I was recently completing a project for my Government class which was to create a bill, and my bill happened to be that of placing solar panels on top of businesses and houses. However, that's beside the point I am attempting to establish.
While finding information for my bill, I came across a very interesting project by a company called Solar Roadways. Essentially, the idea of Solar Roadways is to have all of the asphalt roads and parking lots in the USA replaced by durable and effective solar panels. People would be driving right on top of these solar panels. They may seem to be fragile, however, Solar Roadways claims that these roads are "translucent and high-strength, [they are] rough enough to provide great traction, yet still passes sunlight through to the solar collector cells. [They are] capable of handling today's heaviest loads under the worst of conditions. Weatherproof, it protects the electronics layer beneath it." One of the most interesting things is that all power stations in the United States could then be centralized. Currently, this means that if any one power station were to accidentally shut down, whole cities would lose power. However, due to the nature of solar energy, there would almost always be a flow of energy throughout the nation.
I was simply wondering what anyone else would think of this idea. I understand that it would be a gargantuan and expensive project for the United States to go through, but the power of the sun appears to be the most efficient with regards to the current circumstances. If we take the first step towards such a large project, I am certain that other countries would follow.
http://www.solarroadways.com/Introduction.htm
Wow this is an amazing idea. The roads would be self sustaining and at the same time efficient. During the day the track could take in the sunlight and store the energy for later potential uses in society. The stored potential energy could be used to power a public source of transportation(such as a subway) or power other objects in society. For example, all the stored energy from the sun could all be transferred into one or several locations that will divide the energy among public facilities, like hospitals, or homes and reduce the cost of the energy bill for the people and the public facilities. It is a win win situation. The project will cost a lot of money to implement but will be well worth it in the long run.
ReplyDeletethis sounds like an idea that could actually happen in the future. i'm still slgihtly skeptical about how "durable" these roads would be while at the same time allowing enough sunlight to pass through to the collectors to make it worth it. The first thing that comes to mind is what happens with a spill? Such as the truck that was coming down the grapevine last week and ended up rupturing his gas tank, although it did not ignite there, what happens if it were to ignite? Would the road be able to withstand the heat and still be functional without needing major repairs? however i do see how, with testing and testing and well, more testing, i see how this could be a reality in our lifetimes, we have the technology for it and the brains, but, with the way the economy currently is, it still might take awhile. but i would definately want to see this happening
ReplyDeleteMichael, this is a great idea if the US had the money, unfortunately at this time we do not. If we had the money and built these roads it might supply enough energy to the grid that would allow the power to support an electric car for each family in the US. Currently our grid doesn't have enough power to support an electric car for every family which is a major obstacle for electric car manufacturers throughout the world. Electric cars would help reduce our footprint but the current battery technology would waste a great percentage of the initial energy. This got me thinking about a better way to store energy for these future cars. My idea is similar to that of an electric cable car. Roads would be turned into these solar panels but we could add a top layer would be a conductor which would have the ability to transfer energy directly to the electric car's motor system through an abrasive resistant conductor cable or bar. With these electric cars we would use less fossil fuel thus reducing our carbon emissions.
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