Are Glowing, Solar Smart Roads the Future?

cartechboy (2660665) writes "We were just talking about glow-in-the-dark roads and how they were having issues already. Now there's a company called Solar Roadways that's looking to make glowing, solar, smart roads. Back in 2009 the Department of Transportation awarded Solar Roadways $100,000 to prototype road systems with embedded digital signage and dividing lines, all powered by the sun. As it turns out, the company's prototype performed well — so well that Solar Roadways is now looking to go big-time, and it's asking for your help to do so. At the heart of the Solar Roadways project sit a vast number of hexagonal tiles. The bottom of those tiles consist of solar panels and circuit boards, covered with a thick sheet of tempered glass. The panels contain LED lights, which can be configured to mark traffic lanes, send messages, or fulfill other functions. The panels also have heating elements to help melt snow and ice during colder months. Are these smart roads the future, or just another pipe dream?"

Comments

Pipe Dream I suspect

[Camel Pilot]

What is going to prevent these plates from getting scratched and rendered useless shortly by studded tires, gravel, snow plows, etc.

i think solar roof tiles is a much better idea.

Re:Pipe Dream I suspect

[stoploss]

Using solar PV for keeping snow off roads would be dumb. Thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious.

Your "Captain Obvious" comments would be better directed to Solar Roadways, who are marketing this PV system and touting its electrically-powered snow melting functionality (again, apparently grid-tied power draw to provide the radiant heat). "We designed our panels so the heaters are driven by the grid..."

I'm not entirely convinced they're legit, given this apparent cost of operation oversight (or misleading marketing). I will also note that they are using indiegogo to beg for donations rather than kickstarter. With indiegogo they get to keep all donated monies even if they don't reach their goal. They are trying to get money to scale up for production, but they claim they don't have any idea what their production costing would be. So, that's also "interesting".

Read their FAQ. For example, they claim their tiles can't be stolen because the other tiles in the roadway would wirelessly track a removed tile. Apparently they haven't heard of Faraday cages, either. If meth heads can manage to perform organic chemistry, I guarantee they can rig a functional Faraday cage.

Costs?!??

[ErikTheRed]

I've seen a pile of articles on this, and never once in them has anybody even scratched the topic of cost. Which would kind of be important, one would thing. Turns out, they don't know or aren't saying. From their FAQ:

"We are not yet able to give numbers on cost. We are still in the midst of our Phase II contract with the Federal Highway Administration and we'll be analyzing our prototype costs near the end of our contract which ends in July, 2014. Afterward, we'll be able to do a production-style cost analysis."

There are a hundred billion cool ideas out there, but if they're not cost effective than who cares?