Arend Wolbers Not true. Offshore wind farms are already far cheaper than any fossil fuel plant - and every bit of that fuel burnt doesn’t reappear as a energy source again for millions of years, at best: but we do get huge additional CO2 produced that will hang about until those millions of years lock it away again. (Well, unless we get ‘Venus 2’.)
You realize hopefully that those offshore wind farms are widely subsidised for as much as over 50%!? CO2 (is still) produced in producing wind farms and placing them, the oil produced by a drill rig + at least 2 big seawhearthy oil using tugboats, the placing of a windmill even more, anyway the building and placing of a windmill produces more CO2 than the windmill in 30 years. And after 30 years or much less this windmill fails and needs to be replaced! O yeah, don't forget the boat running on oil that brings maintenance workers to the windpark? CO2 produced by farting and pooping of all animals (incl people and don't forget plants) is way more than all cars on this planet. Al Gore is the one who made and makes the most 'green' from the green energy scam! Calculate all, for placing 10.000 Watt in solar panels unsubsidized, you may even count the feedback to the grid, do this for 30 years and beside this, your green energys CO2 produce! You be surprised!
Not only that, but his voice could continue to rise in pitch with the stress. It's already approaching the level to make my ears hurt and my dogs bark. Much higher, and it will blow out windows.
@@BruceS42 and after blowing out Windows it'll blow out OS X, Linux, OS/2, MS-DOS and all the embedded ROM operating systems of 1980's microcomputers. ;) Thus, with all computers worldwide disabled, energy use will drastically drop, saving the planet!
It's still mind boggling to me that the planning discussions didn't stop right after the words "Pothole" and "multi-ton, high speed vehicles" enter the design constraints. But yeah, the math here was pretty good too!
Who thought it is a good idea to build solar panels on a street? Especially in China, France or the US. The got plenty of space there to put solar panels but they chose to put them where they'll be under the most stressed. I could understand if they put solar panels on the streets in japan or south korea, space is rare there. But i don't see why countries like china would do that. Just build a big solar plant somewhere and you are done.
I only hope they do it like South Korea did with their roads, down the median or off on bike paths/sidewalks, elevated. As China is manufacturing more and more solar, I can only hope they do it right the first time, otherwise it's going to be a bigger flop with their high pollution levels.
well, Dave, did you ever stop to think that we could make our roadways on an angle and install servos to tilt the road surface to track the sun?? HMM!??! think outside the box for once!!!! :P
Great idea, take it further though, remove the vehicle engines. Just use the energy to tilt the road! Everyones going the same way anyway...Imagine your car surfing the road to work. (Back to reality now...).
That would be a good summary. Why put the solar panels on the road, where they have to be flat and built to be driven on by trucks, when you can just put industry-standard solar panels right next to the road, where they can be angled for better efficiency? Or just put them on the roofs of public buildings. None of the solar road afficionados ever explained why exactly the solar panels have to be *on the road* . Putting them on the road is only a sensible option when literally every other place you can put them (next to the road, roofs, unused fields) has been used already. Otherwise it is just another case of "they were so obsessed with whether they could do it that they forgot to ask themselves whether they *should* do it".
My favorite response to solar roadways. What happens to all the rubber from tires? It doesn't just disappear, it doesn't stay on the tire because we know tires wear down. It wears into the pavement just like that one picture of the tread marks on the solar road showed. What happens when you get these hot heads who do burnouts on the road, or if someone has to slam on the brakes for something in front of them. Or what about accidents that spill oil and scrape up the ground. Pavement you just put absorbent sand on fluids and keep going. Solar roads now you have to send a cleaning crew out to fix the surface of the road everytime someone gets cut off and slams the brakes, or when some dumb kid does burnouts at an intersection.
Tyre rubber forms dust, not a layer of rubber. It blows off the road and pollutes the road verges, becoming another of those minor environmental issues that we humans create.
But this is Yet Another Opportunity for Jobs! Road Cleaning Crews cleaning up the roads, getting paid and feeling like they're Contributing To Society! None of this Universal Basic Income thing of paying people to do nothing after robots take over so many jobs, especially when there is "Real Work" to do cleaning the roads?
Yes, tire rubber largely flakes off as microscopic particles, unless you're doing burnouts or locking up/braking hard and melting the rubber off the tire. The common mode is certainly not going to leave marks on the road, but melted rubber definitely will.
Wait, how about wind farm *airplanes*? They move so fast, if they put propellers on them they'd be able to generate a lot of electricity. They could charge batteries in the air and transfer that when they land.
The real reason for solar roadways has nothing to do with ecology and economy - only economical for the person, who installs it and/or approves wasting public money for it.
@benjovi55 WTF is "Big Eco"? Only a bleeding heart cuntservaturd would whine about some non-existent thing called "Big Eco" when all the polluters have all the money, because they're not paying to clean up their mess. The Solar Roadways are just scammers just like telemarketers & religious preachers. They're not part of any bigger conspiracy.
It is only unpractical during summer and autumn. For the rest of the year the thing is not going to work at all. First of all when winter comes all the roads get coverd by a thick layer of comressed dirty snow so it is zero power output per square meter for almost half a year. And when spring comes it gets even worse - the temperature gets above and below zero every day so the salt and sand mixture that is used to prevent quick ice formation with all the gunk and already salty and dirty water is going to flow into all the electronics and cabling through of all the scratches and cracks that was caused by the traffic and freezing soil movements during the past winter. Even the lights that are being sometimes istalled on some walkways tend to massively die every year. A proper road is going to completely destroy the thing by turning it into small rusty grinded pieces. So the system is definitely not going to survive more than half a year in any reasonable climate like we have in Moscow. Solar power generation is a very questionable idea as it is, but the solar road idea is making it pretty much as stupid as it possibly gets.
Fully agreeing with you, just going to comment that the snow thing is not that big a problem in western europe. Yes, we have snow and freezing temperatures, but maybe for 2-4 weeks during winter and that's it. Thanks to global warming... That explains Daves funky data for december. So there isn't that much ice and snow as you are saying, at least not in western europe. But all your other points are indeed 100% valid.
How about this? Start a Kickstarter, for solar roadways that are lifted off the ground, slightly angled so that rain gets automatically drained... And that you'll make them more efficient by not letting car's drive on them... Maybe some of those solar roadways fans realize it's better that way.
Apart from the utter technical and economic idiocy of it, how is the road safety? I'd not feel comfortable driving on a knobby glass surface - what happens if it gets wet or dusty or covered with snow or ice? What if tiles come loose or apart so that punctures and other damage can happen? My gut feeling is that it's not safe to drive on. I also assume it's meant for areas with dense population and thus dense traffic - wont it be covered by cars and dirt much of the daytime? Oh well, best forget about it.
Oh, we get to the point of "huge numbers of accidents because you can't fucking break or change direction on a wet glass surface at any speed above a rabid snail's pace" much before inhaling ground glass would become a problem.
Another point brought up by Thunderf00t - the glare... Those tiles works like mirrors at a low angle with resulting extreme glare - driving towards a low sun will blind you : th-cam.com/video/_aa85qw6G0k/w-d-xo.html
There was a presentation in my institute for alternative energy for a bunch of school kids, I was given the topic of photovoltaic cells. I made a half-assed presentation and I included solar roadways. I had to give it to the organising professor before presenting. He laughed at me and gave me a lot of bollocking over not taking the task seriously.
If they tried that in the UK then most of the panels would spend 90% of the time covered up by road works cones. It would be better to focus on installing panels on every home as this would make power distribution easier and houses already have roofs that cars rarely drive on. They would also not be subject to wear and damage as they would be on roads.
I have a feeling that if they were installed in rural locations they or at least the wiring for them would get nicked. People already risk their lives near train tracks riping up copper, it would be incredibly easy for them to access a rural road at night.
K2LSS, Yes I agree, The panels they fit to power road signals are always disappearing. I think that the cables are most at risk because the efficiency of road panels is so low that no one would want them.
K2LSS at the voltages you can get up to with a string of panels it usually makes more sense to use stainless steel cable so larcenists would probably end disappointed ... or dead if they tried it in the daytime... which raises another issue how do you feel about having your road live at near the max through voltage of the panels? Usually 800V DC??
Glen Collins, Mostly the thieves would work at night. SS resistance is generally too high for power transmission as it conducts about 44 times worse than copper although as SS is worth more than copper it would be a good find for thieves if it ever was used but you have a good point about power within the road. Imagine a crash where spilled fuel ran down into the cable runs.
Yes and for 1000 times the price, our minister of silly walks built a system with plenty of cameras to tax vehicles based on their ecological imprint and dropped it once everything was installed and paid for. She almost became president 10 years ago, only lost to our worst president ever. Silly, ain't it ?
To be more precise, the former administration built and paid for the system, and dropping it was her first act as minister of ecology (and silly walks) in order to deal with truck drivers' and freight companies' contempt. She didn't benefit from it. To be fair, I guess she did do a few nice things for the country over her carrier, more than just the walks I mean :D
Thanks Dave. Seems a lot of big-government people don't analyze costs-vs-benefits and it leads to things like solar roadways. This is a problem with communism, socialism, corporatism, crony capitalism, and other forms of big-government.
I would think that a towed trailer that drops its hitch (pulled by chain only for a bit) would do a really nice job on a solar roadway. Who would be responsible for the damages, which would be substantial? The insurance agencies will start thinking about this and rates are going to go up... - Eddy
Deathlok67 That is already an issue. It's just that people never get stuck with the bill since the damage is usually minimal. (Or no one that cares sees the damage happen.) Spill paint on the road way, you pay. Crash into barriers/dividers, you pay. Cargo transporters caught at a weight station carrying more than the roadway allows, that company pays a fine. The fact of the matter is, this is research & prototyping, about advancing the future. Dave must be related to the idiots of the past that said things like, "There will never be a computer small/cheap enough to be accessible to the everyday man." Or, "There won't be batteries with sufficient energy densities or CDR that will make electric cars practical." He's just a shortsighted idiot that obviously isn't able to realize the potential of emergent technologies. This video really makes him sound like a real moron.
not just the cost, but its impractical, because the road is a hard rough surface, prone to movement, physical damage, also the road gets very hot, which will destroy the plastics and bonding agents, reduce the life etc.. I very surprised a crazy project like this has ever been attempted. The only real reason for the massive waste of money is criminal intent, money laundering, yep the corruption goes all the way to the top, making it impossible to prove.
I like that companies are trying new approaches on solar technology. I didn't like it when people crowdfund and don't give the facts. I feel like these Solar roads are disproving themselves, at the very least they are bringing new interest in solar.
In Canada the roads get snow and ice on them for pretty much half the year. We put down salt (or varient), gravel, and run snow plows and studded tires over them. So guaranteed, you can rebuilt it every year.
Next energy video: Best battery tech for home storage. I think current wet lithium ion tech is too risky and too expensive. How do NiMh and Lead-acid compare for system cost and lifetime?
No matter how YOU spin this, 99% of people don't understand or want to understand technical data and factual information, 99% of people believe marketing BS.
Mi 28 "This is basically the entire reason Android has any customers." FTFY Also, the irony of your comment on this video, considering Android, from an engineering point of view is just like solar roadways. Only bad decisions from the beginning. There's a reason computer engineers buy Apple, because the numbers always speak the truth. Apple chips always beat the crap out of other manufacturers in performance. Android is nothing more than a platform to sell the "newest thing" to people that don't mind paying huge sums of money for "features" which are still in the prototype phase, or maybe even completely impractical. The engineering decisions are also awful, proving that there were made by business people, and not by engineers. No computer engineer would ever make a non-systems, virtualized and garbage collected language like java, the programming language for developing apps on a resource constrained, and user facing environment like a mobile device. That is like computer engineering 101. Hate Apple as much as you want, but they have the best engineers, and that is fact. Good engineering design and practices >>>> than constantly creating new features without any time given to creating a good design. But hey, I guess it's good for business, when the only thing you do is create putting together a bunch of off the shelf components, because you don't know how to create them your self, and installing a free operating system, because you don't know how to create your own. But let's all hate the only company that has the expertise to create an entire system from hardware to software completely in-house. I don't blame you though. When all adds on TV, radio, stores and everywhere else are for Android devices, and when companies like Samsung sign contracts with stores and telecom companies to make the employees push their devices instead of being fair, people get fooled easily.
dust and dirt....my van leaks about 1 quart of oil every 2 weeks. Figure thousands of trucks driving these roadways, add all the grease, oil, and spilled paint and chemicals and those roadways won't see a lot of sunlight. I wonder if street sweepers with biodegradable cleaning agents is factored into the cost?
DAVE, you forgot to mention that snowy climates use snow and salt on the roads (all Aussies should know this ;)). We plow them with steel blades which chews up the concrete real bad. Imagine how long they'd last with the occasional cleaning.... And the fact they'd be covered in snow for a long time (no matter how often you clean them: snow blows in). Hah.
My heartfelt respect to you for going through this again. I got some serious negative feelings even listening to it. I'm getting sick of it, but I watched the complete video to show my appreciation.
The only practical solar roadway would be overhead installations in the medians of large interstate highways. But even that would be problematic due to soot and dust accumulations over time.
Perhaps one day when all the roofs, fields, mountains, etc are paneled and there is need for even more, then maybe paneling roads will make sense. Or maybe it will be time to make a Dyson Sphere.
13:08 - Not 288% *MORE* efficient! It is 188% *MORE* efficient or 288% *AS* efficient. ie. 1.5x as efficient is 50% more. 2x is 100% more, 0.9x is 10% less, etc.
It'd never work here in Stoke on Trent. Apart from the fact that the sun never seems to shine here, during daylight hours the roads would be completely obscured by stationary traffic.
djsherz Then u have automated solar roadways that freaking move themeselves on top of the cars! I was thinking why not just put them on top of a gas station and make it cheaper to buy cooled sodas? Maybe make some more money like that or what not
Hmm the ideas there, maybe to get rid of the large installation cost they move the solar panels from the road to one location where land is cheap and sun light is optimum, these lets call them "arrays" could be made to track sunlight for maximum efficiency and the power can be distributed evenly and efficiently as it's coming from one large place, oh wait....
We could also just build this large facility designed to create a miniature sun who's heat boils astronomical amounts of water, turning turbines, which produce unfathomable amounts of electricity free of greenhouse gas emissions regardless of time, weather, or location? My honest opinion? Solar power is a bandaid *at best*. IT's a piece of shit if you're not in a good place for one reason or another. No, we need to figure out nuclear fusion. Once we've passed breakeven on fusion reactors we can flip all this other 'green energy' tech off and throw it in the dustbin where it belongs.
I wish they had built a parallel installation with solar panels above a walkway, imagine what a 1km long covered walkway with commercial solar panels could have done
Maybe Dave could do a video on the California "High Speed Rail"... It is very similar to the Solar Road. Unfortunately, no matter how many times politicians are told "NOT practical" - they don't actually hear the "NOT" part.
Not sure if I'm missing something here (may be out of the loop), but why would a high speed rail in CA not be viable? Are the quotation marks there to indicate that it isn't really anything viable?
They are classifying 80mph as high speed. At that rate, no one will use it - especially when you can catch a flight from LAX to SFO for $50 and be there in under an hour.
80MPH is nowhere near high speed. In Europe, regional (Commuter!) trains run at 160 km/h (100 MPH) and they are never called "high speed"... In fact each morning I take a commuter train to the university and it runs at 140 km/h even if it is from the 1970s! Maybe I could suggest that to the marketing department of our railway company, so they can say that 100% of Italy's trains are "high speed" because California :P
That's all well and good, however if you're a homeowner in an expensive area, and you've got a roof, a front yard, a backyard, and a driveway, and you've already got solar collectors on the roof, or the roof is listed, or thatched, etc., then your next best thing may not necessarily be getting rid of your front or back garden to install a residential PV farm there. The one place you may be able to upgrade with solar without giving the HOA a conniption may in fact be your driveway, and in that market at those real estate prices, the extra cost may not matter. In a case like that, the comparison isn't between a commercially competitive solar farm on spare land that you're just assumed to have, it's between a solar roadway or a regular driveway with no solar. Similarly, a heavily urban municipality may just not have those extra acres to plonk some standard PV down on. Space may be at a high premium, and where it is, there may still be a case and a place for solar roadways. That is practical. Get over it. Catch you next time.
Here in the southwest USA, I've always wondered why they don't roof over parking lots with solar cells; it would shade the cars so they don't turn into ovens in the summer, keep the rain off (when that happens) in the winter and provide power without having to find new land to put them on. When you add in the rooftop areas of a shopping center - that's a LOT of solar collection area and given how many of them we have, it would really add up!
It's a silly idea, but I do like that companies are investing time and effort to explore different ways to implement solar power generation. Cheers for your work as always, Dave!
I have to wonder, how many engineers are working on these solar roadway projects? Why don't they point out the obvious problems with this concept? Seems very strange it wouldn't be laughed out of an engineering consulting firm.
There's money to be made, someone is going to get paid to develop the panels even if you say it's a dumb idea. They'll just go to the next firm until they find one that'll do it for them. Might as well make a few quick bucks.
@ Jack Vernian - If they are Professional Engineers with an institution and regulating body and bylaws then they would also have a code of ethics and guidelines. If a project is patently ridiculous then they may explain that to the customer and refuse the project. - Eddy
Think of how much traffic block up when they have to repair regular roads. Now imagine a storm damaging a solar road and all the time and electricians required as well as regular construction workers you have to pay. Traffic would be insane and they would end up just pouring asphalt to save time and money. .
AakeTraak Then after that we can get underground solar panels. And then solar panels that we manually cover during the day and then uncover each night.
You do have to remember to subtract the cost of repaving the road with in a traditional manner. This does come with the benefit of having a repaved road.
I agree a solar road is a ludicrously inefficient idea. But to be fair, I suspect your numbers for a commercial solar farm do not factor in the significant cost of the land they are sitting on? Given the issue of available land for solar arrays, and the significant wasted area of rooftops, surely the optimal solution is for governments to legislate to encourage rooftop solar installations. If governments ensured that it became cost beneficial for property owners to install rooftop solar arrays, then we'd have all the renewable energy we need. This simply requires government backed funding to ensure no upfront costs for homeowners, net reduced electricity bills, with excess power fed back into the grid.
Land is certainly an issue for some locations. However, at least in America (probably one of the worst for energy pollution in the rank of first world nations, china is horrid but doesn't count) We have acers for sale in the range of a couple thousand per, to 10k per. A square mile (2.55sqKm) of land can be bought for less than 500k near cities, if you are willing to run power lines a ways you can get that same amount of land for half the cost or less. Places like Europe or Japan that are much smaller and have a higher density than America will have issues with land becoming expensive i'm sure.
In Germany farms are downsizing and using their disused land for solar farms, so if you consider the land already exists in this case then its different.
Pretty-much every solar farm is built on land that is either gifted to the company, from the Government, or cheap to purchase based on location. Windfarms running in Adelaide, the land is rented/leased for a token amount, as the land is usable underneath the units..
Honestly I don't understand the logic behind this. Not only are people pushing it but governments are throwing millions of dollars into the projects. Even if Solar Roadways worked better than normal solar farms for less money you still have to deal with wear and tear of being a freaking road. Normal paved roads wear out pretty fast, high traffic area's almost needing resurfaced every couple of years. Unlike a normal road if they wear down and you get a pot hole it's not as simple as filling in the gap as it probably require the whole solar panel to be replaced. Normal solar panels are rated to last a decade or more before they start to really show loss of efficiency. Solar Road ways on any moderately busy road would be lucky to last 5 years imo.
they are testing these new solar flowers near where I live currently - roundabouts are in an abundance in most of europe so they installed this "flower" solar system which folds out to form a disc in the morning and tracks the sun throughout the day, and at night folds back in to pack itself to protect against any eventual damages.
The Scavengers Workshop and are closer to the equator. The fact you have a southern arc to the sun's movement impacts the overall time you can get optimal direct light.
Fantastic video! I agree, the environmental impact of production of the equipment and normal ware and tear of the panels is not worth the cost.In my opinion, companies and local government should be investing on carbon dioxide scrubbers to bring down the cost of this equipment for a better future. Unfortunately, my UN-AMERICAN country was stupid for voting for a president that does not want to be a part of the world environmental organization anymore. 3+ YEARS LEFT OF US DISASTER. ;-(
I can sort of see this as a potential thing if: - You have a lot of road - You do not have a lot of space for a proper solar farm - The roads are not in very heavy use - You don't have actual wintery winter. - You have quite a bit of sun. So for something like Norway, where we don't have a lot of sun, it's bad. Australia has a lot of space to spare, so it's not useful there. And so on. So I have no idea of where this would be a decent idea.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or serious, but the railroad tracks are usually made of hardened steel so you would have a good amount of resistance. Plus, there are idiots that would then short the rails together...
@ Todd Cottle - Yeah there is a bit of Darwinistic "improving the species" aspect about this... mind you if there is only one idiot then it may be the _rails shorting the idiot_ instead of the other way 'round. - Eddy
Actually no, railroad tracks are grounded. That's why electric trains only have 1 overhead wire - the electricity flow through the wheels -> rails -> ground.
As a separate idea, in Norway we clear the edges of the road to prevent forest growth and such from intruding on our roads. Could one conceivably (assume whatever solar conditions you please) put some sort of solar panels there? It wouldn't be optimal to say the least, but it would at least work...
But they're never actually busted, as evidenced by the constant need for more busting of them. Do they regenerate? Or are they simply invincible? That is the true question we should be asking ourselves!
+fredy gump. The concepts are busted. Sometimes people dont learn so well the first, second, third, fourth, times things are explained to them. Especially so if their "trusted source" is a well practiced liar, and mainstream media has LOTS of practice. I think they are like mythological hydras. Two heads grow back for every one cut off.
My only thoughts are. The department responsible for making roads is trying to generate an income and offset costs. So the money spent on the roadways would never hit the power sector's infrastructure anyway. So having something that is 10x the cost but works better (even a little) for that sector's budget will get the contract. Then they live with the consequences, need more money to not go under (which it wont), the government gives the road's department more money. The roads department writes off the roadways as a bad investment but keeps the extra cash in the budget going their way each year.
I hope that politicians and everya gencies that promote this idiocy will at last with some hard data come to their senses and stop this. it's stupid, expensive, maintance would be a nightmare. Not worth it.
Unfortunately, that is what many politicians do - they implement solutions that are stupid and expensive. I hope this time there will be someone who will talk to their senses.
I'm still propagating the solar noic blocking walls for highways, you can put them on a fixed angle, better than flat and they will only get shadow from the higher trucks, but you could compensate for that, but just an idea that may or may not payoff
I called the guy who did that project out for wasting tax payer money. He could not answer my critique and comments, so he resorted to shaming me for not believing and being a ney-sayer. The default answer they resort to evade the questions. In reality, these projects do a lot of harm to the reputation of renewable energy and the public opinion when they inevitably and miserably fail. Politicians don't care. They just want to look good and be in the picture of all these news "articles" to further their career. Virtue signal.
I find it hard because as a researcher I know that often people who get funding are the people who have influence through politically popular projects which may not have too many merits. I also get annoyed when people keep judging things against $$$ marks. Many scientific projects at that scale can not stand close ECONOMIC scrutiny. Often to offshoots are valuable and exceed all expectations. Not to mention the future when people finally find uses for discoveries. I suspect that this project is a nice political talking point and the experimenters are under strict orders to deflect until the politicians get their political capital from it all. Yes, it would have been better if Euros research wind generation and leave the solar to places like Australian and US deserts. From memory the generation efficiency doubles as you move from Germany to the equator. Above all, I don't blame them for testing and EXPERIMENTING :)
I would love to see lifespan data for the various solutions. If the life on the road materials is substantially higher (due to less stress) than it hardly matters how low the output is.
Just putting sun-tracking commercial-grade panels on the side of the road, or on a roof over the road, is a lot more effective when it comes to using the roads to gather energy.
when checking costs you should also add in the land cost for the traditional system. With a solar roadway, the land is basically free, not just because it already owned by the government but because it's function don't change. A traditional solar farm takes up a lot of land which now can't be used for farming/housing ect, and is therefore lost. The solar road panels might still cost more but that tech is also much newer, newer tech always costs more and becomes cheaper over time as long as people buy it. Costs decreases don't usually follow liner trajectories, at least not for long.
...and mechanical wearing of system itself. Would it last for a year or two? what will happen with its internals after climate cycling (summer-autumn-winter-spring) with its rains, snows and dirt?
Jesus Christ people are still trying to make this a reality? This isn't like movies where if you think hard enough you can overcome statistics and data. It's a cool idea but it just doesn't work.
It's not about thinking hard enough, they'll succeed because they have heart, and a great attitude! That's how life works, right? You get out there and work hard and persevere, and against all odds and evidence to the contrary, you win!
I'm estimating that you'll be back on this subject in 3-4 months when spring starts and they come out with something new - they will do that in spring to start testing when the sun starts shining more
"1/3 capacity for 9 times the cost"
Wow, that is some impressive stats.... impressive in the wrong direction..... but still impressive.
matsv201
Raise the price of a third of a loaf of bread nine times... then they will begin to understand that math works.
the biggest problem with solar roadways is that just installing a solar roof over/next to roads is so much better.
Tim Stahel Plus it potentially adds shade for people or protects the road from the elements, its all positives when roadways has none.
It does not even need to be near the road. You just need the grid to have cheap solar somewhere.
Calculate all costs and you will see that cheap green energy doesn't exists and is certainly not green.
Arend Wolbers
Not true. Offshore wind farms are already far cheaper than any fossil fuel plant - and every bit of that fuel burnt doesn’t reappear as a energy source again for millions of years, at best: but we do get huge additional CO2 produced that will hang about until those millions of years lock it away again. (Well, unless we get ‘Venus 2’.)
You realize hopefully that those offshore wind farms are widely subsidised for as much as over 50%!? CO2 (is still) produced in producing wind farms and placing them, the oil produced by a drill rig + at least 2 big seawhearthy oil using tugboats, the placing of a windmill even more, anyway the building and placing of a windmill produces more CO2 than the windmill in 30 years. And after 30 years or much less this windmill fails and needs to be replaced! O yeah, don't forget the boat running on oil that brings maintenance workers to the windpark?
CO2 produced by farting and pooping of all animals (incl people and don't forget plants) is way more than all cars on this planet.
Al Gore is the one who made and makes the most 'green' from the green energy scam!
Calculate all, for placing 10.000 Watt in solar panels unsubsidized, you may even count the feedback to the grid, do this for 30 years and beside this, your green energys
CO2 produce! You be surprised!
Solar Roadway companies, please stop this. If you continue, Dave is likely to end up in hospital with 3rd degree facepalm injuries.
Dave Compton that would make me ludicrously happy
Not only that, but his voice could continue to rise in pitch with the stress. It's already approaching the level to make my ears hurt and my dogs bark. Much higher, and it will blow out windows.
Bruce S I suppose the positive side is that eventually it should be inaudible to human ears 😊
@@ThePlayerOfGames Ultrasounds!
@@BruceS42 and after blowing out Windows it'll blow out OS X, Linux, OS/2, MS-DOS and all the embedded ROM operating systems of 1980's microcomputers. ;) Thus, with all computers worldwide disabled, energy use will drastically drop, saving the planet!
It's still mind boggling to me that the planning discussions didn't stop right after the words "Pothole" and "multi-ton, high speed vehicles" enter the design constraints. But yeah, the math here was pretty good too!
How did Solar Roadways make it this far???
It gets worse. Someone on twitter just pointed out China are building a 2km one!
The madness just doesn't stop...
Who thought it is a good idea to build solar panels on a street? Especially in China, France or the US. The got plenty of space there to put solar panels but they chose to put them where they'll be under the most stressed.
I could understand if they put solar panels on the streets in japan or south korea, space is rare there. But i don't see why countries like china would do that. Just build a big solar plant somewhere and you are done.
I only hope they do it like South Korea did with their roads, down the median or off on bike paths/sidewalks, elevated.
As China is manufacturing more and more solar, I can only hope they do it right the first time, otherwise it's going to be a bigger flop with their high pollution levels.
@EEVblog
China joins the stupid olympics
1000 kilometres sounds a bit clumsy. 1 Megameter is much cooler!
I like 10 hectometers myself.
isn't a megameter a volt meter with an ego problem?
You mean 10,000 hectometers.
@@Krrypton you mean 1,000,000 metres per second seconds?
cadkls ?!
well, Dave, did you ever stop to think that we could make our roadways on an angle and install servos to tilt the road surface to track the sun?? HMM!??! think outside the box for once!!!! :P
Mind-blown.
You are being funny, right?
tcpnetworks - you are seriously asking that, right?
Wow...
ericsbuds Thats just gonna add more to already existing huge cost!!!!!!
Great idea, take it further though, remove the vehicle engines. Just use the energy to tilt the road! Everyones going the same way anyway...Imagine your car surfing the road to work. (Back to reality now...).
Dave, please don't apologize for video about busting solar roadways, especially at this time of year - it's like a Christmas gift! :)
Umm... your username scared me...
I am you from the future! :) (don't worry - m stands for Mario, nice to meet you)
mbaksa Nice to meet you too :)
Test installations are an expensive way to prove the math right.
If you're a politician you can argue against just about anything even math and physics. That's how our broken society works.
Sadly there is truth in that.
Sooo it would be cheaper to just run solar panels along the side of the road?
Install a bike path with solar roof on every highway.
That would be a good summary. Why put the solar panels on the road, where they have to be flat and built to be driven on by trucks, when you can just put industry-standard solar panels right next to the road, where they can be angled for better efficiency? Or just put them on the roofs of public buildings. None of the solar road afficionados ever explained why exactly the solar panels have to be *on the road* . Putting them on the road is only a sensible option when literally every other place you can put them (next to the road, roofs, unused fields) has been used already. Otherwise it is just another case of "they were so obsessed with whether they could do it that they forgot to ask themselves whether they *should* do it".
South Korea implemented this type of road by running it down the median of the highway. And guess what, they're angled not flat.
My favorite response to solar roadways. What happens to all the rubber from tires? It doesn't just disappear, it doesn't stay on the tire because we know tires wear down. It wears into the pavement just like that one picture of the tread marks on the solar road showed. What happens when you get these hot heads who do burnouts on the road, or if someone has to slam on the brakes for something in front of them. Or what about accidents that spill oil and scrape up the ground. Pavement you just put absorbent sand on fluids and keep going. Solar roads now you have to send a cleaning crew out to fix the surface of the road everytime someone gets cut off and slams the brakes, or when some dumb kid does burnouts at an intersection.
What will happen is the government will mandate that all new cars are equipped with road scrubbers, so they clean the road as they drive! Obviously.
Tyre rubber forms dust, not a layer of rubber. It blows off the road and pollutes the road verges, becoming another of those minor environmental issues that we humans create.
Stop this foolish talk about practical concerns :->
But this is Yet Another Opportunity for Jobs! Road Cleaning Crews cleaning up the roads, getting paid and feeling like they're Contributing To Society! None of this Universal Basic Income thing of paying people to do nothing after robots take over so many jobs, especially when there is "Real Work" to do cleaning the roads?
Yes, tire rubber largely flakes off as microscopic particles, unless you're doing burnouts or locking up/braking hard and melting the rubber off the tire. The common mode is certainly not going to leave marks on the road, but melted rubber definitely will.
I love your videos, I love how you break things down to make it easier for people to understand
on tonights news, a man's head has exploded from repeated faceparm's when solar roadways arrive in australia .
How about wind farm roadways??
Dan Floyd Hydro electric roadways, when it rains the water spins the turbines. Genius.
as long as they arent in ted kenedys back yard thats cool
SOLAR WINDMILLS!!!
Wait, how about wind farm *airplanes*? They move so fast, if they put propellers on them they'd be able to generate a lot of electricity. They could charge batteries in the air and transfer that when they land.
Too late, someone already got this amazing (scam) idea: goo.gl/WviFfG
Never let proper engineering ruin a buzzwords filled sales pitch :)
The real reason for solar roadways has nothing to do with ecology and economy - only economical for the person, who installs it and/or approves wasting public money for it.
@benjovi55 WTF is "Big Eco"? Only a bleeding heart cuntservaturd would whine about some non-existent thing called "Big Eco" when all the polluters have all the money, because they're not paying to clean up their mess. The Solar Roadways are just scammers just like telemarketers & religious preachers. They're not part of any bigger conspiracy.
The french minister of silly walks 😂😂😂
It is only unpractical during summer and autumn. For the rest of the year the thing is not going to work at all. First of all when winter comes all the roads get coverd by a thick layer of comressed dirty snow so it is zero power output per square meter for almost half a year. And when spring comes it gets even worse - the temperature gets above and below zero every day so the salt and sand mixture that is used to prevent quick ice formation with all the gunk and already salty and dirty water is going to flow into all the electronics and cabling through of all the scratches and cracks that was caused by the traffic and freezing soil movements during the past winter. Even the lights that are being sometimes istalled on some walkways tend to massively die every year. A proper road is going to completely destroy the thing by turning it into small rusty grinded pieces. So the system is definitely not going to survive more than half a year in any reasonable climate like we have in Moscow. Solar power generation is a very questionable idea as it is, but the solar road idea is making it pretty much as stupid as it possibly gets.
And don't forget about cleaning snow of it. A typical snowplow would just remove the panels together with the snow.
Fully agreeing with you, just going to comment that the snow thing is not that big a problem in western europe. Yes, we have snow and freezing temperatures, but maybe for 2-4 weeks during winter and that's it. Thanks to global warming... That explains Daves funky data for december. So there isn't that much ice and snow as you are saying, at least not in western europe. But all your other points are indeed 100% valid.
How about this? Start a Kickstarter, for solar roadways that are lifted off the ground, slightly angled so that rain gets automatically drained... And that you'll make them more efficient by not letting car's drive on them... Maybe some of those solar roadways fans realize it's better that way.
Apart from the utter technical and economic idiocy of it, how is the road safety? I'd not feel comfortable driving on a knobby glass surface - what happens if it gets wet or dusty or covered with snow or ice? What if tiles come loose or apart so that punctures and other damage can happen? My gut feeling is that it's not safe to drive on.
I also assume it's meant for areas with dense population and thus dense traffic - wont it be covered by cars and dirt much of the daytime? Oh well, best forget about it.
Oh, we get to the point of "huge numbers of accidents because you can't fucking break or change direction on a wet glass surface at any speed above a rabid snail's pace" much before inhaling ground glass would become a problem.
And let's not forget if a big enough shunt does happen on this road, what if that glass road shatters? That in itself is a risk for pedestrians.
What would you ecpect them to use? Blood magic infused unobtanium glass that was mass grown on autonomous farms?
Another point brought up by Thunderf00t - the glare... Those tiles works like mirrors at a low angle with resulting extreme glare - driving towards a low sun will blind you : th-cam.com/video/_aa85qw6G0k/w-d-xo.html
There was a presentation in my institute for alternative energy for a bunch of school kids, I was given the topic of photovoltaic cells. I made a half-assed presentation and I included solar roadways. I had to give it to the organising professor before presenting.
He laughed at me and gave me a lot of bollocking over not taking the task seriously.
If they tried that in the UK then most of the panels would spend 90% of the time covered up by road works cones. It would be better to focus on installing panels on every home as this would make power distribution easier and houses already have roofs that cars rarely drive on. They would also not be subject to wear and damage as they would be on roads.
I have a feeling that if they were installed in rural locations they or at least the wiring for them would get nicked. People already risk their lives near train tracks riping up copper, it would be incredibly easy for them to access a rural road at night.
K2LSS, Yes I agree, The panels they fit to power road signals are always disappearing. I think that the cables are most at risk because the efficiency of road panels is so low that no one would want them.
K2LSS at the voltages you can get up to with a string of panels it usually makes more sense to use stainless steel cable so larcenists would probably end disappointed ... or dead if they tried it in the daytime... which raises another issue how do you feel about having your road live at near the max through voltage of the panels? Usually 800V DC??
Glen Collins, Mostly the thieves would work at night. SS resistance is generally too high for power transmission as it conducts about 44 times worse than copper although as SS is worth more than copper it would be a good find for thieves if it ever was used but you have a good point about power within the road. Imagine a crash where spilled fuel ran down into the cable runs.
Reminds me of why I subscribed, debunking the practicality of *solar freaking roadways*
What if you take the solar roadway, raise it about 20 feet above the asphalt on columns and use it to shade the actual roadway?
And this is a really great idea for walking paths.
Dave, thanks for using propper framerate, unlike other youtubers!
I love these videos so much, because you literally can't argue with engineering facts and mathematics
Who would think this is a good idea? Politicians looking for the "feel good" vote.
So for the same price they could have added solar to every government building lowering power bills to nothing.
Yes and for 1000 times the price, our minister of silly walks built a system with plenty of cameras to tax vehicles based on their ecological imprint and dropped it once everything was installed and paid for. She almost became president 10 years ago, only lost to our worst president ever. Silly, ain't it ?
And there I thought it's just Russia where politicians just shamelessly and openly pocket taxpayer money.
To be more precise, the former administration built and paid for the system, and dropping it was her first act as minister of ecology (and silly walks) in order to deal with truck drivers' and freight companies' contempt. She didn't benefit from it. To be fair, I guess she did do a few nice things for the country over her carrier, more than just the walks I mean :D
They'd be better off putting tracking panels by the side of the road instead.
corruption and bulshit always walk hand to hand , for sure shady business , yep no pun intended
All of your Solar Roadways videos are amazing.
Thanks Dave. Seems a lot of big-government people don't analyze costs-vs-benefits and it leads to things like solar roadways. This is a problem with communism, socialism, corporatism, crony capitalism, and other forms of big-government.
I would think that a towed trailer that drops its hitch (pulled by chain only for a bit) would do a really nice job on a solar roadway. Who would be responsible for the damages, which would be substantial? The insurance agencies will start thinking about this and rates are going to go up...
- Eddy
Deathlok67 That is already an issue. It's just that people never get stuck with the bill since the damage is usually minimal. (Or no one that cares sees the damage happen.) Spill paint on the road way, you pay. Crash into barriers/dividers, you pay. Cargo transporters caught at a weight station carrying more than the roadway allows, that company pays a fine. The fact of the matter is, this is research & prototyping, about advancing the future. Dave must be related to the idiots of the past that said things like, "There will never be a computer small/cheap enough to be accessible to the everyday man." Or, "There won't be batteries with sufficient energy densities or CDR that will make electric cars practical."
He's just a shortsighted idiot that obviously isn't able to realize the potential of emergent technologies. This video really makes him sound like a real moron.
I'm surprised some kids haven't grabbed a sledgehammer to see if they can get a panel to catch fire yet...
Thanks Dave, that was insightful, It's one of those hipster ideas that has little advantage over existing ones
Yep, very much a hipster concept.
hipsters are taking over the fucking world. they burn my brain out with their fairy fantasies
not just the cost, but its impractical, because the road is a hard rough surface, prone to movement, physical damage, also the road gets very hot, which will destroy the plastics and bonding agents, reduce the life etc.. I very surprised a crazy project like this has ever been attempted. The only real reason for the massive waste of money is criminal intent, money laundering, yep the corruption goes all the way to the top, making it impossible to prove.
I like that companies are trying new approaches on solar technology. I didn't like it when people crowdfund and don't give the facts. I feel like these Solar roads are disproving themselves, at the very least they are bringing new interest in solar.
In Canada the roads get snow and ice on them for pretty much half the year. We put down salt (or varient), gravel, and run snow plows and studded tires over them. So guaranteed, you can rebuilt it every year.
Next energy video: Best battery tech for home storage. I think current wet lithium ion tech is too risky and too expensive. How do NiMh and Lead-acid compare for system cost and lifetime?
BobC very good question!
Small error with the efficiency-numbers:
it is "only" 188% more efficient - or 288% as efficient.
No matter how YOU spin this, 99% of people don't understand or want to understand technical data and factual information, 99% of people believe marketing BS.
Strider9655 one percenter lol ✌🏻
This is basically the entire reason Apple has any customers.
Your figures are also BS. Just FYI. When someone is using 99%, you know it's BS
Mi 28 "This is basically the entire reason Android has any customers." FTFY Also, the irony of your comment on this video, considering Android, from an engineering point of view is just like solar roadways. Only bad decisions from the beginning. There's a reason computer engineers buy Apple, because the numbers always speak the truth. Apple chips always beat the crap out of other manufacturers in performance. Android is nothing more than a platform to sell the "newest thing" to people that don't mind paying huge sums of money for "features" which are still in the prototype phase, or maybe even completely impractical. The engineering decisions are also awful, proving that there were made by business people, and not by engineers. No computer engineer would ever make a non-systems, virtualized and garbage collected language like java, the programming language for developing apps on a resource constrained, and user facing environment like a mobile device. That is like computer engineering 101. Hate Apple as much as you want, but they have the best engineers, and that is fact. Good engineering design and practices >>>> than constantly creating new features without any time given to creating a good design. But hey, I guess it's good for business, when the only thing you do is create putting together a bunch of off the shelf components, because you don't know how to create them your self, and installing a free operating system, because you don't know how to create your own. But let's all hate the only company that has the expertise to create an entire system from hardware to software completely in-house. I don't blame you though. When all adds on TV, radio, stores and everywhere else are for Android devices, and when companies like Samsung sign contracts with stores and telecom companies to make the employees push their devices instead of being fair, people get fooled easily.
/glcrazy dude this is TH-cam, not your blog or something..
Dave you deserve a good holiday for once again telling it as it is.
The politicos will say that these are alternative facts.
dust and dirt....my van leaks about 1 quart of oil every 2 weeks. Figure thousands of trucks driving these roadways, add all the grease, oil, and spilled paint and chemicals and those roadways won't see a lot of sunlight. I wonder if street sweepers with biodegradable cleaning agents is factored into the cost?
whats it going to cost when someone blows a tire and skids their car rim down it for 300 feet?
EitriBrokkr What is it going to cost when a farmer drops a disc plough into them?
gorillaau or what about snow, salt, and snow plows
EitriBrokkr I wasn't thinking of that situation... Australian bias, I guess.
You replace the tiles as opposed to digging out a trough of road and filling it in again with new tarmac that never matches the original surface.
Alexis Boom Yea sure you replace the tiles, not what he asked. Its the cost factor! Tarmac is cheaper!
DAVE, you forgot to mention that snowy climates use snow and salt on the roads (all Aussies should know this ;)). We plow them with steel blades which chews up the concrete real bad. Imagine how long they'd last with the occasional cleaning.... And the fact they'd be covered in snow for a long time (no matter how often you clean them: snow blows in). Hah.
Random comment: I've been subscribed for like 8 years, and I've FINALLY discovered how to spell the infamous "WunHungLo" brand :D
My heartfelt respect to you for going through this again. I got some serious negative feelings even listening to it. I'm getting sick of it, but I watched the complete video to show my appreciation.
Government solution: install efficient LED streetlights over the roadway to increase output. Waaa! Waaa!
Don't give them ideas
Solar Railways? There are thousands of miles of unexploited rail tracks all thru Europe and Asia. 😈 Edit:Sorry,Kilometers...
The only practical solar roadway would be overhead installations in the medians of large interstate highways. But even that would be problematic due to soot and dust accumulations over time.
Plus the fact it would be another obstacle for people to crash into.
I think this issue could have been avoided if they just put the solar ABOVE the road. perhaps even add in tracking and you get better efficiency.
Why build on top of the road when you can build next to it?
Perhaps one day when all the roofs, fields, mountains, etc are paneled and there is need for even more, then maybe paneling roads will make sense. Or maybe it will be time to make a Dyson Sphere.
13:08 - Not 288% *MORE* efficient! It is 188% *MORE* efficient or 288% *AS* efficient. ie. 1.5x as efficient is 50% more. 2x is 100% more, 0.9x is 10% less, etc.
It'd never work here in Stoke on Trent. Apart from the fact that the sun never seems to shine here, during daylight hours the roads would be completely obscured by stationary traffic.
djsherz Then u have automated solar roadways that freaking move themeselves on top of the cars!
I was thinking why not just put them on top of a gas station and make it cheaper to buy cooled sodas? Maybe make some more money like that or what not
Hmm the ideas there, maybe to get rid of the large installation cost they move the solar panels from the road to one location where land is cheap and sun light is optimum, these lets call them "arrays" could be made to track sunlight for maximum efficiency and the power can be distributed evenly and efficiently as it's coming from one large place, oh wait....
Oooh, solar parking lots? Now you're talking! A solar multi level would be better, because more solar road, obviously.
We could also just build this large facility designed to create a miniature sun who's heat boils astronomical amounts of water, turning turbines, which produce unfathomable amounts of electricity free of greenhouse gas emissions regardless of time, weather, or location?
My honest opinion? Solar power is a bandaid *at best*. IT's a piece of shit if you're not in a good place for one reason or another. No, we need to figure out nuclear fusion. Once we've passed breakeven on fusion reactors we can flip all this other 'green energy' tech off and throw it in the dustbin where it belongs.
I wish they had built a parallel installation with solar panels above a walkway, imagine what a 1km long covered walkway with commercial solar panels could have done
Great video, Dave!
wouldnt it be chaper and easier to put roof with solar panels on roads and parking spaces than making it into road?
$10 says they build it anyway.
I totally enjoy these imperial examination on technology. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Maybe Dave could do a video on the California "High Speed Rail"... It is very similar to the Solar Road.
Unfortunately, no matter how many times politicians are told "NOT practical" - they don't actually hear the "NOT" part.
Not sure if I'm missing something here (may be out of the loop), but why would a high speed rail in CA not be viable? Are the quotation marks there to indicate that it isn't really anything viable?
They are classifying 80mph as high speed. At that rate, no one will use it - especially when you can catch a flight from LAX to SFO for $50 and be there in under an hour.
80MPH is nowhere near high speed.
In Europe, regional (Commuter!) trains run at 160 km/h (100 MPH) and they are never called "high speed"...
In fact each morning I take a commuter train to the university and it runs at 140 km/h even if it is from the 1970s!
Maybe I could suggest that to the marketing department of our railway company, so they can say that 100% of Italy's trains are "high speed" because California :P
That's all well and good, however if you're a homeowner in an expensive area, and you've got a roof, a front yard, a backyard, and a driveway, and you've already got solar collectors on the roof, or the roof is listed, or thatched, etc., then your next best thing may not necessarily be getting rid of your front or back garden to install a residential PV farm there. The one place you may be able to upgrade with solar without giving the HOA a conniption may in fact be your driveway, and in that market at those real estate prices, the extra cost may not matter. In a case like that, the comparison isn't between a commercially competitive solar farm on spare land that you're just assumed to have, it's between a solar roadway or a regular driveway with no solar. Similarly, a heavily urban municipality may just not have those extra acres to plonk some standard PV down on. Space may be at a high premium, and where it is, there may still be a case and a place for solar roadways. That is practical. Get over it. Catch you next time.
finally busted? they were busted since the first video
Here in the southwest USA, I've always wondered why they don't roof over parking lots with solar cells; it would shade the cars so they don't turn into ovens in the summer, keep the rain off (when that happens) in the winter and provide power without having to find new land to put them on. When you add in the rooftop areas of a shopping center - that's a LOT of solar collection area and given how many of them we have, it would really add up!
Everybody loves the solar roadways.
The *failure* of Solar roadways, that is.
It's a silly idea, but I do like that companies are investing time and effort to explore different ways to implement solar power generation.
Cheers for your work as always, Dave!
Slap that plastic roadway on all the roofs of a city.
Solar roadways are feel good stuff. They love the idea of installing them in existing places.
I have to wonder, how many engineers are working on these solar roadway projects? Why don't they point out the obvious problems with this concept? Seems very strange it wouldn't be laughed out of an engineering consulting firm.
If a customer pays for it, as long as it's not dangerous, they will probably do the work.
Pointing out that entire ideas are impractical does help your career.
They get paid to design it. And it's a pretty interesting task. Not up to them to say whether it's practical or not and outright refuse the money.
There's money to be made, someone is going to get paid to develop the panels even if you say it's a dumb idea. They'll just go to the next firm until they find one that'll do it for them. Might as well make a few quick bucks.
@ Jack Vernian - If they are Professional Engineers with an institution and regulating body and bylaws then they would also have a code of ethics and guidelines. If a project is patently ridiculous then they may explain that to the customer and refuse the project.
- Eddy
Think of how much traffic block up when they have to repair regular roads. Now imagine a storm damaging a solar road and all the time and electricians required as well as regular construction workers you have to pay. Traffic would be insane and they would end up just pouring asphalt to save time and money. .
Next projekt: Solar under the sea.
AakeTraak Then after that we can get underground solar panels. And then solar panels that we manually cover during the day and then uncover each night.
You do have to remember to subtract the cost of repaving the road with in a traditional manner. This does come with the benefit of having a repaved road.
Wasting tax dollars on something inefficient? Wow, shocker.
Agreed, but I think you should subtract out the average cost to build a standard strech of road since the road has to be built anyhow.
I agree a solar road is a ludicrously inefficient idea. But to be fair, I suspect your numbers for a commercial solar farm do not factor in the significant cost of the land they are sitting on? Given the issue of available land for solar arrays, and the significant wasted area of rooftops, surely the optimal solution is for governments to legislate to encourage rooftop solar installations. If governments ensured that it became cost beneficial for property owners to install rooftop solar arrays, then we'd have all the renewable energy we need. This simply requires government backed funding to ensure no upfront costs for homeowners, net reduced electricity bills, with excess power fed back into the grid.
Land is certainly an issue for some locations. However, at least in America (probably one of the worst for energy pollution in the rank of first world nations, china is horrid but doesn't count) We have acers for sale in the range of a couple thousand per, to 10k per. A square mile (2.55sqKm) of land can be bought for less than 500k near cities, if you are willing to run power lines a ways you can get that same amount of land for half the cost or less. Places like Europe or Japan that are much smaller and have a higher density than America will have issues with land becoming expensive i'm sure.
Land in rural areas is on the order of $1 per m^2. At 200 Watt per m^2, that's $0.005 per watt.
In Germany farms are downsizing and using their disused land for solar farms, so if you consider the land already exists in this case then its different.
Pretty-much every solar farm is built on land that is either gifted to the company, from the Government, or cheap to purchase based on location. Windfarms running in Adelaide, the land is rented/leased for a token amount, as the land is usable underneath the units..
if governments to legislate for more of this! then governments can pay for it . with reserve bank $
Honestly I don't understand the logic behind this. Not only are people pushing it but governments are throwing millions of dollars into the projects. Even if Solar Roadways worked better than normal solar farms for less money you still have to deal with wear and tear of being a freaking road. Normal paved roads wear out pretty fast, high traffic area's almost needing resurfaced every couple of years. Unlike a normal road if they wear down and you get a pot hole it's not as simple as filling in the gap as it probably require the whole solar panel to be replaced. Normal solar panels are rated to last a decade or more before they start to really show loss of efficiency. Solar Road ways on any moderately busy road would be lucky to last 5 years imo.
Hey I know, hire a dude spinning a crank on a generator. Cheap, renewable energy right there.
It's called wind farms.
they are testing these new solar flowers near where I live currently - roundabouts are in an abundance in most of europe so they installed this "flower" solar system which folds out to form a disc in the morning and tracks the sun throughout the day, and at night folds back in to pack itself to protect against any eventual damages.
Solar roadways work fine... ...if you have flying cars. ;P
The Scavengers Workshop and are closer to the equator. The fact you have a southern arc to the sun's movement impacts the overall time you can get optimal direct light.
Well yeah. If you don't actually need the road, you can have them banked however you like.
Excelent analysis. I am expecting another dozen of videos from EEV about busting solar roads because they won’t stop installing them any time soon.
Fantastic video! I agree, the environmental impact of production of the equipment and normal ware and tear of the panels is not worth the cost.In my opinion, companies and local government should be investing on carbon dioxide scrubbers to bring down the cost of this equipment for a better future. Unfortunately, my UN-AMERICAN country was stupid for voting for a president that does not want to be a part of the world environmental organization anymore. 3+ YEARS LEFT OF US DISASTER. ;-(
I can sort of see this as a potential thing if:
- You have a lot of road
- You do not have a lot of space for a proper solar farm
- The roads are not in very heavy use
- You don't have actual wintery winter.
- You have quite a bit of sun.
So for something like Norway, where we don't have a lot of sun, it's bad. Australia has a lot of space to spare, so it's not useful there. And so on. So I have no idea of where this would be a decent idea.
Dave - Don't think solar roadway think solar *railways* The track can carry the current(!) You have my permission to use this idea :-)
yeah, and it'll be in the shadow 90% of the time :D
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or serious, but the railroad tracks are usually made of hardened steel so you would have a good amount of resistance. Plus, there are idiots that would then short the rails together...
"Plus, there are idiots that would then short the rails together..." Feature not a bug!
@ Todd Cottle - Yeah there is a bit of Darwinistic "improving the species" aspect about this... mind you if there is only one idiot then it may be the _rails shorting the idiot_ instead of the other way 'round.
- Eddy
Actually no, railroad tracks are grounded. That's why electric trains only have 1 overhead wire - the electricity flow through the wheels -> rails -> ground.
As a separate idea, in Norway we clear the edges of the road to prevent forest growth and such from intruding on our roads. Could one conceivably (assume whatever solar conditions you please) put some sort of solar panels there? It wouldn't be optimal to say the least, but it would at least work...
These solar roadways are amazingly tough! I mean, everybody is trying to bust them....
And doing so easily.
But they're never actually busted, as evidenced by the constant need for more busting of them. Do they regenerate? Or are they simply invincible? That is the true question we should be asking ourselves!
+fredy gump. The concepts are busted. Sometimes people dont learn so well the first, second, third, fourth, times things are explained to them. Especially so if their "trusted source" is a well practiced liar, and mainstream media has LOTS of practice.
I think they are like mythological hydras. Two heads grow back for every one cut off.
formori2: Why so serious??? It's a joke!!!
+fredy gump. It was 4 am. I missed the joke initially, That is why I added the hydra part afterward. :)
My only thoughts are.
The department responsible for making roads is trying to generate an income and offset costs.
So the money spent on the roadways would never hit the power sector's infrastructure anyway.
So having something that is 10x the cost but works better (even a little) for that sector's budget will get the contract.
Then they live with the consequences, need more money to not go under (which it wont), the government gives the road's department more money. The roads department writes off the roadways as a bad investment but keeps the extra cash in the budget going their way each year.
I hope that politicians and everya gencies that promote this idiocy will at last with some hard data come to their senses and stop this. it's stupid, expensive, maintance would be a nightmare. Not worth it.
Unfortunately, that is what many politicians do - they implement solutions that are stupid and expensive. I hope this time there will be someone who will talk to their senses.
I'm still propagating the solar noic blocking walls for highways, you can put them on a fixed angle, better than flat and they will only get shadow from the higher trucks, but you could compensate for that, but just an idea that may or may not payoff
Proud to be dutch :D we have our own solarroadway, now australia :D
Nico Vijlbrief tell us more :)
I called the guy who did that project out for wasting tax payer money. He could not answer my critique and comments, so he resorted to shaming me for not believing and being a ney-sayer. The default answer they resort to evade the questions. In reality, these projects do a lot of harm to the reputation of renewable energy and the public opinion when they inevitably and miserably fail.
Politicians don't care. They just want to look good and be in the picture of all these news "articles" to further their career. Virtue signal.
I find it hard because as a researcher I know that often people who get funding are the people who have influence through politically popular projects which may not have too many merits.
I also get annoyed when people keep judging things against $$$ marks. Many scientific projects at that scale can not stand close ECONOMIC scrutiny. Often to offshoots are valuable and exceed all expectations. Not to mention the future when people finally find uses for discoveries.
I suspect that this project is a nice political talking point and the experimenters are under strict orders to deflect until the politicians get their political capital from it all.
Yes, it would have been better if Euros research wind generation and leave the solar to places like Australian and US deserts. From memory the generation efficiency doubles as you move from Germany to the equator.
Above all, I don't blame them for testing and EXPERIMENTING :)
I would love to see lifespan data for the various solutions. If the life on the road materials is substantially higher (due to less stress) than it hardly matters how low the output is.
Expected Thunderf00t .. Got Dave! Huzzah! (no offence thunderf00t).
Dave > Thunderfoot
Jon in general i agree but TF did very well on his solar roadway vids.
Sorry.. I was being flippant! I just got a surprise :)
Just putting sun-tracking commercial-grade panels on the side of the road, or on a roof over the road, is a lot more effective when it comes to using the roads to gather energy.
roads are for cars.
when checking costs you should also add in the land cost for the traditional system. With a solar roadway, the land is basically free, not just because it already owned by the government but because it's function don't change. A traditional solar farm takes up a lot of land which now can't be used for farming/housing ect, and is therefore lost. The solar road panels might still cost more but that tech is also much newer, newer tech always costs more and becomes cheaper over time as long as people buy it. Costs decreases don't usually follow liner trajectories, at least not for long.
mark pavlis panels on top of owned buildings. Or subsidizing massively for companies.
how about a kinetic energy source from the pressure of vehicles driving over pads or something?
Would increase petrol usage of the vehicles driving over it.
The energy cost is just transferred to fossil fuels, with minor transfer to battery recharging
good points. hadn't thought of that!
...and mechanical wearing of system itself. Would it last for a year or two? what will happen with its internals after climate cycling (summer-autumn-winter-spring) with its rains, snows and dirt?
Let's just put treadmills on the road that will slow down cars, and label it as a safety measure
did they test coefiicent of friction? cuz if the breaking distance is worse or anythink is dangerus
Jesus Christ people are still trying to make this a reality?
This isn't like movies where if you think hard enough you can overcome statistics and data. It's a cool idea but it just doesn't work.
It's not about thinking hard enough, they'll succeed because they have heart, and a great attitude! That's how life works, right? You get out there and work hard and persevere, and against all odds and evidence to the contrary, you win!
Yep. And I just heard that China are installing a 2km version!
Like The Great Solar Road-Wall of China? Fantastic. You can see the BOM from space!
I'm estimating that you'll be back on this subject in 3-4 months when spring starts and they come out with something new - they will do that in spring to start testing when the sun starts shining more
Doesn't matter. Virtue signalling accomplished.
my question would be how much maintenance do they require compared to an asphalt road. also have to consider land usage efficiency/costs.