Posted on 05/25/2014 11:25:36 AM PDT by Oliviaforever
In the first month since posting their project on Indiegogo, Idaho couple Scott and Julie Brusaw raised over $400,000, and were rapidly approaching half of their $1 million goal in the Friday prior to Memorial Day weekend. Their idea? Solar roadways.
(Excerpt) Read more at equities.com ...
Seems pretty smart to me.
Get a crazy, impractical and unworkable idea, few CAD / artists images, and collect tons of money from silly greenie / watermelon fools.
The author makes a common sense and well reasoned argument as to why solar roadways are a bad idea. Of course liberals will immediately charge him with being a paid shill for big oil, anti-green, racist, and probably homophobic.
What a scam on those who have judgement problems. However, it is better they spend their money on this idiocy, rather than steal taxpayers’ money to do so.
If tires don’t grip the high-tech glass as well as they grip asphalt, I wonder if fuel efficiency will go down?
On a related note, I wonder if brakes will be less effective on the glass when there’s rain and snow.
Also, if I was a pedestrian who was trying to get across a wet glass road and I started jogging across the road to try to get across instead of waiting for an oncoming car to pass, what are my chances of slipping on the glass and falling compared with asphalt?
That would just be a hidden tax. When the piezoelectric crystal is compressed the auto is being slowed very slightly. So it would cost everyone who used it by lowering their mileage.
This is as stupid as anything....It may well get lots of oh gee funding from other stupid people. Never let facts and science get in the way of a good scam
precisely
I knew it was stupid from the title alone
Okay, I’m in! I could use some cash.
I just saw the solar freakin roadway video for the first time today. It is interesting if typical how the proponents love to shout down any opposition. The basis for the pro arguments seems to be “Well, they have engineers working on this stuff, so I’m sure they have considered it/will figure it out.”
Some of the considerations I haven’t seen discussed yet include the following:
1. The road surface would be black after a short time due to the tires scrubbing across it. Electricity output would decline to near zero.
2. Solar cells degrade over time. After the huge initial investment, there would be a huge continuing investment of replacing them all in 20-25 years.
3. Every road where these were installed would require a new cable vault installed beside it where the interconnections and power transmission would be accomplished. This is another huge expense.
4. Part of the incentive for this project seems to be the factor of how cool it would look at night. That “Tron” look takes electric power, which is not being generated by solar cells when there’s no sunlight. We will still need baseload coal, natural gas or nuclear power plants to power up the huge electrical load posed by these roads for many hours every day.
5. Consider driving over an asphalt road surface in the rain. Now replace the asphalt with tempered glass. How does that affect your vehicle’s stopping distance? “The road was as slick as glass” takes on an entirely new meaning if it actually IS glass.
6. Painted lines on asphalt are permanent. They don’t glitch out or disappear when their computer restarts.
The idea sounds wonderful and innovative, but without further study and proof of concept, I’m not going to get too excited about it.
sometimes the headlines do tell it all ;)
Crowd funding gone wild. At least the cold fusion dudes aren’t posting ...
Let them raise the money and build some short stretches of road using this technology and see how it pans out.
Indiegogo? I guess it a good place to raise money for scams...
lol, yeah, but isn’t that already happening to the asphalt and concrete?
No.
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