Solar freaking roadways! - 621 miles to be built in France.

[Codeplayer]

In the last Wan show I saw Linus mention that Solar roadways turned out to be not a thing and are laughably impossible. Wtf, I taught immediately. I just heard that they are building them in France. Not the exact same thing, but still solar roadways. So here you go:

The ecology and energy minister of France, Ségolène Royal announced recently a plan to create 621 miles of solar-paneled roads throughout the country.

Its called The Wattway project and they will be installing durable solar strips on top of existing roads:

 

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/france-seeks-power-5-million-residents-new-solar-panel-roads?mbid=social_facebook

http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2016/02/07/france-wants-to-install-1000-km-of-solar-roadways-over-the-next-five-years/#21362fa1857e

http://news.yahoo.com/france-using-almost-600-miles-175400819.html

http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/trends/france-pa7ve-1000km-ro7ad-so7lar-panel7s/

[Nineshadow]

Oh wow , seriously?

[PlayStation 2]

Well, shit.

[Volbet]

It's not that they are impossible to build. It's just that they are very inconvinient and it would be more effective (and cheaper) to just build the solar panels along side the road

 

  

[Dabombinable]

2 minutes ago, Volbet said:

It's not that they are impossible to build. It's just that they are very inconvinient and it would be more effective (and cheaper) to just build the solar panels along the road

 

  

Damn, you beat me to that video. I wanted to post it.

[Volbet]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

Damn, you beat me to that video. I wanted to post it.

Post it.

There can never be too much Dave in one thread. 

[Sors]

The only thing I can think of that would improve from having the panels as the road, instead of being next to the road is that traffic will keep dust an debris off the panels, compared to hiring someone to clean the panels. 

 

This project doesn't really make make much sense. When a panel fails they are going to shutdown the road, causing even more frequent delays for all drivers.

[Dabombinable]

Just now, Volbet said:

Post it.

There can never be too much Dave in one thread. 

Well there are these:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[multifrag]

8 minutes ago, Codeplayer said:

In the last Wan show I saw Linus mention that Solar roadways turned out to be not a thing and are laughably impossible. Wtf, I taught immediately. I just heard that they are building them in France. Not the exact same thing, but still solar roadways. So here you go:

The ecology and energy minister of France, Ségolène Royal announced recently a plan to create 621 miles of solar-paneled roads throughout the country.

Its called The Wattway project and they will be installing durable solar strips on top of existing roads:

 

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/france-seeks-power-5-million-residents-new-solar-panel-roads?mbid=social_facebook

http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2016/02/07/france-wants-to-install-1000-km-of-solar-roadways-over-the-next-five-years/#21362fa1857e

http://news.yahoo.com/france-using-almost-600-miles-175400819.html

http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/trends/france-pa7ve-1000km-ro7ad-so7lar-panel7s/

Just no. Look at the video above and educate yourself on how absurd the idea is...

[Enderman]

You know that it takes more energy to actually create the solar panels than you get from them in their usable lifetime, right?

lol

until better materials are found and greater efficiency is achieved, solar panels do 0 to help our environment

[Codeplayer]

11 minutes ago, Volbet said:

It's not that they are impossible to build. It's just that they are very inconvinient and it would be more effective (and cheaper) to just build the solar panels along the road

 

  

This guy is so focused to writing down the idea, that he misses the point. Going to moon was not efficient too. But if there is no pioneering, no demand, the technology will never evolve to reasonable phase.

[Arty]

3 minutes ago, Enderman said:

You know that it takes more energy to actually create the solar panels than you get from them in their usable lifetime, right?

lol

until better materials are found and greater efficiency is achieved, solar panels do 0 to help our environment

well the only way to get that to happen is to push them.

[CommanderRykerHaunSolo]

yea people Tesla blowing up a rocket on a barge isn't effective either its showing that it can be done and once someone does it, it will push the technology further. This isn't going to give us benefits, but maybe in 20-30 years, who knows?

[bob345]

4 minutes ago, Codeplayer said:

This guy is so focused to writing down the idea, that he misses the point. Going to moon was not efficient too. But if there is no pioneering, no demand, the technology will never evolve to reasonable phase.

while that is true for allot of things, solar roadways is not going to be a factor that pushes innovation in the solar panel market. Even if you had super efficient panels, you would still be better off with dedicated solar arrays as the idea of solar roadways is inherently inefficient. There is innovation, and there are just bad ideas. solar roadways are the latter.

[Codeplayer]

1 minute ago, bob345 said:

while that is true for allot of things, solar roadways is not going to be a factor that pushes innovation in the solar panel market. Even if you had super efficient panels, you would still be better off with dedicated solar arrays as the idea of solar roadways is inherently inefficient. There is innovation, and there are just bad ideas. solar roadways are the latter.

I think its not about evolving solar panels. Its about the development of road surface materials.

[Volbet]

29 minutes ago, Codeplayer said:

This guy is so focused to writing down the idea, that he misses the point. Going to moon was not efficient too. But if there is no pioneering, no demand, the technology will never evolve to reasonable phase.

True, but there also has to be some kind of future to the idea, and I don't really see a future in solar roadways.

It would be cheaper, easier and more effective to just build solar panels along side the road than it is to build them into the road.

Hell, it would be cheaper and more effective to just build roofs over every road and place solar panels on said roofs. 

 

The problem with your comparison to the Apollo 11 project, is that there wasn't a more effective way to send people into space at the time.

And there really isn't a more effective way now.

But there is a cheaper and more effective way to harness solar energy, so it would be kinda dumb to take a step back. 

I simply can't see how putting solar panels in the road will help us in the long run.

Placeing the solar panels elsewhere will be much better and yield much better results.

 

The idea of solar roadways is inherently flawed, and I would argue that it is so flawed that I can never become as effective as a dedicated solar array.

[bob345]

Just now, Codeplayer said:

I think its not about evolving solar panels. Its about the development of road surface materials.

Any optically clear surface would be dangerous to drive on. Especially in the rain or snow. To get the surface of a clear glass or plastic to a rough enough surface to be safe, you will be cutting light transmission to the panels underneath by more than half easily. its just not feasible. with any technology. The whole idea is just broken. Its a worse way of gathering solar power than what we already use.

 

 

[Codeplayer]

20 minutes ago, bob345 said:

Any optically clear surface would be dangerous to drive on. Especially in the rain or snow. To get the surface of a clear glass or plastic to a rough enough surface to be safe, you will be cutting light transmission to the panels underneath by more than half easily. its just not feasible. with any technology. The whole idea is just broken. Its a worse way of gathering solar power than what we already use.

 

 

You seem to assume it has to be optically clear. Also you seem to assume that materials (like plastic or glass) to be used are the same that are already developed and in the market. I think that if anyone would have said 50 years ago that the best material for racecars would be carbon-based and that airplanes will be also made 50% of plastic that is reinforced by carbon, then people would've laughed and said something like:

 

Anything based on plastic would be dangerous to fly on. Especially in heights where the airplane cabin is pressurized. To get the surface of plastic or carbon to enough strength to be safe, you will be adding the weight of the panels to more than half. Its just not feasible. with any technology. The whole idea is just broken. Its a worse way of cutting the weight than aluminum that is cheap and that we already use.

 

But now we have this:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_4_06/article_04_2.html

 

And its affordable, usable, saves costs and gives people opportunities by that, that they never could have if engineers were all pessimistic and lacking vision. Or if no one pioneered the new technologies in bold and large scale to bring up the demand so that development of neccessary technologies would be profitable and supported by big sponsors, investors and companies

[MonkeyFace]

I'm a pragmatist, so naturally my first 2 questions are...can France afford this? and how much are the maintenance costs?

[Codeplayer]

6 minutes ago, MonkeyFace said:

I'm a pragmatist, so naturally my first 2 questions are...can France afford this? and how much are the maintenance costs?

I think the point of this is as it is generating energy, even if not very efficiently, then it still is going to pay for itself to some degree, that makes it even or cheaper to build asphalt or concrete roads. The mainteanance costs can be seen in the first video in replies, the EEV blog video.

[Mayaa]

I dont see why they want to put it on roads specifically, shouldnt they start with filling most of the roofs with solar panels first?

[theninja35]

Ya know we would do this in Michigan but our roads would crack and the construction workers wouldn't get around to fixing it until years later.

[bob345]

9 minutes ago, Codeplayer said:

You seem to assume it has to be optically clear. Also you seem to assume that materials (like plastic or glass) to be used are the same that are already developed and in the market. I think that if anyone would have said 50 years ago that the best material for racecars would be carbon-based and that airplanes will be also made 50% of plastic that is reinforced by carbon, then people would've laughed and said something like:

 

Anything based on plastic would be dangerous to fly on. Especially in heights where the airplane cabin is pressurized. To get the surface of plastic or carbon to enough strength to be safe, you will be adding the weight of the panels to more than half. Its just not feasible. with any technology. The whole idea is just broken. Its a worse way of cutting the weight than aluminum that is cheap and that we already use.

 

But now we have this:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_4_06/article_04_2.html

 

And its affordable, usable, saves costs and gives people opportunities by that, that they never could have if engineers were all pessimistic and lacking vision. Or if no one pioneered the new technologies in bold and large scale to bring up the demand so that development of neccessary technologies would be profitable and supported by big sponsors, investors and companies

you're comparing technologies that practically have  no relation. Also, carbon fiber is not "50% plastic" its raw carbon fiber impregnated with epoxy resin. Not the same thing as plastic. Also, it was 53 yeas ago when carbon fibers strength was realized. It was first discovered in 1958. The material would need to be optically clear. There is no way around that. its physics.

[Codeplayer]

17 minutes ago, bob345 said:

you're comparing technologies that practically have  no relation. Also, carbon fiber is not "50% plastic" its raw carbon fiber impregnated with epoxy resin. Not the same thing as plastic. Also, it was 53 yeas ago when carbon fibers strength was realized. It was first discovered in 1958. The material would need to be optically clear. There is no way around that. its physics.

I am not comparing technologies, I am comparing development of materials and peoples expectations. I never said Carbon fiber is 50% plastic, I said that Boeing 787 fuselage is made out of 50% Composite- Plastic, carbon fibre reinforced (did you even check the link from Boeing.com before you replied?). still, 53 years ago it still wasn't realistic that this material would ever have anything to do with bringing down the costs of materials for airplanes. Why it has to be clear? The element that generates electricity is not clear. The glass that covers it is. With material development, it is possible that this leads to developing new nanomaterials (just one of the million possibilities) that can be mixed into asphalt or concrete. There are tons of ways that would make the glass covering on solar cells unneccessary, that will be developed in future. Ofcourse, this kind of development wouldn't be needed, if we'd keep our solar panels on rooftops and wouldn't walk on them. But hey, if we could develop a material that collects some of the suns power, does that inexpensively and isn't very productive, but would still pay for itself. Then we could have free road mainteanance- every road would pay for its mainteanance itself. theninja35 (above) from Michigan would have beautiful, enjoyable roads. Think of Africa, India. None of this will ever happen, if there won't be someone who says that, hey I know, it costs more, but we will build it, just to prove the point that its worth developing, just to inspire people. Like 7 gamers one cpu for 30000$.

[klh2000]

1 hour ago, Volbet said:

It's not that they are impossible to build. It's just that they are very inconvinient and it would be more effective (and cheaper) to just build the solar panels along side the road

 

  

I was just about to post that, you beat me to it!