If You Need Any Convincing That Solar Roadways Are The Future, This Video Will Help

I think this is a great idea, a radical one at that.

In truth, I foresee the application of this technology in the near future, but not in one huge national, lets replace all!!, but more like smaller distribution, an option at the extra cost of who ever is funding whatever project their is.

New universities, Toll roads, Malls, any new area of constructions, perhaps revamped parts of cities.

I think smaller scale at first, which would lead to cheaper an affordable parts that would eventually give way to mass productions.

I'm thinking its going to be state regulated, who will in turn foot the bill, but seeing as this is a green technology, can receive some federal aid in helping with cost, tax breaks and what not.

This will be long term investment and I hope a state adopts it, paving the way for other states to drop traditional roads for something that will return cost and huge returns.

Great Topic and thread!! S&F

a reply to: br0ker

Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't wheels be made of rubber?

a reply to: nighthawk1954

I think he needs to do a different video for a different demographic.

SOME of the folks with money would be put off by the style of the video . . . too jarring and too in-you-face in a teeny-bopper, rap sort of genre, meme.

Great idea. Hope it gets somewhere.

Would be great to see a billionaire implement it in a small town somewhere and show the world the stats after a year etc.

Might be good to have a 'crowd funding' option, too.
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a reply to: BO XIAN

Might be good to have a 'crowd funding' option, too.

There's is, I can't link it though (T&C's). So far they've raised over 500K, which is obviously not nearly enough but spread the word and it will surely grow.

Oh for the love of.........ARG! ! ! (S/F for a cool concept OP..but booo on a psychotic government)

Is there any other pie in the sky, total fantasy land B.S. we can waste the nations money on? How about flying cars again? They've been chasing that crap since the 60's and I saw another prototype just last year! Hey, I have it..how about more electric cars that cost many times more per copy to make than anyone could possibly afford to pay in buying it. (I.E....it would BE the destruction of GM if GM wasn't Government Motors in more than name only).

Naww.. Lets...find a bright new shiny thing to play with for highways! Hell ya!

Pay no mind to a few facts...of course.. I'm a mean old stuffy adult that says we gotta eat our veggies BEFORE pigging out on desert.

#1. We have 10's of thousands of bridges which aren't simply in need of help, they are below even enjoying a "Satisfactory" rating. Interstates to back roads your local school bus travels. Bridges...not just pot holes or bumps in the founded highway.

#2 We have functionally broken major city transportation networks. When Rush hour isn't an hour anymore, but pretty well calls the time from 8 am to 5 pm as a regular thing, and it's a couple breaks in mid morning and mid afternoon which forms an exception? We have a failed transpo- network.

#3. We have a chronically and terminally underfunded Interstate highway system that has, by pure design, been robbing Peter to pay Paul from damn near it's inception. All monies flow to Washington to a big general highway fund that they skim off the top of for totally unrelated Government B.S. in the way of IOU's and such..then piddle what's left back to the states in whatever bean counter formula they coughed up this year.

.....In other words, we very much have a transportation network in crisis in many completely separate but nonetheless critical ways. It's not wine...it doesn't improve with age...it totally fails and collapses with age and neglect. It's rarely seen neglect, despite the "stimulus" nonsense, at the level it's suffering it now.

Into all this? Whoo-hoo! Lets remake the collapsing system into something insanely expensive which likely won't work, based on tech which will be obsolete by the time Government gets around to calling the screw-up in progress done.

** Sorry.. After spending most of my life literally living on this nation's highways and byways, as that saying goes, it's as personal a grip for me as something wrong inside my own house. State and Federal *HAS TO BE FORCED* to eat their veggies BEFORE they can even talk about desert without a backhand slap.

Dinner is rotting in plain sight.

What if they added some sort of kinetic energy device to them, so everyone walked or drove on creates even more energy?

a reply to: nighthawk1954

Looks like a great idea, but what about the costs. I have checked their site and I see no projection figures as to cost per lane per linear mile or kilometer. I agree this is probably a very workable idea, however the cost and materials sourcing impact would be of great concern. I remember way back when, in the 60's, when a four lane highway cost an average of about a million a mile. Having roughly 7.55 million kilometers of roads between the US and Canada, even at $1 million per kilometer, we are looking at incredibly huge numbers. Roughly speaking that would be $7,550,000,000,000 or $755,000,000,000 a year for 10 years plus an adjustment of +3 to +5% for inflation (if things stay stable) and +2% to +6% (if things stay stable) for the cost of tied up capital plus +2% to +6% (if things stay stable) for capital loan costs.

Now personally, I would prefer to put that roughly 8 trillion into infrastructure rather than military spending, if it were a peaceful perfect world. But it isn't.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

I agree with you %110! The money this country waste every year on stupid studies and on foreign countries can be put to better use such as this technology. In end game it would pay for itself and save a ton of money to buy foreign oil.

a reply to: nighthawk1954

I'll be surprised if President Obama doesn't cling on to this to baby it towards fruition. It could save his legacy and secure "dibs" on it for democrats in the next election. We all know that the GOP finds anything he touches taboo to endorse so it could totally become part of the DNC platform.

Politics aside, I hope everything is done to get these on the roads in spite of all the energy companies it might piss off. Future's so bright, gotta wear shades.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: br0ker

Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't wheels be made of rubber?

black rubber tyre marks would reduce the amount of sunlight getting to the solar panels in the road.

a reply to: nighthawk1954

Ummm... Solar roadways freakin rule!!!

This is such an awesome idea with so much potential. No more jacked up roads, potholes and stinky repavements.

I'm sold.

a reply to: engvbany

I did link the FAQ in an earlier post.

How are you going to handle skid marks from tires? Won't that block your sunlight?

We weren't able to officially test for that during our Phase II funding from the FHWA as it wasn't in the budget. However, we wondered about that too, so we conducted an experiment. It's not very scientific, but here is what we did:

We took a rubber soled shoe and scuffed a section of concrete and a section of our glass. We used a bike tire to create a skid mark on both the concrete and the glass.

The rubber on the glass came off with the simple wipe of a finger: it didn't stick well to the glass. That wasn't the case with the porous concrete: we may now have permanent skip marks there!

We think that the simple act of the next tire rolling over a skid mark on the glass will be enough to loosen the material, which will then blow off or be removed the next time it rains. We are anxious to do some testing to be sure.

originally posted by: Wrabbit2000
#1. We have 10's of thousands of bridges which aren't simply in need of help, they are below even enjoying a "Satisfactory" rating. Interstates to back roads your local school bus travels. Bridges...not just pot holes or bumps in the founded highway.

Well, perfect timing to fix them at the same time!

originally posted by: Wrabbit2000
#2 We have functionally broken major city transportation networks. When Rush hour isn't an hour anymore, but pretty well calls the time from 8 am to 5 pm as a regular thing, and it's a couple breaks in mid morning and mid afternoon which forms an exception? We have a failed transpo- network.

Well, eventually, those roads will last longer than standard one so lesser road repairs will probably mean less traffic. It just takes one jam sometime to ruin the flow of everyone else.

originally posted by: Wrabbit2000
#3. We have a chronically and terminally underfunded Interstate highway system that has, by pure design, been robbing Peter to pay Paul from damn near it's inception. All monies flow to Washington to a big general highway fund that they skim off the top of for totally unrelated Government B.S. in the way of IOU's and such..then piddle what's left back to the states in whatever bean counter formula they coughed up this year.

Well that's a bigger problem than roads hah...
At least the money saved on creating electricity would give more money to our authorities to fill their overflowing pockets with...
Ahem, I mean more money to spend on smart things for the whole population!

Don't be thaaaaat pessimistic!

originally posted by: eXia7
Very nice concept. It's clean, and efficient.

My only concern is that it will be manipulated by the unknown to track people even more efficiently now. Oh, and robots can have an indefinite power source as well.

Sorry, that's just the skeptic in me. I like the idea, and hope it will be used for good instead of evil.

It will be useful for crime detection, that is true...a criminal on the run lighting up the roads, pavements and every parking lot as he or she takes a step, signalling their position to a computer...but if they are criminals, and they're on the run..that's a good thing isn't it?

Hit and runs...won't have anywhere to hide. The time and exact place of the hit will be recorded, and where is a drunk driver going to run to on a digital roadway? Nowhere.

Kids crossing the street a couple of hundred yards ahead? The road tells you to slow down.

Traffic snarl up ahead? The road redirects you to quieter roads.

And it generates energy.

Holy SOLAR FREAKIN ROADWAYS batman.

a reply to: theMediator

I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh at what you're saying because you didn't invent this crap and you aren't hawking it like cupie dolls on the carnival midway to a desperate public.

If I had a nickle for every half baked scheme and scam like this I read about as serious proposals over the years of trucking? I wouldn't be in college right now, I'd be in retirement and sipping a cool beverage on a beach, collecting 10% on interest.

I think my biggest point is we have KNOWN things falling apart. We have KNOWN tech to solve it and we've had countless years of not just proposing but saying it was BEING fixed with money that sure DID get spent ...yet that bridge inventory still sits there like a damning finger of judgement at the level of total fail our Government (both parties, since that seems required to say these days) has managed on maintaining our infrastructure to even 'station keeping' levels of quality.

If we can't fix what we have with what we KNOW works and with money a plenty to spend like it was free (remember Porkulus I and II?) then what in Gods name makes us honestly think we can use totally NEW and completely unproven tech (on this scale and in these real world conditions for longevity) to fix anything?

This is where my logic meter just goes bananas and turns to smoke. What we have in hand is broken and won't be fixed right..so..Oh wait, whats that new shiny toy! (forgetting all about that broken thing needing fixed)

I wonder if they could make these for the sides of houses. My house would be energized, and I could set up different Christmas light patterns on it and never have to hang Christmas lights again!!

originally posted by: br0ker
a reply to: Grimpachi

Glass will work as long as the weels are rubber.

Indeed asphalt contains oil. Alot more of it in some countries than others. There are alternatives though.

There lies the problem, will oil companies let this happen? think of the amount of paving replaced and what they would lose.

56 trillion is not what i'd call a little cash...the us is already deep in debt

I am all for this but maybe not at this stage because I think it has even more potential before it would go nationwide. For right now they are working on a proof of concept road with the DOT and that is great because this is a god idea and they should work out any unforeseen kinks.

Consider this though there is an even greater potential for generating electricity with a digital road. I read about the concept somewhere a ways back but imagine if each one of those octagon panels were able to convert the kinetic energy from a car wheel rolling over top of them into electric. The more the road was used by cars the more electric it would generate.


Just combine that tech with this tech

Charge Gadgets Just By Walking

Maybe I didn't read about that in some road idea II can't really remember but both of these concepts I did read about on IFL a couple weeks ago. Seems like they are made for each other you could get a hell of a lot more electric from several tons of vehicle rolling over actuators as well.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

What I find interesting about this video specifically is how viral it has gone.

Literally 90% of the people I know are going gaga over this. For me, personally, its ironic because I detailed a similar possibility, I just didnt make a video treating people like idiots. But, I suppose thats kinda the deal when you are attempting to make the general public so isolated from the technology that they use...

There are massive problems with our infrastructure (that is putting it nicely), we need to fix the source problems before we start to address symptoms.

Neat idea, overall. But, I would be a bit biased given that I presented a similar idea years ago (it was just to friends, family, colleagues). With some "not-so-minor" differences that are significantly more advanced than this, more cost effective, and actually addresses the core problem of infrastructure maintainence. In that, it never ceases to amaze me how much of an impact marketing can have on the publics acceptance of an idea.