Solar paneled road surface - generate energy by replacing asphalt

[Kablooie]

First test of the pedestrian warning system: When the kids step onto the crosswalk panel, the Road Panel warns drivers to slow down. In an actual system, the road would warn drivers in plenty of time to stop. The wildlife protection feature will work in much the same way:

The Solar Roadway™ is a series of structurally-engineered solar panels that are driven upon. The idea is to replace all current petroleum-based asphalt roads, parking lots, and driveways with Solar Road Panels™ that collect and store solar energy to be used by our homes and businesses. This renewable energy replaces the need for the current fossil fuels used for the generation of electricity. This, in turn, cuts greenhouse gases literally in half.

It will take roughly five billion 12' by 12' Solar Road Panels™ just to cover the roads, parking lots, and driveways in the United States. Imagine the manufacturing requirements: it will create so many new jobs that it may very well become the "New Deal" of the 21st century. We can retrain workers from obsolete jobs such as coal miners and asphalt workers with new "Green Collar" jobs. Unemployment rates will plummet. Vast sums of money will be injected back into our economy. This could create the biggest mobilization this country has seen since WWII.

http://solarroadways.com/news.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. That is so very cooool.

[AwakeAtLast]

2. Genius

Very cool!

[HillbillyBob]

3. Are these guys fans of Robert A Heinlein ?

Very like the 'roads must roll' proposed story line in which Momma Maureen made a fortune (total fiction Im not even sure that particular story made it to the press).
Read To Sail Beyond the Sunset(nice cover art by the way..if you like Venus on the half shel as a Redhead) One of my fav books.

Heinlien occasionally refers to himself as 'Cassandra with a cracked Crystal Ball' and I have read much of his published works getting chills along the way when I saw some of his forecasts come almost true. His prognostications have an eerie relation to truth if not in the time-line he states.

[nashville_brook]

4. we totally thought of this just two days ago!! dammit. i hate it when that happens.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. I'm trying to picture them in use where there's snowplow use and frost heaves, but otherwise that

is wicked cool!

[Kablooie]

7. On the website they discuss the possibility of having internal heating to prevent icing up.

And they will be made from specially hardened glass.

[tinrobot]

8. Not just snow - dirt, grease, brake dust, tire rubber, etc...

These things are not going to be easy to keep clean, and dirty solar cells are inefficient solar cells.

[PhD]

9. Not to mention bitter cold winters versus blazing hot summers

These things will have to be pretty robust to survive the thermal cycles in my climate.

[PavePusher]

11. Or water...

Braking on wet glass does not seem like a genius idea...

[Wednesdays]

6. Down Slow?

:shrug:


It reminds me of old neighborhood signs that read,

Slow
Children Play Here

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Replace *all* asphalt roadways with this? What are they smoking?

Let's see some arithmetic on the energy and $$$ that would require first.