Slashdot Mirror
Historic Route 66 To Feature Solar Road Technology (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) has announced plans to upgrade a small stretch of the historic Route 66 roadway with solar-powered panels. The panels, which are created by Solar Roadways, can support the weight of cars, feature built-in LEDs to create light-up road markings, and can be used to generate electricity to donate back to the grid. The company has won a number of contracts with the U.S. Department of Transportation, though it's unlikely we'll see solar-powered roadways throughout the country anytime soon. MoDOT said it hopes to lay the first panels starting with the Historic Route 66 Welcome Center by the end of the year, The Kansas City Star reports. SolarCity released a new report recently that says their solar power systems have a usable lifetime of at least 35 years, which is 40% longer than what the market expects.
The concept of "solar roadways" has already been so thoroughly debunked, it's totally unbelievable that anyone would fund them.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Everything about this article is pretty much garbage. Let's pick this apart.
The solar panels are being installed in a sidewalk as a test to see if they might be viable in other places like roads. Nobody is installing solar panels in roads yet.
Potholes shouldn't be an issue because the solar panels include a heating element, which should prevent many issues with thermal expansion and being covered with snow and ice. Despite what Slashdot commenters think, people have actually thought of these problems.
The goal here is to generate electricity and reduce maintenance costs. There are a huge number of interstate and state highways in Missouri. I-70 is in serious need of upgrades to improve the interchanges in the middle of Missouri and to add an extra lane statewide. But it's also necessary to maintain other major highways like I-44, I-55, I-35, I-49, and I-29. Plus you have a lot of state highways, especially in areas like Saint Louis and Kansas City. Then you also have these lettered state highways throughout the state that are roughly similar to the Farm-to-market roads in Texas. And there are also significant upgrades needed for bridges over the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in the Saint Louis area. All of this is pretty damn expensive and, as a result, Missouri's highways aren't as good as the highways in some of the surrounding states.
If you can cut maintenance costs and add another revenue stream, that's a good thing. It's a lot easier than trying to make I-70 a toll road, which has been discussed and met with a lot of opposition. It's not clear if these solar roads are viable, but it's worth testing and finding out.