Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: "Solar freaking roadways"  (Read 6554 times)

ArkAngel

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 404
  • The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do
    • View Profile
"Solar freaking roadways"
« on: May 28, 2014, 05:57:30 PM »

So you may or may not have already heard about this project that is ongoing currently called Solar roadways. If you haven't, well its best described as a modular paving system of solar panels that can withstand the heaviest of trucks (250,000 pounds). Sounds a bit crazy, but I think it seems like a rather good idea if a bit exspensive to actually put inplace of roads. The project was started up by two people and they have received two phases of funding from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration for research and development of a paving system. They also started up an indie go go campaign at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways which has already reached their goal of one million dollars. While I find this impressive and rather interesting, I'm curious to whether anyone else thinks its feasible.
Logged
"Yes... Yes I -am- sending you, alone, unarmed, against the might of the Hegemony defense fleet.  Not to worry - watching how they obliterate your puny frigate will be most... enlightening.  I shall dissect their tactics and emerge victorious!  Any questions? Then get to your ship, you launch in 5."

TJJ

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1905
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #1 on: May 28, 2014, 08:24:32 PM »

Can't fault their enterprising spirit, though all of the costings I've been able to find seem very like "back of a beer mat" computations.

Also overhauling the architecture of a network as vital & pervasive as the road network in a piecemeal fashion would be a logistics nightmare.
Logged

FasterThanSleepyfish

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 727
  • Blub
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #2 on: May 28, 2014, 08:29:29 PM »

I think that the payoff would be worth it. I would expect development to go slowly, of course, but that's how these sorts of massive/idealistic projects go.  :D
Logged

Sathe

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 43
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #3 on: May 28, 2014, 08:57:30 PM »

Massive scam, they actually never said: "well, once we will have 1,5 Mil usd we will build road". They said: "give us 100 USD, we will photoshop road around your house if you want"... I suppose this is how moneys are made these days..
« Last Edit: May 31, 2014, 06:56:22 AM by Sathe »
Logged

Tartiflette

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3529
  • MagicLab discord: https://discord.gg/EVQZaD3naU
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2014, 12:08:45 AM »

Right now the solar panel technology isn't mature enough. They are extremely polluting to produce, uses all kind of already rare material, and most of all: have a limited lifetime while not being recyclable at all! With windmills they are the worst kind of "green" energy source you can find but hey, it's good PR: "look I produce clean energy on my roof, who cares if entire Chinese city suffers massive brain damage from the water polluted by the silica mines"...
This idea was suggested 10 years ago while a rather revolutionary photovoltaic coating was developed by some US university (if I recall right) That way you could have spayed the roads and roofs to make energy, much much more efficient. I don't know what became of this idea, maybe it wasn't efficient enough.
If you really want to go green energy, go for geothermal, underwater turbines, dynamos plugged into treadmill (yes it is an actual thing), tidal power, or fusion (that one would be good). Those are reliable, robust but cost more and aren't as shiny.
Logged
 

BillyRueben

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1406
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #5 on: May 29, 2014, 01:23:23 PM »

Regular maintenance on current roadways is already expensive and time consuming, let alone the massive cost in "switching over".
Logged

Linnis

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1009
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #6 on: May 30, 2014, 09:07:58 PM »

fantasy project with no realworld value. PR for stupid people, aka scams.

Nuclear is the only solution to the world energy problem. Solar and wind are only good in very spicific places and applications.

Just like human carbon immisions causing global warming.
Just like genetically altered foods are bad for human health.
the list goes on in to history. Always do research before beliving in something
Logged

xenoargh

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 5078
  • naively breaking things!
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #7 on: May 30, 2014, 09:51:30 PM »

Logged
Please check out my SS projects :)
Xeno's Mod Pack

TJJ

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1905
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #8 on: May 31, 2014, 10:13:49 AM »

fantasy project with no realworld value. PR for stupid people, aka scams.

Nuclear is the only solution to the world energy problem. Solar and wind are only good in very spicific places and applications.

Just like human carbon immisions causing global warming.
Just like genetically altered foods are bad for human health.
the list goes on in to history. Always do research before beliving in something

wut?
Logged

Thule

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 580
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #9 on: May 31, 2014, 11:55:49 AM »

Logged

JDCollie

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 261
    • View Profile
    • My Youtube Channel
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2014, 01:17:29 PM »

fantasy project with no realworld value. PR for stupid people, aka scams.

Nuclear is the only solution to the world energy problem. Solar and wind are only good in very spicific places and applications.

Just like human carbon immisions causing global warming.
Just like genetically altered foods are bad for human health.
the list goes on in to history. Always do research before beliving in something
You're a bit behind on the global warming conversation if you are still stuck on human caused global warming. Yes, climatologists are aware that the warming and cooling of the globe is a natural process. It is their job to know. What is being argued by the scientific community is that human greenhouse gas emissions have radically accelerated that process, and that such acceleration is potentially dangerous.

Just as dangerous as believing everything you're told without doing research is ignoring evidence simply because it doesn't agree with your agenda.


I will agree with the roadway thing though. I can't possible see how that would be financially feasible, even if production didn't have serious environmental issues. I mean, you're talkiing about ripping out thousands of miles of roads, replacing the roadbed with a concrete duct system, the installing the road in like two foot wide networked hexagonal solar cells. That is a public works project on a scale that hasn't been seen in the United States since World War II.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2014, 01:20:29 PM by JDCollie »
Logged

FlashFrozen

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 988
    • View Profile
Re: "Solar freaking roadways"
« Reply #11 on: June 08, 2014, 11:20:42 AM »

Distributed power system are great in theory, but they rarely work in reality because the costs of such infrastructure. It may of worked if (evverything in the panels) it was cheaper and we didn't have a system in built in place ( replacing can be just as expensive as construction sometimes. )

and low cost high volume manufacturing tends to produce less efficient things, so why spend $100 millions worth of low-grade-but-cheap panels that produce 75 kilowatts when you can consolidate it to buy 100 million of good panels that maybe better positioned produce 125 kilowatts.

Or else why wouldn't we just all have home electric generators instead of relying on powerplants.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2014, 11:33:10 AM by FlashFrozen »
Logged