Fixing the roads, changing America

Togowack said:

is this thread about how NAFTA is going to result in a new superhighway from north to south?

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One of the great features of the Solar Road Panel is that much of it can be reused. Some components like the solar cells, capacitors, and LEDs will wear out and have to be replaced, but the majority of the panel is reusable. If we began manufacturing today with 18.5% efficient solar cells, and the panels lasted 20 years before the need for refurbishing, the latest (20 years from now) efficiency solar cells would be installed and the Solar Road Panel would produce even more power than before. This will allow the Solar Roadway to keep up with the increase in electricity demand over the years.

In addition, the Solar Roadway replaces our current aging power grid. The Solar Roadways carry power - not from a centralized point like a power station, but from the power-producing grid itself along with data signals (cable TV, telephone, high-speed internet, etc.) to every home and business connected to the grid via their driveways and parking lots. In essence, the Solar Roadways becomes a conduit for all power and data signals.

For an accurate cost comparison between current systems and the Solar Roadways system, you'd have to combine the costs of asphalt roads, power plants, and power and data delivery systems (power poles and relay stations) to be compatible with the Solar Roadway system, which provides all three.

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Mantua said:

goshin, have you ever lived anywhere cold enough to see frost heaves in the road?
it's like a speed bump, only 8" high and 2' wide

i can see this working in the south, but not anywhere that has different seasons

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We received about 130 inches of snow two years ago here in northern Idaho. While we dreamed of having Solar Road Panels heating our driveway, we realized that just melting the snow wouldn't be enough: the resulting water would just run off the sides of the heated surface, refreeze, and lift the panels through what's known as heaving. In short, it would damage our new driveway.

A solution had to be found to remove or relocate the runoff water. We consulted with some water and forestry experts on the matter. We learned that if we could move water just 200 miles, then we could virtually eliminate any drought conditions in the U.S. In our research, we also learned of the damage caused by contaminated stormwater entering our waterways.

We're experimenting with a solution to relocate stormwater. First, to a water treatment facility, where necessary. Then, to whatever location the filtered water is needed.

After particulates are filtered out by something similar to a French drain, the storm water is stored below ground in storage tanks where it can't freeze. When it reaches a certain level, it is pumped along the Solar Roadway though a series of check valves (controls the direction of the water - for instance, north or south) to the water treatment facility. Once treated, the clean water is then pumped through a similar system along the Solar Roadway to the desired locations such as agricultural centers and aquifers.

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When you install a solar panel, you have to take into account where you are installing it. The farther north you live, the more you have to angle your panel toward the equator (or more accurately, the sun above the equator). We did our testing in January and February in northern Idaho.

Here we have worst case scenario: our measurements were taken in the dead of winter (sun is at its lowest point of the year) an hour south of the Canadian border at latitude 48.19 degrees. The farthest northern point in the contiguous 48 states is 49.38 degrees near Lake of the Woods, Minnesota. That's 82miles farther north than our location. Conclusion: we would be hard pressed to find a worse time and place to conduct this experiment!

At our northern position (48.19 degrees North), the optimal solar gain angle for our solar panels is 72 degrees. Brownsville, Texans would want to angle their solar panels at 26 degrees. So our southern roads will naturally produce much more electricity than their northern counterparts, as solar intensity maps show.

Unfortunately, we can't angle roads or parking lots. Roads go up and down hills, have banks on curves (going both left and right), and have a typical three percent "crown" (on both sides) to allow stormwater runoff. It's a pretty safe assumption to figure that the national average angle of roads is zero degrees.

We tested two identical solar panels. We mounted one at the recommended 72 degrees for our location and leveled the other one with the horizon (zero degrees) to simulate an average road. We installed a monitoring system to track the data 24/7.

Although the tilted solar panel produced more energy as expected (an average of almost 31 percent more than its horizontal counterpart), we were surprised to see the phenomenon of the horizontal solar panel producing more energy than the tilted panel on certain overcast days. It appears to be similar to getting sunburned on a cloudy day: sunlight is still present, but it is scattered, so the horizontal solar panel is more likely to pick up the scattered photons than the solar panel aimed at the southern horizon.

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Eggi said:

look up peak power usage hot shot

one of the biggest problems that energy companies deal with is peak power usage (in the evenings when everyone is at home and want their lights on). They have to overdesign their power plants to deal with this because there is no good way to store energy in order to satisfy peak demand.

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Shiloh said:

I think you ought to look it up. peak power demand is always in the middle of the day. Roughly 10-3pm. 6-7 sees a little spike from people coming home, turning their lights, oven, and heating on while there is still some industrial and commerical demand, but it is still less than the midday demand. The best thing about solar is that it generally follows the demand curve.

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Falhawk said:

probably would be fun to drive on in the snow.

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EagleScream said:

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Goshin said:

bumps



they finished the 100k grant and got a new 750k grant from the government to develop a parking lot to prove viability in 2011

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Fling said:

too bad it will never be as cheap as your mom!

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Goshin said:

im not sure about that

consider this
it gives us solar energy which the government pays for, paying off the roads sooner or later. It gives us new conduits for fiberoptics, telephone cables, electricity grid, the proposed system allows for effective water management, sending flood water to drought areas (seems far fetched and i dont know anything about that one)

we have to upgrade the grid anyway. We need new power plants anyway (at the cost of billions per plant). We need to currently rip up lots of shit to bury conduit for fiber (can avoid that cost by rolling it in)

basically it's a multi-corporate idea which would need funding from various companies to use the pre established conduit under the roads, thus dropping the price further

high winds wont down power lines anymore, no need for cities to spend millions a winter on snow plows

you gotta put everything it offers into the price tag, then shake it around and see what the true cost is

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