Solar Freakin' Roadways

An update:


They have their first public trial installation down now. It doesn't seem to be working out quite the way they thought...
 
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People seriously need to stop giving those people an endless flow of money. Millions of dollars into it and all they have to show is a horribly done LED "art" installation that doesn't actually produce any power and was falling apart before it was even completed.

Obviously the idea is flawed from the beginning, but if people are going to throw money at this then they should at least hire some competent talented engineers with manufacturing and design experience to do it.
 
This is as much of a solar freakin' roadway as this asshat's sidewalk light show. All privately funded.
[video=youtube;VSf75latZ-U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSf75latZ-U[/video]
 
An update:


They have their first public trial installation down now. It doesn't seem to be working out quite the way they thought...

Meanwhile at Zadar, Croatia. Since 2008.. :D


Not the cheapest way of paving stuff, but
a) it works
b) it actually produces some power
c) it can stand the constant stomping of what seemed like endless amount of tourist, even off season.

But when it comes to the roadway idea, those lights still aren't bright enough during daytime and according to the wiki page at least, crack when driven over. :p
 
So after giving them hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money, it turns out the project cracks at the points where it was expected.
Great use of public funds there!
 
So after giving them hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's money, it turns out the project cracks at the points where it was expected.
Great use of public funds there!

If only it were just hundreds of thousands. At last count, between local/state government agencies and the Obama Administration they've received just over 2 million taxpayer dollars. $1.6 million in the form of two $750K SBIR grants from the US DOT plus an initial $100K SBIR grant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Roadways#History

As Wikipedia notes:
Sebastian Anthony noted in ExtremeTech that the cost to replace all roads in the United States with Solar Roadways panels would come to approximately $56 trillion, based on Scott Brusaw's cost estimate of $10,000 for a 12?12-foot section. The USDOT announcement of Phase IIB funding in December 2015 mentioned that because the solar cells were still manufactured by hand, they were "very costly to produce".

The first installation for Solar Roadways SR3 panels in Sandpoint, Idaho covered a walking only area of 150 square feet, at an estimated cost of $500,000. This is 50 times Brusaw's cost estimate for a similar sized area of roadway.

Half a million dollars for just this installation and this is what they produce?
 
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It's not often you say "I could have done it better" seriously, but I could have done it better.
 
It would be better not to try in this case.
 
They should combine forces with those circular runway people to drain more taxpayer money revolutionize the world.
 
The circular runways make some sense. Solar Roadways is a case of too much sugar combined with a bad acid trip.
 
The circular runways make some sense. Solar Roadways is a case of too much sugar combined with a bad acid trip.

...and a complete lack of common sense and knowledge of physics, design and engineering.
 
The circular runways make some sense. Solar Roadways is a case of too much sugar combined with a bad acid trip.

Circular runways stop making sense when you remember one element of reality is "crosswinds." Also when you remember how an airplane actually turns.
 
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I did say some.
 
Circular runways stop making sense when you remember one element of reality is "crosswinds." Also when you remember how an airplane actually turns.

Beat me to it. To add to that, runways are typically arranged in such a fashion that planes take off into a headwind to increase lift and decrease the distance one has to travel on the ground.
 
Beat me to it. To add to that, runways are typically arranged in such a fashion that planes take off into a headwind to increase lift and decrease the distance one has to travel on the ground.
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
 
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

they should stack several runways on top of each other! just like a carpark, then you don't have this problem
what could go wrong?
 
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