Use of Asphalt Paved Surfaces For Solar Heat

vg30e writes "It seems that a company in the Netherlands has found a way to use asphalt paved surfaces as solar heat collectors. Flexible tubes under the surface of the road collect heat from asphalt pavement using water as the working liquid. The heated water is stored underground for later use in defrosting the road, or heating buildings. With all the miles of highway in the continental US, this might be a viable way of collecting massive amounts of thermal energy."

Comments

Re:Cement

[Planesdragon]

In the county where I live in upstate NY, the Republicans have had a majority since the early 80's, and we use asphalt for paving and repairs on all of the county roads. In the surrounding counties, the Democrats use a mix. It's interesting how politics affect so many things that you wouldn't think of. Name names, asshat.

I've never seen a road patched with dissimilar materials, nor could I imagine it being done for any reason other than cost. In Albany we've got a bundle of cobblestones under the roads, so we get cracks no matter what we put down. In Oneida, I lived on a gravel-and-tar road for ten years, that got a new "top coat" every year or two.

And I lived a few years in Saratoga County --which has a Republican Majority -- and found the roads to be as crappy as they were in the rest of the state. Worse, actually, when you account for the increased per-acre tax base Saratoga had.

Heck, I've never even heard of a Republican arguing that we need to raise money to completely re-do our broken roads. Not once. And in the five places I've lived in this country, the roads only ever get fixed when there's enough money to fix them.

What mythical republican island do you live in where roads are paved, while equally-well-funded neighboring counties waste their money by cutting corners to make more work for themselves?

Re:You're no engineer

[tjstork]

The only reason you do it is to try to make yourself look smart, but that only works at places like digg where the audience are idiots too. Here, people see shit like that and they laugh at you.

I don't really care about "here". I'm not writing to persuade the unpersuadable - everyone here thinks they are a genius and they yell past each other more than communicate. I'm writing to appeal to a right wing audience for a political campaign in the future. If I have a good track record of battling the liberals online, then, I get good political points from them. It doesn't matter if I win.

And, in that vein, let's ask some harder questions about this, since you've thought it through. Let's do it one state, say, Delaware.

a) Where exactly are you going to do this, because the major interstate, I95, is an overpass, where all the buildings are in Wilmington.

b) How far away can a building be from the road to get some heat benefit?

c) Where's the electricity coming from for the pumps.

d) How much water and what kind are going into the ground. Do you have computer models that accurately predict what might happen to the acquifer? Will this impact the Chesapeake or the Delaware River? Or even the Christina River?

Barney it up to 10,000 feet. The whole point of your plan is that, all you smart people screwed up the atmosphere with the last energy project(s), and now you want us dumb people to let you use the ground instead for a new energy project. We don't even know what's going on in the atmosphere, and now you are going to make the rash claim that underground has no impact?

The proposal is so ridiculous, that the one who is absurd is you for even suggesting that we build such a monster.