INTERESTING?

[kcjenkins]

[WITAXLADY]

sounds good in theory - how many 1oo's of years would it take to get into use?

[Catherine]

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3355872

My Ghod, The Stupid...

Just shoot me now.....

Here’s an idea crazy enough that it just might work: Pave the streets with solar-powered panels

that have their own built-in heat

and LED lights.

That’s what Scott and Julie Brusaw hope to accomplish with their ongoing Solar Roadways project, which they just funded through a hugely popular crowdfunding campaign.

The husband-and-wife team has spent the better part of the last decade developing solar-powered modular panels that could be installed in roadways and parking lots, and would be able to collect power from the sun. Those panels could also keep streets clear of snow and ice, while illuminating them with LEDs.

This sort of "crowdfunding" needs to lead to indictments.

Seriously.

Let's just look at the basics. The sun falling on a black road surface will convert nearly all of the energy that falls into heat. Why? Because the road is a "black body", and highly efficient at converting the energy into heat energy for this reason. That is, very little of that energy is lost to something other than heating.

A solar cell, on the other hand, is typically 15% efficient at turning the energy into electricity. A resistance heater is nearly 100% efficient (call it 95% with switching and wiring losses) at turning electricity into heat but less than 20% of the energy makes it to electricity in the first place.

So the path of solar->electric->heat is one fifth as efficient at heating the road surface as just allowing the sun to heat the road directly.

In other words, it won't work. At all.

Rather than paving streets and driveways with asphalt, the Solar Roadways panels would theoretically be able to decrease our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels by generating massive amounts of clean energy.

Baloney.

Not only will it not work to heat the roads you have to store the energy if you want to use LED lights because nobody wants to light the road while the sun is shining -- you want to do that at night, yes? Where is that going to happen and who's going to buy the batteries? Never mind their replacement cycles; about three years worth if you get 1,000 cycles out of them, which might be a bit ambitious (but is not entirely ridiculous.)

In short this is utter and complete crap.

It won't work from a technological perspective and from a cost-replacement perspective it's entirely impractical and cost-prohibitive.

The laws of thermodynamics forbid obtaining a "free lunch."

Sorry.

[kcjenkins]

I just KNEW that would get a reaction from you, Cat! Amazing, isn't it, how gullible people can be? I have a brother-in-law who truly believes his friend invented a 'perpetual motion' machine.

[Richcpaman]

Cat:

It won't lead to indictments. Barnum said it best: "A sucker is born every minute" and solar roadways just raised $1.7m from suckers.

I would like to see what those glass panels would look like the first time you had to scrape the snow off of them....

Anyway, just put Solar panels on the building roofs along the road, and then in grassy areas near the road. That way, you are building a Solar array, and that all, NOT a roadway...

Ka-Ching....

Rich

[JohnH]

Well, no indictment is necessary.

No trial or jury needed either.

Any time you break any of the laws of thermodynamics, you skip the trial and go directly to serving the sentence.

[Catherine]

Please note, I copied/pasted (and linked) Karl Denninger's article on this. My daughter first brought the proposal to my attention.

I might think using parking lots as solar electricity generation plants -- at least in areas without significant snow, like the southern portions of the country -- possibly could be useful. However, solar really is NOT "ready for prime time" and as an industry cannot exist without significant subsidies BECAUSE IT IS NOT ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE. At least at this time, and possibly not for a long time. That said, those who can afford it (individuals, towns, companies) and who choose to participate help - by their purchases - to drive the innovation that makes the industry less inefficient. Today's panels are less than 20% efficient -- but a decade or so ago, they were just under 10% efficient. Some (very expensive, hard to produce) test panels today are in the mid-30's for efficiency.

For the same reason that Lasik became better and more affordable ($20K/eye down to $1.5K/eye, with better outcomes), those willing to pay drive the innovation that benefits others in later years. That's how a free market operates.

[Eric]

We'll have flying cars before covering the US road system with solar panels would be possible.

It would cost more money than what exists in the world just to cover the US road system in fancy clear glass. That's without taking into consideration any of the really expensive components like photovoltaics, circuitry, LEDs, and an insane network of high voltage transmission lines under every bit of highway in the US.

Solar has a lot of promise, and it's being done smartly in a lot of places. This is the opposite of smart.

I think my favorite part was where they talked about converting sunlight into electricity to power heating elements to melt snow. Wow.

[joanmcq]

Here in sunny CA photovoltaic panels have been installed over sections of parking lots, generating power while at the same time creating highly coveted shaded parking spots. Win-win. Panels operate the highway roadside call boxes, parking meter pay stations, and fully run my burning man camp.

I know in Scandinavia, roadways have been built with passive solar systems to stay ice free, but (and this is from memory on an article I read several years ago), it involves a system more like a solar water heater. Not electricity generating panels.