Here in broken California, we can’t hardly get Cal-Trans to complete regular asphalt roadways on time or on budget. While this is a nice idea, and in a perfect world it might be a perfect solution, I don’t think it will be adopted quickly by cash-strapped state governments. OTOH, maybe Federal subsidies from carbon taxes imposed by the EPA?
The design features embedded LED lights for markers. But, it’s a trouble magnet for some kids to hack the system like has been done with construction signs. This passage from the article really told me though that he doesn’t have a clue:
Brusaw says that the solar road would cost about $4.4M per mile, but those costs are offset by not needing to build coal plants, install utility poles, and build relay stations. “The taxpayers are already paying for all of these.
Umm, there’s coal power plants being built in the USA at taxpayer expense?
Solar-Powered Glass Road Could Melt Snow Automatically
By John Brandon, Fox News
It’s being called snowmageddon – and for good reason. Snow and ice are wreaking havoc all across the United States with record wind chills and more precipitation than Siberia on a bad day. If your commute is taking three times as long as it usually does, go ahead and blame the archaic highway system.
That’s right. In the 1950s, the idea of paving America with black asphalt seemed like a good idea. Now, 60 years later, we’re still using it — and still sliding all over the road.
But what if the road itself could change?
That’s the dream for Scott Brusaw, who has a novel idea for dealing with snowy roads: replace them with a glass surface embedded with solar cells that generate power from the sun and store it in batteries for use at night. In his view, such a proliferation of solar cells could also help solve our ongoing dependence on fossil fuels, because they could feed excess electric power into the grid. He has even developed illuminated lane markings that change according to current road conditions.
His company, Solar Roadways is waiting for approval on a new $750,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) that will help him build a large-scale prototype to test new materials and electronics, and hopefully prove that his invention works.
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Oh, BTW, there’s a reason you want your solar cells clean. They are switched in series to build up enough voltage to drive an inverter. Dirt on the road would make single cells lose their voltage, and the performance of an entire series of cells drops disproportionally. ATM we switch several panels in series; some companies offer micro inverters that work with a single panel ( i don’t know how efficient those are), but nobody offers inverters that work with single cells.
So – solar cells under dirt – no energy.
Ser ,
I think the LEDs are supposed to light the road markings like the center stripe .
Beyond stupid. Asphalt rises and falls in price. Their asphalt price assumptions are based on peak values from (apparently) 2008. Obviously, they don’t know their asphalt.
The entire concept is flawed, from materials of construction to installation and maintenance. Where are Sen. William Proxmire and his “Golden Fleece” awards when we most need them?
The $4.4 million per mile estimate is pure fantasy.
Underground high voltage transmission lines alone cost about $1m/mile installed.
And regular PV panels that aren’t design to be drive on are about $8 per watt for total installed system cost. If you get 100 watts per sq yd and the road is 10 yards across, that is $8,000 per linear yard for the PV components. So, about $14m per mile for the pv components.
Add about 50% because your dealing with two different heavily unionized industries that don’t traditionally work together plus ruggedization costs and you’d be lucky to get this kind of system built for less than $22.5m per mile.
At this price, each 50 mile segment would buy you a 1GW coal plant or a 1GW nuke plant if the NRC didn’t exist. Plus, you wouldn’t have to close the road every time you had a generation plant component failure.
Brusaw says keeping the roads clean enough for the solar cells to operate would not be a problem. He suggests using a chemical spray, such as titanium dioxide, which would prevent dirt accumulation and even turn oil deposits into a sandy mix.
“Worst case, we can use squeegee trucks to replace snow plows,” he says.
I think a yellow brick road would be more useful. 😉
Well at least they’ll create new jobs . . . Horizontal window cleaner – or glass rubber scrubbers. :p
Worth a test. Build a quarter mile somewhere. Or build six quarter mile sections, in six parts of the nation. Watch what happens.
If the test road is swiftly smashed to smitherines, be wary. You can bet that some person will suggest the problem is that our cars are too big and too heavy. We will be asked to drive around in 98-pound bubbles, with our knees up by our chins, and our backs all hunched over.
In Vermont they have spent $millions over several decades trying to build 3 miles of a 2 lane road and the still haven’t build any of it, because of environmentalists from Mass complained. But even if they could get over the objections of environmentalists this would never work there, where they really could use self cleaning roads.
First they don’t get enough sunlight especailly when it snow. Second it is so cold the batteries wouldn’t store the energy long enough. Third it is hilly so the sections wouldn’t fit together well. So like so many bright idea from these type of people, this one works better where it isn’t needed.
One word: Crap.
We have what are affectionately referred to as “frost heaves” on our roads every spring due to freezing and thawing. One winter in New Hampshire and this road is toast…
Perhaps something like pressure transducers to convert the vehicle weight or acceleration/braking torque into current? Same basic concept but without a lot of the drawbacks.
I know…..just put giant squeegees on all the cars!
The original article is ludicrous:
Where do you even start?
“Brusaw says that the solar road would cost about $4.4M per mile […] When a road needs to be repaved anyway, why not replace the oil-based asphalt […]“
It is way too expensive. According to Generic Cost Per Mile Models cost per mile for milling and resurfacing a 2 lane rural road with 5′ paved shoulders (the kind shown in the picture, although I wonder if any paved shoulder is to be found under that snow at sides) is $381,214.82, which is only 8.7% of the cost projected by Brusaw. Even new construction of the same kind using old technology is said to be $1,472,830.90 per mile, one third of a fancy glass road.
Therefore road construction alone never justifies the investment, the bulk of the money should come back from additional benefits mentioned in the article. Would any sane person pay three or four million bucks for a mile of these improvements?
As there’s about 4 million miles of roadway in the US, the additional cost would be more than 12 trillion dollars, having the same order of magnitude as the current public debt ($14.13 trillion as of January 31, 2011, close to the annual GDP). Insanity.
Nah , PJB, just embed coils in the roads and require all vehicles to have large magnets fitted underneath them.
God help us but where do we get all these scammers and why are they even the time of day by politicians?
Don’t know if this logic violation has been mentioned, but how does a road with snow on it generate enough energy to melt the snow, especially at night when the surface temperature is pretty much guaranteed to be colder than it was during the day? And if it could be used to melt the snow at night, why wouldn’t it be used to melt the snow during the day?
Perhaps Fred Pearce can do an article to clear the air and unravel the mysteries.
Frank K. says:
February 6, 2011 at 2:16 pm
We have what are affectionately referred to as “frost heaves” on our roads every spring due to freezing and thawing. One winter in New Hampshire and this road is toast…
Hey Frank, back in America I still own a house and property in Vermont(howdy neighbor…) and my first thought was also FROST HEAVES.
Does anyone remember our Brilliant Secretary Chu proposing that we paint all our highways white so that they reflect the heat back into space. Could he be the one subsidizing (with your tax dollars) both of these schemes at the same time?
Also it seems to me that the areas that get the most snow also get the least sun in the winter when the snow falls?
Two words.
Chains. Studs/
Cars coming onto the highway from sideroads with chains on or studded tires.
Um, isn’t it usually cloudy during snowstorms?
And then when the sky clears the road is, uh… covered with snow?
Glass roads during rain storms just might be able to take care of that pesky population problem. Heck, glass roads could literally take millions of cars off the road each year.
What the heck would the glass surface look like with vehicles grinding dirt into it?
Remove all universities, movie studios, theaters, concert halls & the United Nations buildings from the electric grids, force them to run on wind/solar/wave power and I guarantee you Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Cooling(CAGWC) will cease to exist.
Frank K. says:
February 6, 2011 at 2:16 pm
We have what are affectionately referred to as “frost heaves” on our roads every spring due to freezing and thawing. One winter in New Hampshire and this road is toast…
Hey Frank, back in America I still own a house and property in Vermont(howdy neighbor…) and my first thought was also FROST HEAVES.
How the heck does a solar road melt snow during the night. As far as I know only Spanish Solar Power Panels work at night.
How do you drive uphill on a glass road in the rain? Or stop for that matter?
The GREENs should stick with Unicorns and Pixie Dust.
The great rock band AC DC were aware of this road proposal and wrote a song about it.
I see this being possible, but lots of problems that need to be ironed out. I assume solid engineering would deal with those as they arose. If the type of glass is selected properly, certain parts of this are pretty much no-brainers, just application of known technologies.
On the other hand, I see the electronics as being a weak link. Perhaps power distriibution, too, but probably not. Good engineers can deal with it.
@rbateman Feb 6, 2011 at 12:12 pm:
Solid engineering would solve all these. And more. I assume most of this would be tested in small sections in varying climate and seasonal conditions.
If there is ample energy going into the grid and heaters everywhere built in, those commenters who talk about salt are off base, IMHO. Thermostats would direct enough heat to sections that dropped below, say, 35°F. There have to be heater coils if they don’t retain the extracted energy locally. In that case, the electricity can come from the grid, no matter how far north.
To his list add:
– frost heaves
– erosion underneath, not just in springtime or floods
It is important to realize that these have to have sufficient gravel or whatever foundations, and the foundations have to support the glass sections completely. Otherwise the glass sections will flex.
ALL roads flex, which is one reason asphalt works as well as it does. But asphalt degrades in sunlight and the elements and dries out and becomes brittle, which is why it needs replacing or driveways need sealcoating from time to time.
The flexing is such that, decades ago a study determined that one fully loaded semi-trailer does the damage of 10,000 cars. I recall that number, but don’t recall what weight it was based on, nor how many wheels per semi. Better foundations helps immensely.
Glass does not flex very well. Flexing will cause micro-cracks. Micro-cracks allow water in which is damaging in several ways, most of all the electronics. I would propose redundant systems built in, if costs don’t prohibit it.
Potholes happen because of loss of foundation in mini-locations. That loss of foundation will not go away unless new foundation designs are developed to eliminate it.
Rock falls? I imagine replacing sections will be necessary. That happens today, too.
@Steinar Midtskogen Feb 6, 2011 at 12:31 pm:
Of course they will test it out. Our current roads had test sections. One I saw a sign for long, long ago was near Erie, PA. It had been built back around 1920 or so. Concrete and asphalt roads didn’t just happen by accident. Our great grandparents weren’t idiots.
As to snow chains, if you paid attention, they would heat the roads. That obviously is meant to keep snow from staying frozen or ice from forming. Ergo, no need for salt or chains. Salt alone would keep the environmental fragility of it under control quite a bit. During the implementation stage, when there is a mixed population of road surfaces, certain controls and procedures would need to be in place.
Many of the ideas we’ve seen floated have come out of left field. This one didn’t, even if it is somewhat outside the box. It is simply a mixture of applications that hasn’t been tried before.
I vote for trying it out. $750,00o? Or even $75 million – that is such a drop in the bucket. This one has a chance of flying. They should be able to develop it within 2-5 years, depending on results of some of their materials tests.
If so, it would provide lots of jobs, a huge national infrastructure project. And it would help everyone, businesses and citizens both. If they farm any of it out to China or India, though, I’d have their testicles boiled. This would need to be an America-First project.
hotrod ( Larry L ) says: February 6, 2011 at 12:16 pm
“Yes I just shook my head when I saw this story in the news. … This replaces a blacktop surface which has an emissivity of 95+”
This has got to be an April fool!
At least they could have made it more believable … like using copper to “concentrate” the heat along narrow tracks, or how about little caged rodents under the road running around of wheels to generate electricity …. or CO2 “greenhouse” effect heaters … filled with CO2 enhanced greenhouses which always get warmer (in theory)
There’s even an ad in the UK where a rat trying to enter a house is warned: “watch out the solar panels they’re slippery!”