Solar Freakin' Roadways

There are no crosswinds in a runway with literally any direction of take off possible. If the winds blow from 265, there would be ways to calculate according to your planes performance, to start the take off run from somewhere in the circle so you are at Vr at the point where your nose is pointing at roughly 265. Landing would be the same thing.
You couldn't have 2 or 3 airplanes taking off and landing at the same time if winds are over, say, 5 or 10 kts though, one of them would be landing with a tail wind and that's not ideal

That would mean that the runway would have to be really long though, longer than a traditional one. I'm also wondering how many Gs can a plane pull in a corner, normal take off speed for an airliner is what 120? 130? (mph)
 
More than that, typically around those values, but in knots. 1 knot == 1.151 mph
 
So much for the "it clears snow from itself" claim.
[video=youtube;O0yn-xBjb9c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0yn-xBjb9c&t=0s[/video]
 
This one is pretty good too...from the other "expert" guy beating a dead horse about how stupid the roadways are...

[video=youtube;rpwx-8s1M38]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpwx-8s1M38[/video]

This is an update from EEVblog a few weeks ago and goes into some statistics from a much longer(1 lane for 1km) and arguably more professionally manufactured and installed version of the Solar Roadways concept (without the LEDs or supposed heating elements). The panels in this project are made by a legit solar panel company adapting for use in a roadworks capacity using real world results and the prognosis is not good.

Edit: Having watched more of Thunderfoots video he goes into that Wattway one too, referencing the EEVblog video.
 
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Wouldn’t it be better to have basically a tunnel of solar panels over interstates across areas like Arizona? That way drivers aren’t exposed to the intense heat and you’re protecting the road surface. As long as it’s built as tall as the bridges, you’re messing oversized load trucks.
 
93Flareside;n3543440 said:
Wouldn’t it be better to have basically a tunnel of solar panels over interstates across areas like Arizona? That way drivers aren’t exposed to the intense heat and you’re protecting the road surface. As long as it’s built as tall as the bridges, you’re messing oversized load trucks.

Would be both expensive and pointless, much cheaper to put a bunch of solar panels on pivoting arms somewhere in a random field out there. This way you can follow the sun and generate as much capacity as possible, this way you only spend as much as the batteries and the supporting hardware costs as opposed to paying for a tunnel that is hundreds of miles long AND the panels on top of it, which will generate much less energy than follow the sun types. You also have more space for things like batteries or pumped storage or some other way of storing power when there is excess. Not to mention things like repair, much easier to maintain one plant than miles and miles of tunnel.
 
If you look at a city map it's not hard to see that most of what's taking up space is buildings, not roads. Put the solar panels on the stupid buildings is a much more realistic idea than the roads. To start with, cars and people won't be walking over them so you don't need a glass so thick and rugged that it basically filters everything out. The buildings are already there, no need to destroy millions of miles of road to make way for this abomination.

prizrak;n3383565 said:
That would mean that the runway would have to be really long though, longer than a traditional one. I'm also wondering how many Gs can a plane pull in a corner, normal take off speed for an airliner is what 120? 130? (mph)

Didn't see this, but to address that point from what I've seen, the idea is for the runways to be also cambered (banked?) like an old time speed circuits (ex. Monza).
 
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93Flareside;n3543440 said:
Wouldn’t it be better to have basically a tunnel of solar panels over interstates across areas like Arizona? That way drivers aren’t exposed to the intense heat and you’re protecting the road surface. As long as it’s built as tall as the bridges, you’re messing oversized load trucks.

Based on the few hours I've spent on interstates in Arizona you might as well put the solar panels on the ground next to the interstate :dunno: it's not like AZ is going to run out of space any time soon.
 
mpicco;n3543448 said:
Didn't see this, but to address that point from what I've seen, the idea is for the runways to be also cambered (banked?) like an old time speed circuits (ex. Monza).
That sounds even dumber, now instead of lifting straight up it will lift at an angle and have to straighten out. I am also not sure how centripetal force would work out as the plane would also be generating lift.
 
I don't see traditional runways going away any time soon, it's all a theoretical thing, as far as I can tell.
 
narf;n3543454 said:
Based on the few hours I've spent on interstates in Arizona you might as well put the solar panels on the ground next to the interstate :dunno: it's not like AZ is going to run out of space any time soon.

Solar roadside surface panels in AZ would quickly become useless as they would be covered with dust and sand.
 
They have solar panels in the desert in Navada. Are you pertaining to the wind caused by speeding vehicles?
 
I have a feeling they are not just laying next to the road but rather on actual mounts, also yes you have to clean solar panels to get rid of the dust and maintain efficiency.
 
93Flareside;n3543486 said:
They have solar panels in the desert in Navada. Are you pertaining to the wind caused by speeding vehicles?

Drinking much while posting? :p

Anyway, those panels in the Nevada desert are elevated off the ground and are usually located well away from any sort of highway. This keeps the dust collection down on the panels, but they still require regular cleaning with water to retain their efficiency.

If you leave anything lying flat on the ground next to a rural highway in the desert southwest, within a week, it will be covered by a significant layer of dust and/or sand.
 
No, I’m not sure if I need to be driving somewhere yet per a customer so, sober tonight...

I wasn’t sure what you meant. You thought that I thought the panels would be on the ground?

I’ve only ever seen them on a stand above the ground a great deal so, I assumed that. I get a desert is dusty. Kind of an assumption. What I didn’t get is that it appeared you meant that there’s always dust storms and that it’s impossible to have panels anywhere in arizona.
 
93Flareside;n3543497 said:
No, I’m not sure if I need to be driving somewhere yet per a customer so, sober tonight...

I wasn’t sure what you meant. You thought that I thought the panels would be on the ground?

I’ve only ever seen them on a stand above the ground a great deal so, I assumed that. I get a desert is dusty. Kind of an assumption. What I didn’t get is that it appeared you meant that there’s always dust storms and that it’s impossible to have panels anywhere in arizona.

Guess you didn't read the post I was responding to. Narf was saying that the panels would work simply laid on the ground next to the highway in the Desert Southwest, I pointed out that **surface** panels of that type would quickly become useless.
 
Spectre;n3543498 said:
Guess you didn't read the post I was responding to. Narf was saying that the panels would work simply laid on the ground next to the highway in the Desert Southwest, I pointed out that **surface** panels of that type would quickly become useless.

I didn't specify angle or elevation, just "on the ground" as opposed to "on top of a tunnel/roof over the interstate".
 
Laying them flat as opposed to having them on sun tracking mounts greatly reduces their efficiency too, so, nobody sane would put them flat on the ground.
 
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