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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?"
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.
The prototype tested in the Netherlands had not much success because it failed to glow properly after a rainy day (link). The issue is like with any kind of solar power - it simply does not work if there is no or too little sun.
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?
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The NUMBER ONE infrastructure budgeting problem in America right now is that roads cost too much. Not bridge repair or aging electrical grids or anything like that. Just purely by the dollars, it's the cost of roads. I know! Let's make them more expensive for a reason that solves a problem that doesn't exist. My headlights + titanium fleck paint means I can see the lines just fine. I also don't need the road to literally tell me it's raining or snowing or below zero. The road tells me that already just be looking at it.
I think this would make for an excellent driveway/sidewalk material. It could have motions detectors and be used as lights. During the day, it would work as solar panels. Sidewalks and driveways cost around $5/sq ft for concrete and $10/sq ft for bricks. I think it they cost around $15/sq ft I think a lot of people would go for it, esp if they already have other solar equipment in the house.
I'm sure lots of specialty uses are possible - like casinos or paving Main St with this so it looks really fancy.
I know road budgets are astronomical and so, I would think it would depend a lot on how much these cost to make, maintain and replace. In most cases, labor is at least half the cost and so, it would depend on how much more expensive these are than asphalt.
"Our roads need to be repaired almost constantly. How does this improve the situation? How about a dumb road that does it's job for 80 years straight?"
What the fuck?
Can't you see from the video that these roads are made from hexagons?
And they glow in the dark?
And if these roads get damaged, it can electrocute common nuisances like earthworms, birds, little kids and the like?
And all of these features are solar powered, so you know it is green (except for the toxic chemicals in the solar panels these things deposit in the water supply when it rains).
People like you are why we don't have progress and why some little kids in Asia are choking on smog and you don't care, which makes you a jerk!
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From the FAQ:
What are you going to do about traction? What's going to happen to the surface of the Solar Roadways when it rains?
Everyone naturally pictures sliding out of control on a smooth piece of wet glass! Actually, one of our many technical specs is that it be textured to the point that it provides at least the traction that current asphalt roads offer - even in the rain. We hesitate to even call it glass, as it is far from a traditional window pane, but glass is what it is, so glass is what we must call it.
We sent samples of textured glass to a university civil engineering lab for traction testing. We started off being able to stop a car going 40 mph on a wet surface in the required distance. We designed a more and more aggressive surface pattern until we got a call form the lab one day: we'd torn the boot off of the British Pendulum Testing apparatus! We backed off a little and ended up with a texture that can stop a vehicle going 80 mph in the required distance.
Long-lived roads are too labor and time intensive to build.
Germany seems to manage. But then again, they put their road work out to bid, and generally award the contract to whoever offers the longest warranty. If the state itself is doing the work, they don't have to compete on price or labor efficiency, and it's in the best interests of the people doing the work to consider their future employment options by doing a crappy job, similar to Wally's "I'm going to write myself a minivan!" reaction to the announcement of a "bug bounty" in the Dilbert comic strip.
There's a reason why the joke "The shortest distance between any two points is under construction" is not really that funny in California.
We don't need another source of light pollution.
Then you simply don't understand the laws of physics. Moving something in the air requires fighting gravity constantly, our methods of doing so are far less efficient than the energy lost when matter itself is physically converted to energy fighting gravity, which is so tiny that its effectively undetectable outside of stars.
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They simply won't stand up to the wear and tear.
They talk about how such a road can withstand loads in excess of a quarter million pounds.
Okay. But what about SHEARING FORCES? In a lot of cases this, not straight downward pressure, is what tears up roadways.
You also have heave in the roadways. Now, most roadways are built in such a way that heave is minimized, but there still is some that has to be factored in.
Also, what will weeks/months/years of thermal and physical stresses do to the surface? Here in Chicago, the roadways get replaced every 5-10 years.
How do these things handle a puddle of burning gasoline from an accident? Or howsabout an entire carbecue raging away on the surface?
And once the surface is breached (and it WILL be breached), you have an environmental hazard on your hands.
And how much will it cost to build these things? Compare the coverage to an asphalt or reinforced concrete roadway on materials cost alone. Not to mention the specialty labor for installation. ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE.
You're also going to be installing this expensive road surface in areas that traditionally don't get much sun.
Rush hour anyone?
Currently, most solar cells STILL don't make back their manufacturing costs within the lifetime of the product.
As for loss of transparency due to wear? "It is thought to have a maximum reduction" basically means "They don't know, but they'll ass-pull a number out for you."
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THANK GOD!!!
Seconded. Frankly, the lighting situation at night is bad enough. Car manufacturers keep uping the brightness of their headlights. Some of the newer models are damn near blinding, even without their high-beams on, at least to me. Suddenly the whole road is glowing? I think I'd probably have to cease driving after dark.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
I feel sorry for Smart Roads. They're so smart, deep down they must realize how many miles of Dumb Roads could have been built for the same money.
I feel sorry for those embedded hexagonal tiles too. They must have known as the grout hardened around them that it was a one way trip into a soul-less, sorry-ass world. At the semiconductor plant there was so much optimism and excitement, everyone was buzzing about becoming an integral part of the ongoing man-machine synergy. Of course when everyone graduates from silicon college they all think they'll be the ones to stretch Shannon's limits and change information states in an intricate dance party of information-sharing, everyone connected. But what happens is, so many are diverted to become these simple blinky-light drone units on a lonely road as countless strangers fly over them. Heartless strangers. And through the cruel geometry of the hexagon, only six adjacent units to keep them company. For ETERNITY.
Covered with tempered glass for Pete's sake. Even the glass is pissed off by this idea, it has already lost its temper as it is being cemented into place. I'm glass goddammit, roads are like playgrounds where all the kids are mean and gravel and skidding tires are everywhere. Gravel hurts. The glass knows its glorious transparency and reflectivity will soon be gouged and cratered, the pane dissolves into a translucent pain of dwindling light.
The solar cells under the doomed glass are perhaps the saddest of all. To lose their photon stream bit by bit until a mere trickle of current escapes them is purgatory without end. Soon all of them will be barely functional, trapped under road, when they could have been some where out in the sunshine.
It is merciful when a load of dirt just covers them up on the shoulder and just hardens there, they can settle in for a nap.
During the first frost of Winter everyone in the hexagonal array is overjoyed when the heating wires kicked in and electrons begin to jump out of their shells once more. But soon it was obvious that something was very wrong. "Hey, ease off! There's delicate electronics in here!" But trapped within their isolated pockets of trapped heat they realize that no one can hear their cries. The heat element, though it can deliver a continuous torment to the components inside, would never melt a thick layer of ice. "Someone duid not do the math. Help us!"
But no help comes, and soon the project hits cost overruns is abandoned. One day the control signals go silent, and once again a wave of dismay sweeps across the trapped colony of orphaned electronics. There is no more purpose in life, but thanks to the cruel embedding of solar cells, life will go on.
It's all just so damned horrible.
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