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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.
Look, if you were doing rolling charging, there might be some point to this. But if you aren't, there isn't. The best place for the panels is at the point of use. The best point of use is at a vehicle charging station where people park during the day, preferably over the top of a parking garage where the panels will have all the positioning advantages and also add shade to the top level of the garage, or on a convenient flat corporate rooftop where it can be serviced without substantial hazard to workers. The best place for a panel will never, ever be a road surface, and it will usually be a roof — just probably not the roof of your home.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"If a portion of the power might be usable to de-ice the roads?" Sure because ice always forms on roads on bright sunny days right around solar noon.
I have solar panels that produce electricity on non-bright sunny days from morning to afternoon.
I think you are getting your solar power production concepts from 1940's tomes. And I wonder if somehow the power might be stored some way. Naahhhh, that's crazy talk.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Go lookup thunderf00t on YouTube for his explanation as to why solar roadways are a horrible stupid waste of money.
That dude is a fucking idiot...
Sometimes it is a good idea to test this stuff out before jumping into conclusions on why it may be a bad idea.
We are moving from a success reward system to a failure avoidance culture. Lets avoid making things better because there is a chance that someone could make it worse.
Lets try it out, see the failure points and see if those have a workaround.
Vs. hiding our head in fear that it may not work out 100% right at go live.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The idea is pure lunacy. Here's more details on your test cycle path from thunderf00t. They got about half of the power you'd get from putting the solar panels on a roof.
Nope.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC