[QUOTE=tom1029;44895601]But how many hundreds of billions of dollars would it cost to replace all the roads with these?[/QUOTE]
I think i read 13 trillion somewhere.
And how efficient are these solar panels?
Are we talking like, 5% or 12%?
[QUOTE=booster;44896122]And how efficient are these solar panels?
Are we talking like, 5% or 12%?[/QUOTE]
Given that these cells look monocrystalline, we can guess atleast 20%
[URL="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/PVeff%28rev140511%29.jpg"]Source[/URL]
IIRC this was already pitched a month or so ago, and the original concept was older than that. Pretty sure these were debunked to be absolute bullshit and non-functional. Sorry but these things would have to survive large trucks with cargo going over them, thousands of times per day. Not possible, especially considering the weight limit on the U.S. interstate is 80k pounds, I don't think these fucking things are going to be okay with that standard. Shit, here the roads have to be fixed every year because there is so much truck traffic on the highway, and that the city is building a second highway around the current stretch so they can actually rebuild the first section and then reduce traffic between the two.
It would be more feasible to just build solar panels along the highway, and at that point, we may as well just build solar farms because then they're centeralized, so maintenance trucks don't have to drive thousands of miles for a few panels.
This is really ambitious, as much as I'd love to have it and how cool it looks, it just won't happen.
The costs of installing it would be atrocious, maybe the panels themselves over time could pay for it, but that would take a while knowing solar panels.
Maybe if solar technology gets an upgrade in efficiency, then I could see this happening. But for now, I do not.
I'm not sure this has as many problems as you guys think. There's a lot of problems with normal roads that would be taken care of, leaving more than enough room to deal with things like the panels getting dirty. Instead of a five man crew coming out and spending 10 man hours to fix a single pothole, you just have one or two dudes spend 1 man hour to swap out a single panel. Since they wouldn't need to be salted or shoveled anymore, redirect that effort into streetsweepers that keep the panels clean.
[editline]24th May 2014[/editline]
I'm not an expert on any of this (neither are any of you) and it's a big concept, you're being too quick to judge something that would take hundreds or even thousands of hours of research to quantify and make a determination on. You might know how much asphalt costs or a bit about solar panels but those are just 2 pieces in a 1,000 piece puzzle. Don't be so pessimistic, especially when you don't really know what you're talking about.
[QUOTE=draugur;44896650]IIRC this was already pitched a month or so ago, and the original concept was older than that. Pretty sure these were debunked to be absolute bullshit and non-functional. [b] Sorry but these things would have to survive large trucks with cargo going over them, thousands of times per day. Not possible, especially considering the weight limit on the U.S. interstate is 80k pounds, I don't think these fucking things are going to be okay with that standard.[/b] Shit, here the roads have to be fixed every year because there is so much truck traffic on the highway, and that the city is building a second highway around the current stretch so they can actually rebuild the first section and then reduce traffic between the two.
It would be more feasible to just build solar panels along the highway, and at that point, we may as well just build solar farms because then they're centeralized, so maintenance trucks don't have to drive thousands of miles for a few panels.[/QUOTE]
Their weight limit is 250,000 pounds (per square inch?)
Also, semis don't have the entirety of their weight pressing down on a single point, it's distributed between each wheel.
[QUOTE=Gray Altoid;44898346]Their weight limit is 250,000 pounds (per square inch?)
Also, semis don't have the entirety of their weight pressing down on a single point, it's distributed between each wheel.[/QUOTE]
I highly doubt that's correct. These are electronic components we're talking about here, I really doubt they're stronger than concrete or Asphalt, aka, two building materials DESIGNED for massive weight on top of them.
[QUOTE=draugur;44898600]I highly doubt that's correct. These are electronic components we're talking about here, I really doubt they're stronger than concrete or Asphalt, aka, two building materials DESIGNED for massive weight on top of them.[/QUOTE]
It's really thick tempered glass, like, REALLY thick, and is also designed specifically to have massive weight on it.
[editline]24th May 2014[/editline]
[quote=The FAQ]How much weight can these panels support? Semi-trucks get pretty heavy!
Originally, we were designing toward 80,000 pounds. That was supposed to be the maximum legal limit for a semi-truck. However, we live in logging country and a former logging truck driver informed us that they don't have scales in the woods and that he'd topped out at 124,000 pounds. So we decided that we should go for 150,000 pounds. We then learned that oil companies can get permission to move refinery equipment up to 230,000 pounds on frozen roads, so we decided to shoot for 250,000 pounds.
Both 3D Finite Element Method analysis and actual load testing at civil engineering labs showed that our Solar Road Panels can handle that and more. [/quote]
[editline]24th May 2014[/editline]
Another part of the FAQ addressing the roads getting dirty.
[quote=The FAQ]How will you keep the panels clean and how much power do you lose when they are dirty?
We had the opportunity to conduct a unique dirt test recently. Our drought conditions had become quite bad and everything on our property was covered in dirt/dust, including two identical solar panels that we have mounting on our roof. We decided to clean only one of them and then see how the outputs compared.
[t]http://solarroadways.com/images/faq/dirty panel test.jpg[/t]
After one of the panels was cleaned,we monitored their performance throughout the day. It was sunny that day, and we learned that the clean panel produced less than 9-percent more power than the dirt covered panel. So even if we find that it's difficult to keep the panels clean, it may not be the issue many expect.
Most roads with high speed vehicles keep themselves pretty clean, as most small particles are blown off by the passing vehicles, with the exception of spills from oil, transmission fluid etc. There is a very common natural element called titanium dioxide, which turns substances like oil and grease into a powder that would be blown off by wind or washed away by rain. It's currently used on building facades to keep them clean. Spraying a road surface with titanium dioxide or a similar coating may solve the problem. Once we are able to hire a team (by meeting our goal on Indiegogo or working with an investor) we'll put some people to work on this very problem. Quite likely other solutions will be found that we haven't thought about just yet.
There will be some obvious obstacles such as oil spills, sandstorms, storm debris, etc. Here's the worst case scenario: if all else fails, we can replace snow plows with street sweepers where needed (vehicles with large rotating brushes). They're used here in Idaho in the spring to clear the roads of the sand that was used for traction during the winter months.[/quote]
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;44892046]Disregarding the ridiculous installation, maintenance, and upkeep costs, how long are these supposed to last, and what kind of weight, temperature, and various other tolerances will they have? Will they shatter when enough force is applied?
They talk about things like pressure sensitivity. What happens when you have a landslide and an enormous rock hits the road? With conventional asphalt, you come in with a grader, and pour new stuff in less than a day. Maybe a load of gravel or dirt to fill in a hole. With this, you have a good shot of having the underlying structure damaged, and that's tons of specialized material to bring in and replace.
This stuff strikes me as one of those "In a perfect world" things. In an ideal situation this might not be terrible. It would certainly be expensive. In reality, these are probably ludicrously impractical.[/QUOTE]
The idea came from a couple, one of whom is a specialist in glass engineering. Their stuff has already been through practical and theoretical tests, and will go through countless more. Dismissing it as if it must be impossible doesn't do anything for anyone. If they continue to pass the tests, will you continue to dismiss it as impossible?
The road is built as modular segments. There would ultimately be factories across the country manufacturing these to be placed wherever necessary. It's possible that a wider range of damage could be repaired more easily and more completely than with conventional roads. Should these experience issues comparable to potholes, a replacement section would be inserted rather than a temporary fill until a resurfacing can take place.
The cost estimates I've seen for their system isn't much more expensive than traditional roads, and our current roads have a ton of issues already. If we didn't already have a highway systems, I bet the same issues would be raised against it about how impossibly expensive it is, how impractical to maintain it would be, etc.
[QUOTE=Thy Reaper;44898797]The idea came from a couple, one of whom is a specialist in glass engineering. Their stuff has already been through practical and theoretical tests, and will go through countless more. Dismissing it as if it must be impossible doesn't do anything for anyone. If they continue to pass the tests, will you continue to dismiss it as impossible?
The road is built as modular segments. There would ultimately be factories across the country manufacturing these to be placed wherever necessary. It's possible that a wider range of damage could be repaired more easily and more completely than with conventional roads. Should these experience issues comparable to potholes, a replacement section would be inserted rather than a temporary fill until a resurfacing can take place.[/QUOTE]
If something damages the frame that you put these into, you by default have to invest a considerable amount into repairing that. So, frost heave, erosion, or just a good old fashioned impact, can all cause massive structural damage.
[QUOTE=Thy Reaper;44898797]The cost estimates I've seen for their system isn't much more expensive than traditional roads, and our current roads have a ton of issues already. If we didn't already have a highway systems, I bet the same issues would be raised against it about how impossibly expensive it is, how impractical to maintain it would be, etc.[/QUOTE]
How. No seriously. How. You need a concrete frame, a huge amount of wiring, and the spacing on it all requires significant prefabrication. With a conventional road, you run over stuff with a grater, drop a bunch of gravel and other non compatible filling material on top, then slap a layer or two of asphalt on top and call it a day.
With this, you still need to do all of that, but instead of asphalt, you put a frame on top of the gravel base. This frame is far more complicated than basic asphalt, and is by itself going to be more expensive. At this point you still don't even have a road. Then you need to put in the actual road surface, which is enormously expensive per square inch compared to asphalt.
But somehow all this is cheaper because they've got solar panels right? Not unless they have invented magical solar panels that somehow work better than the best solar panels in the world right now, while being in less than ideal conditions, and everything else.
Seems every question in their FAQ has an answer which surpasses possibility. You could probably tell them the LEDs would attract bugs and they'd answer by suggesting the invention of a bug zapper on top of the hexagonal squares...
In my opinion, you could probably combat this entire project by merely producing road-side solar panels along major stretches of highway and investing the money into an affordable, strong, and resistant mix to replace concrete and asphalt.
For some reason, I don't think this will ever happen in our lifetime. It is just too far fetched.
Also the foundation will still depend on asphalt and concrete or some other mix. The weight load of semis and other vehicles passing over pannels would eventually just wear out the concrete beneath the pannels, requiring the same amount of repair as before.
Good luck getting this to work in the UK.
Fuck, let's just assume that they actually did have magical solar panels that trashed everything else that existed right now. Why would it not be a better idea to install those panels in ideal locations and situations and use that power to do all this crap on the roads?
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;44899024]If something damages the frame that you put these into, you by default have to invest a considerable amount into repairing that. So, frost heave, erosion, or just a good old fashioned impact, can all cause massive structural damage.
How. No seriously. How. You need a concrete frame, a huge amount of wiring, and the spacing on it all requires significant prefabrication. With a conventional road, you run over stuff with a grater, drop a bunch of gravel and other non compatible filling material on top, then slap a layer or two of asphalt on top and call it a day.
With this, you still need to do all of that, but instead of asphalt, you put a frame on top of the gravel base. This frame is far more complicated than basic asphalt, and is by itself going to be more expensive. At this point you still don't even have a road. Then you need to put in the actual road surface, which is enormously expensive per square inch compared to asphalt.
But somehow all this is cheaper because they've got solar panels right? Not unless they have invented magical solar panels that somehow work better than the best solar panels in the world right now, while being in less than ideal conditions, and everything else.[/QUOTE]
The frame is neither special nor complicated. The tiles get placed in the frame and connect to each other, then to the channel where power and data runs. Damage to the frame would not be catastrophic, and easier to repair than a road where the surface has to be sufficiently smooth. Any other general issues with construction of the frame applies equally to existing roads, and aren't problems that are already solved in general.
The segments on top will almost certainly be more expensive. However, their ability to generate power and be individually repaired, and the relative strength of the glass compared to road materials that are essentially expected to break in fairly short spans of time, they can be cost effective. If some of the panels break to where they stop displaying data, detecting information, or collecting energy, that's just fine. The whole system is built of massive redundancy.
You know I'm gonna throw a few dollars at these guys, even with all this skepticism I have. I'm glad that people are trying to think these things out. At least somebody is trying.
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;44899221]Fuck, let's just assume that they actually did have magical solar panels that trashed everything else that existed right now. Why would it not be a better idea to install those panels in ideal locations and situations and use that power to do all this crap on the roads?[/QUOTE]
Adding the solar panels is relatively simple compared to everything else involved. Once you have a roadway with the specially designed glass, the distributed power system so it can light up, the electronics for that to work, etc, why not also put comparatively cheap panels in the voids?
It's not like this is stopping the deployment of solar power anywhere else.
I couldn't care less about any of the eco-yuppie bullshit they're spewing. But I like these. The roads where I live, in particular, are rather rudely ignored by the county come wintertime. The road my driveway is actually on only gets plowed if one of the local farmers decides to do it, and the main arteries out here only get plowed when the town itself is cleared. It can be a good three or four days before the snow's dealt with. The roads being able to clear themselves would solve that handily. I also like how it lights up to warn you of deer around blind corners...I'm a safe enough driver that it's never damaged anything but I've still hit three of the fucking things out here. Knowing in advance because the roadway told me they're there is an amazing perk.
So yeah. Roll that shit out already.
Not buying into this shit.
Answering the cost question with JOBS and ECONOMY BOOST.
yeah, bullshit, still comes down to cost.
[QUOTE=Thy Reaper;44899873]Adding the solar panels is relatively simple compared to everything else involved. Once you have a roadway with the specially designed glass, the distributed power system so it can light up, the electronics for that to work, etc, why not also put comparatively cheap panels in the voids?
It's not like this is stopping the deployment of solar power anywhere else.[/QUOTE]
Because by throwing them elsewhere you can utilize the panels more efficiently. You are going to get garbage for returns on any back road because of tree cover alone, let alone everything mentioned previously about opacity, angles, etc. I'd wager it would also significantly decrease the cost of producing these to separate the panels for a variety of reasons. You don't need to care nearly as much about the opacity of the glass, and the structure of the panels can be significantly altered when you don't have to worry about providing a large area for the panels.
Not to mention you wouldn't be tied to any specific panel type/configuration.
[QUOTE=Thy Reaper;44899855]Damage to the frame would not be catastrophic, [b]and easier to repair than a road where the surface has to be sufficiently smooth[/b]. Any other general issues with construction of the frame applies equally to existing roads, and aren't problems that are already solved in general.[/QUOTE]
What?
If you have a minor divot when throwing down gravel for the foundation a conventional road, then you just pave over it. Asphalt is not a solid, but rather an extremely viscous liquid when heated, so minor deviations in the terrain are an absolute non issue. OK, so maybe your newly paved road has a few spots where its a few inches taller or lower than ideal. Who cares? As long as it's not a sharp bump it doesn't matter. It's trivial to the extent that when resurfacing most back roads (at least in my area) for half a dozen cycles, they just cart in several inches of fine gravel coated in tar, and run a steam roller over it once or twice, potholes and all, to generate a new smooth surface. In a week is packs down and you have a pristine road surface.
Unless you have major holes, or have already paved over a section half a dozen times, you just pave over it again. Cheap materials, and very little work involved.
I'm sure you could come up with a fairly simple way to pour the frames in place similar to how a lot of highways are built, since the frames are after all just concrete. However, the molds are still more complicated than the basic highway square slabs, so you are still left with a road that is more expensive to lay [i]just the frame[/i] for than a conventional road. That's still not including the surface of the actual road.
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;44899024]How. No seriously. How. You need a concrete frame, a huge amount of wiring, and the spacing on it all requires significant prefabrication. With a conventional road, you run over stuff with a grater, drop a bunch of gravel and other non compatible filling material on top, then slap a layer or two of asphalt on top and call it a day.
With this, you still need to do all of that, but instead of asphalt, you put a frame on top of the gravel base. This frame is far more complicated than basic asphalt, and is by itself going to be more expensive. At this point you still don't even have a road. Then you need to put in the actual road surface, which is enormously expensive per square inch compared to asphalt.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, the tiles are more expensive than asphalt. No one's denying that, but then they output power over their lifetime which helps pay them off.
[QUOTE=CanadianBill;44900992]Yeah, the tiles are more expensive than asphalt. No one's denying that, but then they output power over their lifetime which helps pay them off.[/QUOTE]
Except: power output vs cost + cost in pollution from production.
Pro tip: power doesn't output where the road doesn't get sufficient sun exposure.
[QUOTE=CanadianBill;44900992]Yeah, the tiles are more expensive than asphalt. No one's denying that, but then they output power over their lifetime which helps pay them off.[/QUOTE]
Which brings us back to the point of:
Solar panels are not seeing universal adoption for general use because they are not cost effective over their life time in all situations as it is. Deliberately putting solar panels in a spot where they are guaranteed to come nowhere close to optimal use is guaranteed to ensure that they are not worth the cost, and that's even if you assume that failure rates of these road tiles will not be higher than a plain old solar panel by itself.
[QUOTE=Azza;44900766]Not buying into this shit.
Answering the cost question with JOBS and ECONOMY BOOST.
yeah, bullshit, still comes down to cost.[/QUOTE]
which is exactly why they have an indiegogo campaign for a million dollars.. no shit it all comes down to cost.
I think it has a few too many problems, just potential for damages and the potential cost of it make it pretty hard to see happening.
Very cool idea and something we need to work on though. Just at a conceptual level, putting our roads to work for us in some sense can't be a bad thing.
Seeing how long it takes these days to fix a few potholes on the highway, if we start installing these now, we will be ready to rock in year 4562.
[QUOTE=endorphinsam;44901684]which is exactly why they have an indiegogo campaign for a million dollars.. no shit it all comes down to cost.[/QUOTE]
What does the campaign have to do with the costs I was referring to? They're gonna have a set cost for each haxagon, and whatever it will be is going to be too much for being laid down anywhere for roads instead of tarmac. It's just to make a quick buck for this company with the campaign.
Does anyone know what the cost of each hexagon or cost of this will actually be? Their indiegogo campaign doesn't mention it, or the youtube video.
It may not be practical for a road system, but I couldn't see it looking out of place as a pathway or paving replacement in foot traffic areas of larger cities.
[QUOTE=yodafart9;44895397]This threads attitude is why it will never happen. :v:[/QUOTE]
And that's good. We need to be skeptical and we need to examine every negative aspect of whatever new thing that's brought to the table.
I disliked the video a lot. I don't even know who it's trying to target.
[QUOTE=Eggy;44902684]It may not be practical for a road system, but I couldn't see it looking out of place as a pathway or paving replacement in foot traffic areas of larger cities.[/QUOTE]
There at least you don't have to have such high durability, but you would still probably want to cut half the claimed features.
And solar panels in the tiles would still be a huge waste because of the shadows cast by the large buildings.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.