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

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

#261

Post by __sy__ »

craz8 wrote: post #259
reitzensteinm wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with this viewpoint is that there are an endless number of things we could be trying, and it's more or less a zero sum game. The idea was terrible on paper, easily falsified by back of the napkin math. The same amount of money could have been spent on, eg, testing the commercial viability of smoothing out grid loads by making ice off peak for cooling.

It’s never a zero sum game - we can try many things at once, some will work well, some will work poorly, some won’t work at all Trying things helps us move forward

And some aren't even worth trying in the first place. Like this idea.

edit: I'm all for trying crazy moonshots. Just not down right idiotic ones that are pushed by pseudo-science and clickbait activism [1].

[1]https://www.vox.com/2014/5/14/5717036/should-we-cover-all-ou...

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

#262

Post by adrianN »

caymanjim wrote: post #225

This was not at all a failure. They built a 1km experimental road. They gained valuable information about real-world performance and technical challenges. It's not as though they built a 100km long six-lane highway with unproven technology. They built a tiny one-lane trial to test a promising idea. It was overhyped by politicians, but what isn't? Maybe they even steamrolled over engineering red flags. That doesn't me…

As far as I know solar roads where never a promising idea because they have obvious shortcomings that this trial just confirmed. There are a million better places to put solar panels than under car tires. Once we've exhausted those would could start thinking about solar roadways.

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

#263

Post by quanto »

craz8 wrote: post #259
reitzensteinm wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with this viewpoint is that there are an endless number of things we could be trying, and it's more or less a zero sum game. The idea was terrible on paper, easily falsified by back of the napkin math. The same amount of money could have been spent on, eg, testing the commercial viability of smoothing out grid loads by making ice off peak for cooling.

It’s never a zero sum game - we can try many things at once, some will work well, some will work poorly, some won’t work at all Trying things helps us move forward

I understood the parent post's view as a zero-sum game among different proposals. There is a set, limited budget, and myriad ideas to choose from and test. Funding one idea means not being able to fund another. Thus, zero-sum.

Therefore, we should fund most probable test ideas as should any scientific endeavor. The parent post claims that this particular idea was not probable to begin with (a poor idea on paper).

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

#264

Post by reitzensteinm »

craz8 wrote: post #259
reitzensteinm wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with this viewpoint is that there are an endless number of things we could be trying, and it's more or less a zero sum game. The idea was terrible on paper, easily falsified by back of the napkin math. The same amount of money could have been spent on, eg, testing the commercial viability of smoothing out grid loads by making ice off peak for cooling.

It’s never a zero sum game - we can try many things at once, some will work well, some will work poorly, some won’t work at all Trying things helps us move forward

It shouldn't be zero sum. We should try every feasible idea we can, and humanity has a blind spot for funding projects that aren't sexy and don't have the chance of outsized commercial returns, like cheap lenses for third world countries. Or insulation.

But that's the ideal. In the real world, political and consumer attention for projects like this most certainly is zero sum. They quickly get fatiguing and you already feel like you've done your bit.

In fact, it's probably even worse than zero sum in practice, because after being burned on junk like solar roads, you're far less likely to vouch or open your wallet for the next cool sounding tech that comes along.

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

#265

Post by mirimir »

ars wrote: post #217
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder if the concept could work on a sidewalk, given that they aren't being perpetually driven over by 3,000+ pound vehicles.

The ground pressure from a truck is around 150 PSI. A woman wearing high heels can match, and even exceed that. So the sidewalk would need to be just as strong as the road.

It's not that simple. Looking at the damaged roadway, I see lots of punctate damage. That puzzled me until I read your comment. I'm pretty sure that it's gravel under truck tires. So the same force-concentration dynamic as high heels.

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

#266

Post by roar-of-time »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #177
mettamage wrote: post #172

Hmm... Can we just applaud that people are trying something new? Or are we going to shoot it down because of pessimism? If you know so well what works, then do your best and make it happen or write a guide on how to do experiments that almost always lead to success. They didn’t fail fast, but they failed with relatively little costs. What is 5 million to the national GDP of France? It seems to me they were trying som…

Yeah, this is how I see it too. It was an experiment. It failed. Things were learned from deploying it into a real-world environment. This may contribute in some way to a future technology, as often happens. HN of course is full of people who are experts on every topic, so naturally there was no need to actually perform this experiment. They could have just accurately predicted its faults and performance from theoriz…

The comments on that page are overwhelmingly friendly. And regardless, how can you even compare the two?! Dropbox fulfilled an obvious need and fulfilled it very well, whereas "solar roads" don't seem to be a solution to any problem at all!

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

#268

Post by zdragnar »

evilmushroom wrote: post #221
belorn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage that people wanted to get is that in the end you also get a road. Roads take up space, cost money to build and maintain. If you build it next to the road the road need twice the amount of space and still require the space, construction and material for the actually road. If you build it above the road you get all the issue of overhead roof on a road (trees that fall on it, wind, height limitation). In a…

Or just put them above the road then? :P

Put them above the road and tall trucks can't go through anymore. Plus, the support structures needed suddenly become obstacles for cars to hit when making emergency maneuvers or drivers lose control, and now you've got tons of glass shards, electrified wires and steel supports falling down onto the freeway.

Under the road is literally the only option, and it's a terrible option at that. Rooftops - or better yet, former farm fields- are always going to be cheaper and more efficient.

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

#269

Post by kirrent »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #267

Why aren't sidewalks being turned in to solar sidewalks? I wondered how robust solar roads could be given that even concrete roads fall apart when you have thousands of cars driving on them. But solar sidewalks, that could work.

It's been done with bike paths. Also got a terrible track record with a lot of failures.

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

#270

Post by zdragnar »

mikeash wrote: post #206
SllX wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They capture the imagination because there are plenty of places you don’t want to build solar panels. Namely places that you want to leave alone for ecological or recreational purposes. If you can take a piece of infrastructure that is pervasive throughout a built environment and give it additional purpose, then you can save on or reduce the land you specify for this purpose. Does it work? Apparently not, or at least…

What is the advantage of putting the solar panels under the cars rather than above them?

People drive into things over roads:

https://gfycat.com/difficultgrizzledfox

Imagine that, but with solar over the road- you now have sheets of glass shards, live electric wiring and support steel falling down over the road. Additionally, the supports (along side the road to hold it up over the top) become targets for collision as well.

The sheer amount of materials required to make it sturdy enough to survive tornados, general high speed winds, and the occasional accident from a moving vehicle means that you're going to have a hard time coming out carbon neutral- or at the very least, you'll lose a lot of the benefits.

Of course, putting the panels under the cars is a pretty awful idea as well. Simply put, they don't belong near roads at all.

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