonder where the power would come from. This is why solar energy is considered to be only one type of renewable energy source rather than the sole source of power -- it's difficult to rely on.
Despite these drawbacks, there's no doubt that solar panel highways are a unique and groundbreaking idea. It's the kind of thinking we need to do in order to get ourselves off of our fossil fuel addiction and running on a more eco-friendly power source. So in a few years, you just may find yourself driving on glass solar panels instead of asphalt.
For more information about solar power and other related topics, follow the links on the next page.

TLDR - Cost of production (~$7000 for each, requires billions to cover roadways)
Durability (what would happen if they stop working, and we depend on them for lanes, lights, etc)
Maintenance costs
Cloudy days (inefficiency)

I do think we may see an idea like this in the future. Solar energy simply needs to become more efficient, dependable, and cheap to produce/maintain. In other words, the technology has to mature.

I wonder when something like this could be realistically implemented, if I'll see it in my lifetime. Tesla and ideas like this make me look forward to the future.

Edit: It seems like they've attempted to answer a lot of these questions here.

[soup]

I'm starting to think that the next step in technology is going to making the digital into physical on everyday basis. This is wear it's going with 3D printers, and pretty soon nano technology as well.

The basic units of computation will become the computations themselves.

[ddjembe mutombo]

The idea is smart, but it just seems like another trendy idea that isn't as feasible as everyone thinks. Imagine the cost of pulling up our current infrastructure of roads, parking lots, sidewalks, etc... and laying a base layer to accommodate the setting of these. Imagine the time too. That doesn't even account for the cost of each panel. I just don't see government approving the cost of replacing current infrastructure.

[Faust]

I had a friend show me this, and he got all mad when I told him it was literally the stupidest idea I had ever read. We got into a big fight over it, and I ended up feeling pretty bad about it later; maybe some of this stuff isn't obvious to people who don't have an engineer's training. So I hope no one will see this is a personal attack on them, but this really is a horrible idea.

There are two primary issues here. There are about a million secondary issues, each of which is big enough to sink the thing on their own, but they're a little technical so we'll skip over them.

1.) Cost. They studiously avoid ANY mention of how much this thing is going to cost, which is always your first clue that you're being scammed. The quote from How Stuff Works gives a figure of 7,000$ for an individual panel, I'm not sure where that comes from because it wasn't on their page or in their videos. This is clearly (I hope) the cost of building the prototype. A real one, built in mass production, would be much cheaper. How much cheaper, I don't know, but we'll just say it costs 70$ per panel, which is 1% of the prototype cost. The actual cost of the panel itself is probably cheaper, but we'll assume this is all-inclusive, so this includes the costs to install the things, hook them up to the grid, pour that weird fancy glass they're using over them, etc.
Now, the panels themselves look like they cover a square foot. Highway lanes, Wikipedia tells me, are 12 feet wide. This makes the math pretty easy: to cover a 4-lane highway that runs the 125 mile distance between San Diego and LA would cost:
4 lanes * 12 feet * 5280 feet in a mile * 125 miles * 70 dollars: 2,217,600,000 dollars. Over 2 billion dollars. For ONE highway.

Now, the figures on the site give the total road surface of the US as 31250 square miles. There are 27,878,400 feet in a square mile. Using the same 70$ number as above, google throws back 60 TRILLION dollars. The total size of the US government budget is about 4 billion, so you're looking at spending every dollar the US takes in in taxes for over 10 years to pay for this thing. By which time, of course, the first of the panels will have started failing and you'll have to start all over again..

The second issue is that even if it's cost feasible, it's still stupid. What is the advantage of putting a solar panel on a road? Solar panels, as I'm sure you're all aware, get energy from the sun. Whenever a car drives over them, the car blocks off the sunlight and shuts them off. If we seriously replaced all our power supply with these things, a simple traffic jam could cause blackouts. Imagine all the lights shutting off every day during rush hour!
And even when a car isn't stopping on top of a panel, it still tracks dust and dirt. Things fall off cars that can damage the panels. Heavy trucks can crush them. And if you've gotta replace one, it means shutting down the road to do it, which means more construction, more costs, and more traffic jams.
What's more, a huge portion of the US is in environments where solar panels are a bad idea anyway. Places where it's cloudy, or constantly rainy, or worse, where snow builds up on the roads. (How well do these panels react to extreme cold or heat, by the way? A lot of electronics can't handle that.) All of these things will shut off your power supply.

There are environments in the US where a constant supply of sunlight is available, like the Nevada desert. Every few years somebody does some back-of-the-envelope math and tells us how if we only covered the entirety of death valley in solar panels, we could supply power to the entire US for a million years. A giant desert-based solar power facility is still nuts, but it's orders of magnitude more sane than this.

Again, no disrespect to anybody who saw the admittedly cool video and said, "Yeah, this is neat!" 'cause it sounds like a cool, futuristic idea. It would be a neat idea for a sci-fi movie or something. I'm just hoping that if anybody here was considering donating to their indiegogo thing, I can talk them out of it.

[pants]

One sales point was unscientific

If the sun gives enough energy to melt the ice on a road, it would have done it by it self. You can´t charge up a solar panel and then it will give more energy than what to sun already gave in the first place.

But we need to jump to an alternative soon. The oil industry is killing us all

[Blackhawk]

The capacitors and other electronics sticking out on the underside is a problem. They'll need a pre molded bed to fit each each panel into, all of which has to flex and handle the weight of 18 wheelers travelling on them. Otherwise they'll get crushed, pulverized and mushroomed out under road weight.

I also don't like that every panel has to be cabled up, one cable per panel. That's tons of copper just to make the cables for each square mile.

Maybe for a playground where a bunch of toddlers are running around, but it's too expensive for schools and parks to currently afford.

I wonder if there's a more passive way of collecting the power gathered up during the day, like driving a machine over it at night to collect the collected power, that eliminates the copper cable infrastructure issue.

[thechainrule]

Also, what about the costly battery system this thing will need to run at night? Cool concept but full scale production for this is a total pipe dream.

I'd love to see Dubai make a runway out of this.

[Snowplow]

I know its hypocritical of me to say since I'm typing this on a smartphone, but I hate technology. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea but what happens when it stops working? We love to harp on all the idiots out there currently but how do you think people will react when it stops working. We love easy time saving technology that benefits our lives, but then we become dependent on it. Plus if cars can be hacked into now, what stops it from happening to the roads?

I see a lot of liability issues with this.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

(05-29-2014 04:34 PM)Snowplow Wrote:  

I know its hypocritical of me to say since I'm typing this on a smartphone, but I hate technology. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea but what happens when it stops working? We love to harp on all the idiots out there currently but how do you think people will react when it stops working. We love easy time saving technology that benefits our lives, but then we become dependent on it. Plus if cars can be hacked into now, what stops it from happening to the roads?

I see a lot of liability issues with this.

It's an ok thought, but drawing the line on what level of technology would you consider acceptable?

People started seriously veering away from natural living and independence as soon as they invented the plough.

[EnemyCombatant]

snip

[ddjembe mutombo]

I was discussing this idea with a friend I was hoopin' with today. One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is the growing capacity of solar power. Imagine if they started installing these things today. Five years down the pipe there would be a road that produces exponentially more electricity than it's predecessor. These panels would go through an ongoing process of updating just so they could keep up with the demands for electricity.

Also, recently I visited my company's explosives manufacturing facility and they noted how they were running out of mag space to store explosives for customers placing orders for product. They contemplated building more mags so they could house the orders, but that would only be stimulating the issue of customers ordering more than they can take at a time. If we improve our energy usage capacity then we only enable people to use more energy because it comes at a cheaper cost. Instead, people should be altering their consumption patterns. The issue is not with our energy source, but with its consumer.

[Snowplow]

(05-30-2014 03:39 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 04:34 PM)Snowplow Wrote:  

I know its hypocritical of me to say since I'm typing this on a smartphone, but I hate technology. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea but what happens when it stops working? We love to harp on all the idiots out there currently but how do you think people will react when it stops working. We love easy time saving technology that benefits our lives, but then we become dependent on it. Plus if cars can be hacked into now, what stops it from happening to the roads?

I see a lot of liability issues with this.

It's an ok thought, but drawing the line on what level of technology would you consider acceptable?

People started seriously veering away from natural living and independence as soon as they invented the plough.

I should have been more clear. While technology obviously makes life a lot easier in certain aspects and helps save time, it makes people dependent. While I don't like washing my dishes without a dishwasher my apt wasn't finished with one. I choose not to have a car with all the fancy gadgets because it's less things that can go wrong. so now you'll have people depending on the streets working in the future, what happens when they stop working? future generations won't know how to deal with driving with out the lights on or telling them there is a road hazard.

Certain technologies are beneficial to our societies but can be detrimental to human growth.