Solar pavements - in Scotland!

[Puffin]

Dave's not managing to get the message out.   More "Solar Roadways" nonsense here in Scotland of all places...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-44076553

"The first pilot pavement is expected to be laid in Glasgow next year"

 

[Brumby]

 

[voltsandjolts]

  To be built in a shady corner of cloudy Glasgow then promptly covered in chewing gum. FFS.

[Electro Detective]

I can see seagulls, graffittiTards and rollerskaters going to work on these, and the battling tax payers footing the repair bill

Are they at a decent angle to catch any sunlight ? or expect people walking over them to have sunshine coming out of... 

[Brumby]

Any political conferences being scheduled around the area?

[Marco]

Paid for by Qatari taxpayers at least and the final installation in Qatar will be more of an art exhibit than anything else.  Seems far less of a waste of money than the shit they build in my country. Less pretence at being practical.

[Nominal Animal]

What if they built solar roadways only on very steep hills facing south?

[Brumby]

Add snow = ski slopes.

[Nominal Animal]

I was thinking more along the lines of "anyone going downhill will be blind due to the reflected sunlight", "anyone going uphill during the night will be blind due to street light reflections", and "add water or snow, get a slip-n-slide, with lots of broken limbs and vehicle collisions". But the solar panels themselves would have a fighting chance of actually working, then, if the slope was steep enough! 

Solar pavements...

[tht3fd]

cant get ya there, but skiing is best part 

[hackinblack]

it's pure BS just like this:-
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/12/worlds-first-solar-road-opens-in-france/

"  they're not expecting anywhere near 420MWh in reality—perhaps due to the low amount of direct sunlight in Normandy "

no Sh*t Sherlock... last time i was up in 'Normandie' there was so little sunlight i may as well have lived in a cupboard.
Near Mont St-Michel tourist attraction, After an abortive attempt at 'green' transport using horse-drawn buses (and technical issues such as axles collapsing due to crap design,and finding nobody trained enough horses to haul the bloody things) they also tried a section of solar road to power electric trams to replace the conventional buses (themselves a wierd experience..first time i've ever been on a bus jammed completely full of japanese tourists being shepherded around by their tour guide like 8yr olds on a school trip)...this marvel of bullshit over common sense survived about a fortnight before the service lorries trashed it. just finding new ways of spending that EU budget in time...

[Seph.b]

Asphalt roads already seem like good solar collectors to me.

Wouldn't it be easier, cheaper and more reliable to just put heat pipes in the road and attach them to mirco turbines?

It could keep the asphalt cooler to.

No one steal my idea. 

[Brumby]

Asphalt roads already seem like good solar collectors to me.

Wouldn't it be easier, cheaper and more reliable to just put heat pipes in the road and attach them to mirco turbines?

It could keep the asphalt cooler to.

No one steal my idea. 

Asphalt is not a solid.

Have you ever seen a road frequented by a lot of traffic - or one that endures significant volumes of heavy traffic?  Ruts develop where the asphalt is squeezed out by the pressure of the tyres rolling over the surface.  Any buried pipes would be subjected to deformation forces.

[Ice-Tea]

"Did you run out of rooftops?"

"No"

"Then piss off"

[woody]

It could keep the asphalt cooler to.

And during winter you could heat the roads. Saves a lot of antifreeze, snowplows, traffic jams and what not. I'm all for it!

[Seph.b]

Asphalt roads already seem like good solar collectors to me.

Wouldn't it be easier, cheaper and more reliable to just put heat pipes in the road and attach them to mirco turbines?

It could keep the asphalt cooler to.

No one steal my idea. 

Asphalt is not a solid.

Have you ever seen a road frequented by a lot of traffic - or one that endures significant volumes of heavy traffic?  Ruts develop where the asphalt is squeezed out by the pressure of the tyres rolling over the surface.  Any buried pipes would be subjected to deformation forces.

Still seems like an easier problem to solve then solar panels that you drive on.

I obviously wasn't suggesting this as a serious solution. As the poster above me said, as long as their are empty rooftops. When we run out of those we can add canopies over parking lots. If we ever run out of those we can think about canopies over road ways. I don't think we will get past rooftops anytime soon.

It could keep the asphalt cooler to.

And during winter you could heat the roads. Saves a lot of antifreeze, snowplows, traffic jams and what not. I'm all for it!

That's the spirit!

[Nominal Animal]

And during winter you could heat the roads.

Yes! And it only takes a couple of orders of magnitude more power to melt the ice and snow, than moving it with plows and trucks.

[woody]

And during winter you could heat the roads.

Yes! And it only takes a couple of orders of magnitude more power to melt the ice and snow, than moving it with plows and trucks.

Hey, we all have to pull our weight to keep global warming going 😁

[Kleinstein]

They have heated pavements / road in some places in Iceland - though this is with geothermal heat at low cost.

Besides form high cost, there is another problem with solar roadways - glass tends to be slippery when wet. So on a south facing hill it could be a funny slide. 

[Nominal Animal]

I know of at least two heated street blocks in Helsinki, Finland, too. One is at the very center, where plowing is difficult (cobbled street) and a lot of foot traffic on the sidewalks, so it makes practical sense just from accident prevention sense.  The other is a short steep hill near Kumpula campus, ensuring buses can safely climb and descend the hill.

So, I am not saying there is never a good reason to use thermal energy to keep a street or pavement clear, because there demostrably is. I'm only saying that using thermal energy for keeping roads free of snow and ice is usually a huge waste of energy. Just like solar roadways/pavements are. Just put the frigging things on the roofs, where they are very efficient, are under very little stress (in comparison), and are relatively cheap and easy to install. Plus, there they are very near the point of use, which means low transmission losses.

I am genuinely utterly puzzled and confused by exactly what makes solar roadways/pavements so media-sexy. Are us humans really this stupid and unquestioning? 

[glarsson]

I am genuinely utterly puzzled and confused by exactly what makes solar roadways/pavements so media-sexy. Are us humans really this stupid and unquestioning? 

Yes.

[Brumby]

I obviously wasn't suggesting this as a serious solution. As the poster above me said, as long as their are empty rooftops. When we run out of those we can add canopies over parking lots. If we ever run out of those we can think about canopies over road ways. I don't think we will get past rooftops anytime soon.

Mea culpa.  Upon reflection, it was a bit daft to throw in the comment I did.

[woody]

I am genuinely utterly puzzled and confused by exactly what makes solar roadways/pavements so media-sexy. Are us humans really this stupid and unquestioning? 

Maybe because it combines more road building and more transport, which is a conservative issue, with more clean energy, which is a progressive issue. At the same time a solar road negates the 'more roads = more pollution' issue, so public financing becomes easier.

Still a stupid idea imo.

[SiliconWizard]

Here we go again.

It's making me sad. Really. All the more that there would be so many creative and efficient ways of making good use of solar energy. And yet politics are consistently picking the worst ones.
 

[rrinker]

I know of at least two heated street blocks in Helsinki, Finland, too. One is at the very center, where plowing is difficult (cobbled street) and a lot of foot traffic on the sidewalks, so it makes practical sense just from accident prevention sense.  The other is a short steep hill near Kumpula campus, ensuring buses can safely climb and descend the hill.

So, I am not saying there is never a good reason to use thermal energy to keep a street or pavement clear, because there demostrably is. I'm only saying that using thermal energy for keeping roads free of snow and ice is usually a huge waste of energy. Just like solar roadways/pavements are. Just put the frigging things on the roofs, where they are very efficient, are under very little stress (in comparison), and are relatively cheap and easy to install. Plus, there they are very near the point of use, which means low transmission losses.

I am genuinely utterly puzzled and confused by exactly what makes solar roadways/pavements so media-sexy. Are us humans really this stupid and unquestioning? 

I've seen this on small scale in the US as well - Mario Andretti, the race car driver, lives near me, and his home is huge, done up as an Italian villa. His driveway is rather long, but also all cobblestone, not plowable with the typical bladed plow. We don't get a huge amount of snow in a typical winter in this area, but there's enough that you need some way of clearing it. He has water lines run under it, like an under-floor heating system. On sunny days thsi heats his pool. When it snows, the warm water circulates and keeps (most) of the snow off. Quite effective, but he's not trying to even run the house on this, just heat the pool without using fossil fuel or electricity.