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

May as well bring back steam trains

[tjstork]

The single biggest reason that steam locomotives lost out to diesels was because of the added cost of handling all of the water to boil. So, if we're going to run water under every road in the USA, forgetting for a moment that it would cost a ton of money and accomplish little in return, we may as well throw up a few water towers too for the old steam locomotives.

problems

[ILuvRamen]

I live in Wisconsin so believe me when I say putting warm water on a road to de-ice it is a very, very, very bad idea. Also if all the heated water tubes would be connected to a central area where they could turb a turbine, you'd lose so much heat from the transport (since the underground is cold) it wouldn't be cost effective. Now an actually good use would be hooking up people's waterheaters to the reverse radiation network of tubes under the road and let the road heat the water to supplement the water heater's job to save a lot of electricity or propane.