Solar Freakin' Roadways!!!

PHeller wrote:

nicksta43 wrote: Medians seem like a very good place for solar panels.

I always thought we should put trains in the medians.

They do in the greater DC area and it works pretty well.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

PHeller wrote:

nicksta43 wrote: Medians seem like a very good place for solar panels.

I always thought we should put trains in the medians.

They do in the greater DC area and it works pretty well.

One of precious few things in that area that actually do!

I can't think of any situation in which a train or any kind of mass transit would make since for me. As far as long distance high speed rail, yeah I could see that.

1988RedT2 wrote: I really want to love this idea, but I don't think our society is sufficiently evolved for something like this to work. If we line the streets with tiles that cost $10k each, there will be no shortage of thieves that would steal them. Heck, for $10k each, people will literally kill for these things. Public works can't keep up with replacing safety railings and whatnot that gets ripped off for scrap money. This would be orders of magnitude worse. Perhaps when the cost is comparable to a stone paver, or a layer of blacktop, but that's going to take some serious cost reduction.

There's also the other aspect of it. All that talk of this creating jobs, except all the road guys who get put out of work aren't going to be hired to install solar freaking roadways. Not a chance in hell.

So there's going to be a small uptick in employment for people who can berkeleys with that E36 M3 and a big uptick in unemployment for the road crews. And I know the opinion is generally that it's five guys standing around while one dude shovels, but that isn't always the case.

And what about maintenance? Where I'm from they can't even take care of asphalt or concrete.

And what about the uniquely brilliant practice of putting underground utilities beneath the paved surface of the road? I can not recall a freshly paved stretch of urban roadway that wasn't dug up in search of a leaky gas or water main three months later.

Can I plug my smoker into it and make delicious smoked meats?

Roadways are a stretch, for many reasons, mostly discussed.

More holistic and balanced approach necessary.

So, medians could be used for trains, trains could be made "cool" to utilize, moderate traffic road beds could be utilized as thermal storage medium for solar (but not PV), and this idea could be modified to make simple interlocking PV roof panels, which could replace actual roofing materials.

We keep going to extremes. We want either big solutions (like centralized power generation), or small solutions (like individual private power generation).

The problem is big solutions are too big and powerful for us to be able to relate to, and become political battles, and small solutions are too expensive for us to problem solve individually, and don't network well.

We need more medium scale solutions (like neighborhood co-op power plants).