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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

#201

Post by dredmorbius »

kolinko wrote: post #120
_Nat_ wrote: post #12

Solar roads seem like a really cool technology. Like, if they worked great and were affordable and everything, then awesome! But, practically speaking, they seem to violate the [single responsibility principle]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_responsibility_principl... ). By coupling a solar panel to a road, we're forcing the physical entity to comply with competing objectives. Seems like the future's prone to…

You know you kind of described how trains work? :) I just did a quick calculation for Poland - we have 11k km electrified train tracks, with ~1.5m of space between the rails. If I calculated correctly, putting solar panels there would give us ~8-15tWh energy per year, which is 5-10% of the required electricity production for the nation. I've never been a fan of the idea of solar roads, but solar railways might actual…

Mechanical equipment, and freight, tends to fall onto tracks. Axels need lubrication, there are hydraulic fluids, potentially septic drops, and bulk containers (coal, sand, gravel, metal, scrap, grain) also leak from bins. None of these do much to improve efficiency or lifetime of solar panels.

Rail has adjacent easements. These have traditionally been used for complementary technologies, e.g., telegraph and other comms routes (which share a need for continuous rights of way, and provide a utility to the railroads themselves for communications and control services).

There are reasons you might want to avoid certain co-sitings (e.g., unarmoured petroleum or natural gas lines adjacent to rail trackage). But solar could well be a reasonable adjunct.

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

#202

Post by mikeash »

nkoren wrote: post #86

Yes, solar roads were always the answer to the question of "where is the absolute worst possible place to put solar panels". This was 100% predictable.

I can think of worse places. On top of airliners, for example, or inside active coal mines.

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

#204

Post by ijiiijji1 »

mikeash wrote: post #202
nkoren wrote: post #86

Yes, solar roads were always the answer to the question of "where is the absolute worst possible place to put solar panels". This was 100% predictable.

I can think of worse places. On top of airliners, for example, or inside active coal mines.

Under airliners seems even worse.

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

#205

Post by Mirioron »

CydeWeys wrote: post #194
takeda wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is though that currently most roads are made from asphalt, yet even that is not durable enough and needs to be periodically reapplied, how a glass can compete with that?

And anyone who lives anywhere it snows knows how badly the roads get beaten up by snow plows and salt.

Snow plows and salt aren't even the worst of it. Every road is going to have some water in it and when the temperature drops below zero, that water freezes. Water expands when it freezes and this puts stress on the asphalt. You go through enough of these cycles and your road starts to breaking down.

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

#206

Post by mikeash »

SllX wrote: post #148
jwr wrote: post #100

For some reason, solar roads are a very aggressive meme (in the classical sense of the word). They capture the imagination and blind people to engineering reality. Solar roads do not make any sense whatsoever, as you wrote pretty much any other place is better for panels.

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?

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

#207

Post by Mirioron »

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 haven't seen anything from it yet that would convince me that it's not a scam. The fact that there are people defending this after all this time baffles me.

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

#208

Post by surelyyoujest »

belorn wrote: post #122
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...

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…

It is plausible, but how much money is actually saved if you need to build panels that can stand wear and tear of vehicles above them? Surely the engineering is different and more costly than regular panels that don't need to be built to withstand cars rolling over, plus their maintenance, no?

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

#209

Post by Wellshit »

mikeash wrote: post #202
nkoren wrote: post #86

Yes, solar roads were always the answer to the question of "where is the absolute worst possible place to put solar panels". This was 100% predictable.

I can think of worse places. On top of airliners, for example, or inside active coal mines.

Airliners would be an ok place I guess, cool and above the clouds

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

#210

Post by Mirioron »

doteka wrote: post #40

I remember at the time this was announced, I was working at a startup in the solar PV industry. Our collective response on the workfloor was, "wow, that's an incredibly stupid idea for so many reasons". Surprised it took them so long to admit failure.

If they had admitted failure earlier, then they couldn't milk as much money from suckers.
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