How does this work when I live in an area that gets 10 to 12 inches of snow in the winter and the road trucks may take two days to clear off all of the snow.
I want it to work, but glass is so slippery. What about that? if you add a layer to eliminate the slip factor a) it will eventually wear off, and it will also interfere with the amount of light the road can collect.
as for snow removal, light = heat. there are driveways already available that melt snow and ice with the flick of a switch, highways/streets could do the same. as for traction, instead of adding a friction producing surface to the glass, why not incorporate the frictionate into the glass so that friction only recedes as the road panels need to be replaced? there are answers available to any problem that presents itself. I am more concerned that special interest groups (oil industry) will try to kill this before it can make any headway. Money talks and I suspect it will try to make a solar roadway walk. Keeping politicians focused on the common good will be the biggest hurdle.
I have to question the ability to design and maintain solar arrays in the surface of highways. Solar cell arrays are notoriously sensitive to surface contamination. Shading due to contamination causes loss of output current and voltage, causes internal stress in the cells and multiplies the complexity of control circuitry. Current large cell arrays must be constantly cleaned and maintained in order to maintain longevity and output. How do the authors propose to do this with construction trucks and auto's dragging mud, dirt sloughed rubber and disk brake dust across their sensative surfaces. Perhaps using road right of ways or elevated arrays utilizing the surface area would be a better idea.
7 comments:
How does this work when I live in an area that gets 10 to 12 inches of snow in the winter and the road trucks may take two days to clear off all of the snow.
http://www.solarroadways.com/snow.shtml
I want it to work, but glass is so slippery. What about that? if you add a layer to eliminate the slip factor a) it will eventually wear off, and it will also interfere with the amount of light the road can collect.
as for snow removal, light = heat. there are driveways already available that melt snow and ice with the flick of a switch, highways/streets could do the same. as for traction, instead of adding a friction producing surface to the glass, why not incorporate the frictionate into the glass so that friction only recedes as the road panels need to be replaced? there are answers available to any problem that presents itself. I am more concerned that special interest groups (oil industry) will try to kill this before it can make any headway. Money talks and I suspect it will try to make a solar roadway walk. Keeping politicians focused on the common good will be the biggest hurdle.
This is cool, but I'm skeptical, PC boards, electronics, things that can fail - we've all seen electric billboards that have failures.
PC boards and ICs have a life span, it just seems that the maintenance of this would eclipse the cost savings / energy generation.
I have to question the ability to design and maintain solar arrays in the surface of highways. Solar cell arrays are notoriously sensitive to surface contamination. Shading due to contamination causes loss of output current and voltage, causes internal stress in the cells and multiplies the complexity of control circuitry. Current large cell arrays must be constantly cleaned and maintained in order to maintain longevity and output. How do the authors propose to do this with construction trucks and auto's dragging mud, dirt sloughed rubber and disk brake dust across their sensative surfaces. Perhaps using road right of ways or elevated arrays utilizing the surface area would be a better idea.
The part about keeping politicians focused on the common good is the hard part.
It is my considered opinion that they are all focused on the next election and how to win it -- little else.
You may say I'm cynical and you're right. I welcome any sign that i don't need to become even more cynical. (Haven't seen any such sign.)
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