Thread: do you remember the solar frekin roadways ?

Interesting idea but!

Tiles on roadways, blocks of wood where used around the world, most famously London and some are still in use today... Jarrah timber was the prefered(comes from WA)... I think from memory the timber mills around the southwest corner, near Augusta shipped a lot to London, from Flinders bay and Hamlin bay....

One of the issues would be sub surface foundations being critical along with weight bearing being an issue... Here in WA it would not be practical with the weight of trucks on these surfaces, ie axle loadings upto 9 tonnes or tyre loadings to 3,250 kg - 3,450 kg...

Then of course glass, road surface temps exceeding 70 degrees Celsius... We have enough problems with bitumen melting even on cool days, imagine the glass temperature after a 150 tonne road train has passed or a platform with some mining machinery...

Then of course these panels need to be removable to replace a faulty one...

I personally think at this stage its not practical to consider the idea for road surfaces, we still havent learnt to build roads better or to learn from the past... Until road construction improves over the construction of 50 years ago, it will be another backwards step that humans will blame on others as has been happening for the last 30 years...

Originally Posted by Wraithe

Interesting idea but!

Tiles on roadways, blocks of wood where used around the world, most famously London and some are still in use today... Jarrah timber was the prefered(comes from WA)... I think from memory the timber mills around the southwest corner, near Augusta shipped a lot to London, from Flinders bay and Hamlin bay....

One of the issues would be sub surface foundations being critical along with weight bearing being an issue... Here in WA it would not be practical with the weight of trucks on these surfaces, ie axle loadings upto 9 tonnes or tyre loadings to 3,250 kg - 3,450 kg...

Then of course glass, road surface temps exceeding 70 degrees Celsius... We have enough problems with bitumen melting even on cool days, imagine the glass temperature after a 150 tonne road train has passed or a platform with some mining machinery...

Then of course these panels need to be removable to replace a faulty one...

I personally think at this stage its not practical to consider the idea for road surfaces, we still havent learnt to build roads better or to learn from the past... Until road construction improves over the construction of 50 years ago, it will be another backwards step that humans will blame on others as has been happening for the last 30 years...

There's nothing practical about this idea - it's been shown it can't work in any way shape or form.

It's not just the driving on glass bit, but panels mounted flat not getting bigger all sun, leds not being able to be seen during the day, glare off the surface, etc, etc. it's been done to death.

It's far more efficient to put the panels on roofs where they can actually do what they are designed to do.

Go look at Thunderf00ts other videos or check out some of the math that's been done by Dave on the Eev blog.

I agree, but every little idea may produce something worth while....

You cant just condemn an idea without seeing if there is a practical use of the technology in some way or even part of that technology...

Roads where built better by the romans than what we have today and thats a perfect example of not learning from our past....

Solar is just a small solution for energy production...

Thermal towers are another solution but its hard to get people to see that it is practical...

Wind is another small solution...

Solar thermal production is another usable idea and since they adopted salt as the conductor it is slowly improving for the use of larger outputs...

and of course we know hydro is very useful at this stage of technology...

Coal fired is good for production along with gas...

But I do agree, they would be better if they had them reliable and not a load bearing surface...

My solution may come to fruition in the near future, next to no power needed... I like peace, quiet and the idea of technology free...

I'm all for renewable energy, but for the life of me I can't see why sticking the panels on the road makes any sense when the area of rooftops is vastly more and there aren't any issues with protecting them or keeping them in the sun.

most australian roads where built by bedfords ford bedfords and now have road trains run over them.

it could also be argued that airbags are not helping the roads as while they dont rip a big pot hole like spring suspension does it creates waves in the road.

the thing is hey its an idea but it never should of left the idea board just some basic tests would of told you if its viable
like this
Solar FREAKIN Roadways, are they real? - YouTube

so the people who started all this ether are not engineers or are and found a way to scam their government and people with a crowd funding campaign.

this then stops people from supporting anther campaign which could actually help.


this is like a gold hammer will it work yes, but is it cost effective and reusable........no

There are knockers and there are doers. One contributes to society, the other does not. This bloke adds nothing to life.

Hopefully something a bit more workable will develop and it can be a workable solution.

Originally Posted by Slunnie

This bloke adds nothing to life.

Not true. I'll bet he gave Al Gore a warm fuzzy feeling for a minute or two...

Originally Posted by johntins

Not true. I'll bet he gave Al Gore a warm fuzzy feeling for a minute or two...

Probably! Although I was talking about the guy who made the youtube clip.