The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure • Hacker News Board

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#101

Post by taxidump » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

otabdeveloper2 wrote: post #84

debatem1 wrote: post #73

Seems like you'd be much better off floating them on a lake. There was a project a few years ago to do this both for power and to reduce evaporative loss in reservoirs, but I don't know if anything has come of it.

> Seems like you'd be much better off floating them on a lake. Right. Fuck the fishes, let them die, amirite? Landgrubbers unite, legs rule, fins drool!

I am unable to downvote but I would if I could. Many reservoirs are for municipal water supplies and not for marine life. It is common to cover them to reduce evaporation. To jump to the conclusion that floating solar arrays would "fuck the fishes" is obviously not well thought out.

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#102

Post by blunte » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #64

blunte wrote: post #22

Fortunately we didn't give up on flight after the early airplanes. Maybe expectations need to be adjusted, but experiments like this are worth doing! We don't know exactly what they will lead to, but they often add to progress.

> Maybe expectations need to be adjusted, but experiments like this are worth doing! We don't know exactly what they will lead to, but they often add to progress. Except we all knew this would happen. It was all in the predictions. This was a scam. People did the math on these things. We knew it wouldn't hold up to tractors and heavy vehicles. We knew there wasn't a good solution to keep things clean. The problem is…

I suspect a lot of firsts (or early projects) were promoted in scammy, or at least very unrealistic, ways. I don't agree with overpromotion, but frankly a lot of what SV does is based on that as well. If your pitch deck doesn't promise to change the world, you won't get as much attention.

This project was probably a poor use of funds (compared to other options), but the effort may have advanced our knowledge just a bit.

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#103

Post by mrtweetyhack » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

haha. The French are dumb

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#104

Post by jostmey » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

When I walk through a forest, it is full of life. There are dozens to hundreds of critters living above and below me everywhere I walk. When I walk through developed areas, it is lifeless pavement. Anything that reduces humanities footprint, leaving more land to Nature, is probably a good thing. I hope people don't give up on solar paneled roads.

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#105

Post by Slartie » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #69

remote_phone wrote: post #4

It was a failure but I’m glad they tried it. Hopefully something like this comes to fruition and we learn more and more with every iteration. Solar roads are a great idea. Maybe it means it needs daily sweeping with electric vacuum trucks or something but if it’s producing enough electricity then it’s worth it.

Why is building PV panels into the road better than putting them next to the road? Or in giant empty fields along roads?

Because minimizing ground covered with man-made stuff is a goal worth chasing. Leaves more of that thing called "nature" intact and doing its job, which - among other things - is to keep us alive and breathing.

Hence the idea of dual-using those insanely large areas covered with concrete that we use as roads is a great one in principle. We do the same with rooftops already, and it works great. But roads appear to be much more challenging than rooftops.

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#106

Post by nullwasamistake » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #92

nullwasamistake wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar roads and sidewalks are a PR stunt. Abrasion is no joke, nothing optically transparent survives on the ground. You can see this easily in the cellar "pavement lights" common in NYC and other old cities. Light still passes through after a century, but maybe 20% and very diffuse. Bad for solar panels. Roads don't absorb enough energy to generate power, they're not flexible enough. They're designed to not absorb e…

I think you misunderstood the parent, they said "solar covered sidewalks" that shade pedestrians, so roofs. Solar roofs on car parks seem good to me; better than using pasture land converted to solar farms which I'm seeing more and more in UK.

Somewhat. OP also mentions generating energy from the pavement, which I don't think will ever be reasonable.

Solar car park covers are a great idea. Easier access than roofs, don't need to be water proof. Good cooling airflow underneath. Tend to be close to cities where power is easier to transport.

Solar parking lot covers are the best ROI solar installations I can imagine.

Surprised Telsa isn't doing this with their SuperCharger stations

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#107

Post by spodek » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:14 PM UTC

Smithalicious wrote: post #47

I never managed to see the advantages of having a solar road compared to just having a normal road with solar panels next to it. Or above it. Or literally anywhere else. In fact I can't think of many areas that still get direct sunlight that would make for a worse place to put solar panels than on the road...

> Colas, the company that built the road, said in 2016 that the solar panels were covered with resin containing sheets of silicon to make them capable of withstanding all traffic.

I'm going to bet they said that after the check cleared.

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#108

Post by blunte » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:14 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #76

blunte wrote: post #22

Fortunately we didn't give up on flight after the early airplanes. Maybe expectations need to be adjusted, but experiments like this are worth doing! We don't know exactly what they will lead to, but they often add to progress.

The solar industry knew that it wouldn't work. Anyone with a high school understanding of physics could figure out that it wouldn't work. The early trials failed spectacularly and nobody learned anything new. Subsequent trials also failed spectacularly and nobody learned anything new. People are still funding trials with exactly the same flaws as previous failed trials, presumably due to some sort of magical thinking…

To be fair, the Dutch solar bike path was reportedly more successful than expected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolaRoad#Results_of_trial https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/dutch-solar-road-p...

So the idea isn't too crazy, it seems. Maybe it is unsuitable for heavy vehicles, or in areas where particulate is more likely to collect and affect the light gathering; but to some degree it can be successful.

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#109

Post by ergothus » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:14 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #42

WalterBright wrote: post #39

"The engineers also didn't take into account the effects of leaves, which caused damage and limited the amount of electricity the panels could produce. They also didn't think about the pressure and weight from tractors, two locals told Le Monde." They were warned about this.

I find it hard to believe they were really unaware. They either overestimated the durability of their devices or were running a quasi scam.

I know nothing of the details here, so this is total speculation, but I can imagine value in going with a solution you know wont "succeed", if the data you get from the failure is valuable. Like, no need to spend money trying to fix the tractor problem if the leaf problem is too severe. If in practice the leaf problem only deteriorates things by 30%, that's different than 80%, etc.

Spending the money to solve problems on your first run is likely to not actually solve all of them.

Then again, this could be a bold exercise in fraud and/or incompetence.

Re: The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure

#110

Post by Endy » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

nullwasamistake wrote: post #79

Endy wrote: post #65

You know, I always wondered why they didn't go for solar covered sidewalks, which would provide shade to pedestrians and power to everything that needs it. Roads seem like a better place for pressure-based generation (of anything, frankly). Still, just for the enthusiasm they garnered and the continued push toward making renewable energy generation interact with the everyday, the idealists should be commended. The en…

Solar roads and sidewalks are a PR stunt. Abrasion is no joke, nothing optically transparent survives on the ground. You can see this easily in the cellar "pavement lights" common in NYC and other old cities. Light still passes through after a century, but maybe 20% and very diffuse. Bad for solar panels. Roads don't absorb enough energy to generate power, they're not flexible enough. They're designed to not absorb e…

I actually love seeing the "pavement lights" in NYC when I walk past them, or recognize that I'm walking under them. At this point, I know they're purely decorative, but it was a nice touch and something idealistic that left behind something cool. As far as what I was thinking on sidewalks, the other response got it right; I was thinking of putting archways and solar roofing over sidewalks. It doesn't need to be high-yield, but the benefits really sound like they outweigh the risks (as a pedestrian) - keeps the sidewalk in shade, keeps the rain and snow off, and generally would make walking a nicer experience. I've been on covered sidewalks before (including the ubiquitous scaffolds in Manhattan, Hoboken, and Jersey City - I used to aim to walk by the buildings I knew had scaffolds up when the weather was bad out), and it's a better experience than just being outside. Plus, if it's covered well, I think it'd reduce the opportunity for pedestrian vehicle accidents; just from having less possibility of people and cars interacting.

EDIT: Also, thank you for answering about the road idea, it was a thought. Too bad it doesn't work. :-P