My engineering intuition says a big company is not going to waste effort and money on something that is never going to be viable. But further than that I rather do the math based on facts because intuition is a guess at best which can be completely wrong.Some people get wealthy raising money and then bankrupting companies. Some erroneously believe because of tunnel vision. Some just completely lose touch with market trends. Some simply bet on the wrong horse/tech.
My engineering intuition says a big company is not going to waste effort and money on something that is never going to be viable. But further than that I rather do the math based on facts because intuition is a guess at best which can be completely wrong.Some people get wealthy raising money and then bankrupting companies. Some erroneously believe because of tunnel vision. Some just completely lose touch with market trends. Some simply bet on the wrong horse/tech.Those are all valid reasons but I doubt the first three are the case. Bigger companies tend to do their homework and a multi-million project like this needs to have board approval. Marketing trends don't really apply since it is not a consumer product. Betting on the wrong horse happens all the time but that is still better than betting on no horse at all.
A GPS is trivially easy to jam too. Even a simple shield placed over the antenna will typically block it.Then you drive past an unmarked van and your odometer raises a red flag due to no GPS signal.
You can't say you weren't warned becasue the red light on your dashboard was telling you all about it.
What am I supposed to do if the red light comes on? Pull over and stop in some sketchy area?
Frankly the whole unmarked van thing sounds a bit creepy, people would be up in arms about that in the US
Because currently there's not much financial incentive to cheat.Yes there is!
OK, let's put some numbers on it. From https://managementscope.nl/opinie/overkapping-snelwegen-verdaas-hijum-a12 (in Dutch) it appears that putting a structure over a highway costs between 6M€ to 60M€ per km. Let's use the average and calculate with 33M€/km. BTW other websites quote numbers between 15M€ and 70M€ per km so 33M€ seems like a good number.
Now let's put a 336kW solar farm on top of a highway over a length of 1km. According to Dave's numbers a 336kW solar farm costs around 527k€ installed. The total costs will be 33M€ +527k€=33.5M€. That means it costs 33.5M€/336k=99.7€ per Watt which makes Colas' solar roadway 99/15=6.6 times cheaper per Watt.Your calculation are not even ballpark right. It is possible to place just 2 axis solar trackers in the middle of the highway. It is a proven solution. And there are special ones, with high ground clearance. I park my car below one at work. And it payed for itself already, so financially viable, it was already financially viable 10 years ago. 18 panels on it.But then you are still placing panels besides the road and not over the road so you are not comparing apples with apples. Placing panels besides the road is cheap & simple but it doesn't maximise the usage of the available space. Try to come up with a cheap solution which spans 8 lanes (2x3 lanes + 2 emergency lanes).
Those are all valid reasons but I doubt the first three are the case. Bigger companies tend to do their homework and a multi-million project like this needs to have board approval. Marketing trends don't really apply since it is not a consumer product. Betting on the wrong horse happens all the time but that is still better than betting on no horse at all.
OK, let's put some numbers on it. From https://managementscope.nl/opinie/overkapping-snelwegen-verdaas-hijum-a12 (in Dutch) it appears that putting a structure over a highway costs between 6M€ to 60M€ per km. Let's use the average and calculate with 33M€/km. BTW other websites quote numbers between 15M€ and 70M€ per km so 33M€ seems like a good number.
Now let's put a 336kW solar farm on top of a highway over a length of 1km. According to Dave's numbers a 336kW solar farm costs around 527k€ installed. The total costs will be 33M€ +527k€=33.5M€. That means it costs 33.5M€/336k=99.7€ per Watt which makes Colas' solar roadway 99/15=6.6 times cheaper per Watt.Your calculation are not even ballpark right. It is possible to place just 2 axis solar trackers in the middle of the highway. It is a proven solution. And there are special ones, with high ground clearance. I park my car below one at work. And it payed for itself already, so financially viable, it was already financially viable 10 years ago. 18 panels on it.But then you are still placing panels besides the road and not over the road so you are not comparing apples with apples. Placing panels besides the road is cheap & simple but it doesn't maximise the usage of the available space. Try to come up with a cheap solution which spans 8 lanes (2x3 lanes + 2 emergency lanes).I provided a solution which generates the same power, with fraction of the cost. I dont need to make up bullshit numbers for you. Because you are defending something, that is un-defendable.
You are missing the point here. I think the problem Colas is trying to solve is where to put solar panels if all the easy spots are filled.
Ofcourse their current installation isn't economically viable today given the alternatives. It's a demo! Your solution just goes for the low hanging fruit and calls it quits once that is gone. Hermit pointed it out clearly with his shale oil example. This was was deemed uneconomic forever... until the equations changed.
Bigger companies can spend billons of dollars on bullshit, if it is goverment funded.
No. You dont need to cover the entire earth to generate enough power. In fact, here is a picture for you, how much space needs to be covered. And solar is not the only green source.
This is a prediction for 2030, using solar thermal. You can power the entire EU by using a fraction of the deserted area in Spain. Until that is done, solar roadways is a pointless exercise in mis-engineering. The money invested in development can be spent to actually solve the issue. We can think about solar roadways in about 30-40 years, if fusion does not solve the issue by then.
You make assumptions about maintenance costs and costs to build structures to put solar panels over a road (not to mention the years it will take to get the permits to build those structures) but I see no numbers to back those assumptions.Let me get this straight... You're saying that you believe it will be less costly to design a robust enough panel for in-road use, get that tested and approved, build the panels and install them into the road surface, then maintain them over the long term than it would be to stick them up on poles above the road surface?!
That's insane.I don't know what is cheaper/more expensive.How about using your engineering intuition?My engineering intuition says a big company is not going to waste effort and money on something that is never going to be viable. But further than that I rather do the math based on facts because intuition is a guess at best which can be completely wrong.
The big company is there to sell a product and make money. They couldn't care less how the client uses it or how effective it is. Look at Apple, they've been churning out crap for the masses for years yet people keep throwing money at them.
My engineering intuition says a big company is not going to waste effort and money on something that is never going to be viable. But further than that I rather do the math based on facts because intuition is a guess at best which can be completely wrong.The big company is there to sell a product and make money. They couldn't care less how the client uses it or how effective it is. Look at Apple, they've been churning out crap for the masses for years yet people keep throwing money at them.