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

sciencealert.com

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

#291

Post by pjc50 »

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.

Not only that, a common problem round here (UK) is that trucks park partially on the pavement. They routinely crack two-inch/50mm thick concrete paving slabs. I'd like to see a solar panel that can withstand that.

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

#292

Post by IshKebab »

dredmorbius wrote: post #196
edoceo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Panels at the side of the roads?

Median strips and easements are a possible siting location. Shade awnings over car parks another. The challenge with solar power really isn't sufficient area for siting. It's low-cost installation and low-disturbance environments which ensure long panel life and low maintenance costs. Solar panels have a useful lifetime of about 20 years, due to numerous degredation mechansims (it's not just one), from fogging of the…

The lifetime is better than 20 years. They produce 80% off their original power after 20 years but it's not like they stop working. Nobody would bother replacing them at that point.

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

#293

Post by tom_mellior »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #182
mbrumlow wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That it currently do not work economically is the issue that the article showcase. It's more than that. We simply don't live in a world where physics is in favor for doing this. Many people have done more than back of the envelope calculations to show this simply was a non starter. Those (people who took money to build ) push this idea are either ignorant at best and dishonest at worst.

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.

Sidewalks are still flat on the ground, which is not great in much of the world (like Normandy) where sunlight comes in at an angle. You would still get some generation, but would it be worth it compared to cells mounted elsewhere at a better angle, with less need for hardening, and less accumulation of dirt? Doing this on the sidewalks would add a lot of costs and complications.

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

#294

Post by tonyedgecombe »

tom_mellior wrote: post #289
LoSboccacc wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

only because reasonable opinion were downvoted to hell from the easily excitable crowd. I distinctly remember because I was amongst the downvoted, and dirt/rubber was one of the common concern, and it's weird to read in the article "engineers didn't think about the leaves" like, randos on internet could tell you that, what kind of cheap ass engineers were involved in the design and feasibility phase?

The two large-ish HN discussions I found with a quick search both have critical comments at the top: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11041245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001779

Every Hacker News post has critical comments at the top, if you took notice of those you would never attempt anything.

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

#295

Post by fyfy18 »

fencepost wrote: post #253
beatgammit wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty expensive experiment, and they could have tested each independently (install a few meters of panels near a tree and near a farm). Instead, they installed 1km of road and the minister of energy hoped to drastically increase the amount of these roads within a fairly short time frame (5 years), which tells me they didn't consider it an experiment (just a conservative rollout). This feels like fraud to me…

As a proof of concept trial it wasn't very expensive. Unrelated, but just for comparison it cost about a much as Uber lost every 2.5 hours in 2019Q2. They built a Minimum Viable Product for a trial and found out that it wasn't actually viable and didn't provide the hoped for value. They probably also learned a lot with real world experience (that they wouldn't have been sure to have in a staged setup) and may come ba…

Have there been any trials on creating a solar roof over highways? It seems like a much better option as the panels don't need to be reinforced, and they can be angled towards the sun to aid cleaning. We already know how to build stable metal framed structures (and panels aren't that heavy). In somewhere like Spain it would reduce the requirement for AC while driving, making it even more green. During rain it would increase visibility and reduce water on the road, making the road safer.

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

#296

Post by voxl »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #249
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…

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.

Lets see the easily falsified napkin math then

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

#297

Post by tom_mellior »

absk wrote: post #280
Grue3 wrote: post #277

Made me think, what roads would actually be suitable for this? They have to be: 1) cleaned often 2) have very little traffic 3) have a very large surface And one of the solutions that pops up is: airport runways! They have a huge area, way larger than necessary to land a plane. The surface is always kept in good condition. The traffic is minimal, except for a few very busy airports. Some airports handle just a few pl…

Why does it have to be roads? All airports have more than enough free space as it is, which can be used to set up solar panels in the most optimal way.

I'm not an expert, but I expect that a lot of that seemingly free space to the sides of runways is kept deliberately clear in case of emergency landings and whatnot. Cluttering it with solar panels would probably be a no-go; imagine a plane crash-landing into the middle of a huge electrical installation not easily accessible for firefighters.

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

#298

Post by eitland »

Atheros wrote: post #271
fencepost wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was obviously never going to work Could be, and I suspect that a lot of the actual engineering folks involved would agree 100% on this point. They'd probably also tell you that 5 million for real - world experimental data on the exact ways in which it failed was very much worth it. Was there anything else worth responding to in the wordy pseudo-psychological insults?

May I please read the real-world experimental data that will save other companies millions of dollars?

Go right ahead.

Scientific papers are probably easier to access than anytime before.

Start by looking for optimal angels for mounting solar panels. Last I heard, unless you have movable panels the only correct angle is where they catch most of the sun in the middle of the day.

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

#299

Post by 8bitsrule »

Solar roads seem like a very expensive and thus fixed alternative, when we have a big enough expense ahead of us moving HVAC, transportation, manufacturing, etc. to green sources. Keeping solar generation separate is more flexible.

It's also worth considering that we may choose to move away from big, expensive, fossil-based roadways to more compact, inexpensive and 'smart road' options.

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

#300

Post by cs02rm0 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #182
mbrumlow wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That it currently do not work economically is the issue that the article showcase. It's more than that. We simply don't live in a world where physics is in favor for doing this. Many people have done more than back of the envelope calculations to show this simply was a non starter. Those (people who took money to build ) push this idea are either ignorant at best and dishonest at worst.

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.

Maybe a motorway hard shoulder would be preferable to a live lane.
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