Three Years Later, France's Solar Road is a Flop (popularmechanics.com) 177
A user and schwit1 both submitted the same story. That 1-km ( .62-mile) "solar road" paved with photovoltaic panels in France is "too noisy, falling apart, and doesn't even collect enough solar energy," reports Popular Mechanics:
Le Monde describes the road as "pale with its ragged joints," with "solar panels that peel off the road and the many splinters [from] that enamel resin protecting photovoltaic cells." It's a poor sign for a project the French government invested in to the tune of €5 million, or $5,546,750. The noise and poor upkeep aren't the only problems facing the Wattway. Through shoddy engineering, the Wattway isn't even generating the electricity it promised to deliver...
Normandy is not historically known as a sunny area. At the time, the region's capital city of Caen only got 44 days of strong sunshine a year, and not much has changed since. Storms have wrecked havoc with the systems, blowing circuits. But even if the weather was in order, it appears the panels weren't built to capture them efficiently... Solar panels are most efficient when pointed toward the sun. Because the project needed to be a road as well as a solar generator, however, all of its solar panels are flat. So even within the limited sun of the region, the Wattway was further limiting itself.
The problem-plagued road is producing just half the solar energy expected -- although that's more energy than you'd get from an asphalt road. But Marc Jedliczka, vice president of the Network for Energetic Transition (CLER), which promotes renewable energy, offered this suggestion in the Eurasia Times. "If they really want this to work, they should first stop cars driving on it."
He later told Le Monde that the sorry state of the project "confirms the total absurdity of going all-out for innovation to the detriment of solutions that already exist and are more profitable, such as solar panels on roofs."
But Futurism adds that the idea of having roadways generate solar power "is far from dead, according to Business Insider. In the Netherlands, a solar bike lane has fared much better, exceeding the expected energy production. A solar panel road is also being tested near Amsterdam's Schiphol airport."
Normandy is not historically known as a sunny area. At the time, the region's capital city of Caen only got 44 days of strong sunshine a year, and not much has changed since. Storms have wrecked havoc with the systems, blowing circuits. But even if the weather was in order, it appears the panels weren't built to capture them efficiently... Solar panels are most efficient when pointed toward the sun. Because the project needed to be a road as well as a solar generator, however, all of its solar panels are flat. So even within the limited sun of the region, the Wattway was further limiting itself.
The problem-plagued road is producing just half the solar energy expected -- although that's more energy than you'd get from an asphalt road. But Marc Jedliczka, vice president of the Network for Energetic Transition (CLER), which promotes renewable energy, offered this suggestion in the Eurasia Times. "If they really want this to work, they should first stop cars driving on it."
He later told Le Monde that the sorry state of the project "confirms the total absurdity of going all-out for innovation to the detriment of solutions that already exist and are more profitable, such as solar panels on roofs."
But Futurism adds that the idea of having roadways generate solar power "is far from dead, according to Business Insider. In the Netherlands, a solar bike lane has fared much better, exceeding the expected energy production. A solar panel road is also being tested near Amsterdam's Schiphol airport."
Roof (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is clearly to place solar roadways on elevated rooftops. And not let things travel on top of them.
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Oh sure you wanna ban parkour :)
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People doing parcour don't tend to be on the heavy spectrum, so it should be fine.
Re:Roof (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Roof (Score:5, Interesting)
You didn't read the GP's link. "On top" of a bike line in this case doesn't mean cyclists are on it, it means they are providing shade for cyclists and are angled for optimum energy collection. Kind of like an ideal case that was well thought out rather than a stupid solar roadway.
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In most places shade is generally unnecessary or even unwanted for bike lanes, though, and very expensive to build. It would be better to see more companies besides Tesla pursue solar roofs, because every building needs a roof.
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"In most places shade is generally unnecessary or even unwanted for bike lanes, though, and very expensive to build."
Neither. Google solar roofs on parking spaces, they only need flimsy supports and don't forget, THEY MAKE MONEY!
Re: Roof (Score:3)
Yep. It would be stupid to have sidewalks coated in delicate tech having 200 lb footsteps landing on them, how much stupider to have thousand pound bearing metal studded snow tires and chains slamming down on them, when they could just be shading and keeping snow off the road by building a roof over the same road made of the panels.
Re: Roof (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. "Solar roadways" is such a profoundly stupid idea that I thought it was an April Fools joke when I first heard it.
I can't believe anyone ever took it seriously.
In addition to all the engineering problems, maintenance, and economic absurdities, it is trying to solve a problem that DOES NOT EXIST: Lack of space to put solar panels. There are millions of hectares of rooftops and parking lot covers where standard cost-effective panels can be installed at a tiny fraction of the cost.
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It seems there's really several constraints - none of which are met at present - that need to be met before there's any point to considering it.
1) Insuffiicient accessible, viable roof space
2) Strong public outcry for not consuming undeveloped land, AND
2b) No viable path for replacing agricultural shade cloth with sparse solar arrays, where applicable
3) Solar panels have become dirt cheap, making all issues of efficiency matter only with respect to issues of labour, longevity, project planning/prep costs, e
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First of all: since climate change, in Europe we don't have any snow anymore. Well, outside of the mountains at least.
Secondly, snow chains are forbidden, well - outside of mountain regions at least.
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Boring.
Almost all solid engineering is boring though.
Failure due to team, not concept (Score:3)
The solution is clearly to place solar roadways on elevated rooftops. And not let things travel on top of them.
That's probably a better idea but from TFA it sounds like the reason this failed was extremely shoddy engineering and planning. When calculating the power delivered they did not account for the fact the road remains flat and does not angle the cells to the sun; they did not protect the electronics from storm surges; the road was built in rural Normandy which has a climate like Britain i.e. lots of rain and not much sun and finally despite being in a rural area they did not design the surface to withstand t
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Actually it DOES say a lot of things about solar roads.
Sub-optimum angle.
Necessary concessions to durability.
The desire to put other crap in there (road heaters, LED lines and such).
Not taking into account things like detritus buildup.
Shit weatherproofing.
And on and on and on and...you get the picture.
Basically these things are ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS going to be a money-losing proposition.
The math for it Just Doesn't Work.
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despite being in a rural area they did not design the surface to withstand tractors driving on it.
I believe you misunderstand the kind of tractors being discussed. The damage and wear on the road was from articulated trucks, or the "tractor" in tractor-trailers. Agricultural tractors use large low pressure tires, travel at low speeds, and therefore impose very little wear or damage to a typical roadway.
All this suggests that the project failed because of the people running it. That's not to say that roofs are probably a lot better but it seems that the failure of this project does not really say much about the viability of solar roads.
Really? You still believe that solar roads could still be viable? I know solar roadways will always fail. Not because they are in a road but because they use solar photo-voltaic cells for power. Sol
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Except that's not always true. Some tractors have steel tracks, like a tank.
Whatever. I'm not going to debate this point as it is irrelevant.
And anywhere tractors are used, they're hauled around on big flatbed trailers to get them to the location where needed.
If they are hauled on trailers from field to field then how are they causing damage to the roads?
Also big grain trucks are used to haul the output from the field.
I agree, and these trucks can weigh as much as 40 tons.
Either way these roads cannot hold up to the traffic intended for it. Given how fragile solar PV cells are and how much these vehicles can weigh there should be doubt in the viability of any solar roadway in the future. Maybe they can be made to hold up to passenger cars, bicycles, and other
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The solution is clearly to place solar roadways on elevated rooftops. And not let things travel on top of them.
That's probably a better idea but from TFA it sounds like the reason this failed was extremely shoddy engineering and planning. When calculating the power delivered they did not account for the fact the road remains flat and does not angle the cells to the sun; they did not protect the electronics from storm surges; the road was built in rural Normandy which has a climate like Britain i.e. lots of rain and not much sun and finally despite being in a rural area they did not design the surface to withstand tractors driving on it. All this suggests that the project failed because of the people running it. That's not to say that roofs are probably a lot better but it seems that the failure of this project does not really say much about the viability of solar roads.
Solar Roads are just a stupid idea, this was pointed out by several here each time the topic has come up. You can rationalize this failure any way you want, but there's a list of reason why its a stupid idea. First is that you have heavy machinery driving over it. That alone is a non-starter from any practical standpoint. Then their is the fact that we've significantly optimized the road building techniques and any change dramatically increases cost. The there is the fact that conventional PV panels are alr
EEVBlog debunked this for 5+ projects (Score:5, Insightful)
This was so predictably going to fail. So many tax dollars wasted in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and some more countries. And *all* of the projects failed, including the Dutch ones mentioned in this article. Who would have thought driving over solar panels was a stupid idea? Well, pretty much every engineer..
EEVBlog covers it wel. This is just one of many episodes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:EEVBlog debunked this for 5+ projects (Score:5, Insightful)
At least that was more-or-less the quality of arguments I heard when this video got released [youtube.com]. If you can be trendy, if people think you are trendy, you can make a fortune.
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Yeah, but SOLAR FUCKING ROADWAYS! Don't you know that shouting it and putting it in caps and being trendy makes it scientifically feasible? At least that was more-or-less the quality of arguments I heard when this video got released [youtube.com]. If you can be trendy, if people think you are trendy, you can make a fortune.
That EEVBlog jester has a point but even if I wasn't able to deduce the fact without his help that solar roadways will always be more expensive and less efficient than optimised installations I could have gotten that message from a boring 5 minute clip featuring somebody calmly doing the math rather than a 28 minute rant being hosted by a human laughing bag.
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Every time we try to tell people, we get downvote bombed by idiots with their asses in the clouds.
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No. Think "ostrich".
Or think "using the wrong anatomy to "think""
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at least they are trying
I guess that says all of my opinion
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at least they are trying
Wasting time and resources on completely infeasible projects is not "trying". This failed in obvious ways for obvious reasons. Nothing was learned from the failure, other than that people are generally stupid, and that non-technical people shouldn't be making technical decisions. But we already knew that.
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What is it that they are trying to do? Ask yourself that.
If France is looking for a reliable energy source, that they can produce domestically, takes little valuable real estate, low CO2 output, is safe, low impact on the environment, and low cost then they have that. It's called nuclear fission.
If France is looking for something to replace nuclear power then ask why they are doing that. What problem with nuclear power are they trying to solve that cannot be solved with better nuclear power?
How does sola
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I don't really grasp why you want to tell France, the country in the world with the highest percentage contribution of electricity by nuclear fission, that they should stick to nuclear fission.
If you had more than 4 brain cells, you would grasp: if France is slowly exiting nuclear power: they have quite strong reason
Solar power is not [] It's not reliable.
Yes it is. the sun shines it makes power. Very reliable. Basically a law of physics.
You keep using the wrong word, and don't answer now with " not predict
Re:EEVBlog debunked this for 5+ projects (Score:5, Funny)
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The results would have been exactly the same
Except they wouldn't have been. The $2 cell would have broken, where as all these are still running.
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Apparently not: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/... [eevblog.com] . And this was only for bikes (and pedestrians, strollers and the like). And we're talking about time-spans of one or at most a few months.
Re:EEVBlog debunked this for 5+ projects (Score:5, Informative)
What they should have done, is made a test section on a highway that did not contain the PV components (which are the most expensive), and instead just made of the resin protective road surface, to prove out the road surface as a viable alternative to asphalt.
However, even casual examination of the data would have shown the the hardness rating for the resin is significantly lower than that of crystalline quartz, and that because of this, it's a deal breaker.
Why? Tires have treads on them to help them grip the roadway. Those treads pick up and hold small pebbles, that are often predominantly made of silica quartz. When the vehicle drives over the softer road surface, it scratches and presses into the road surface.
This is not a problem for asphalt road surfaces, because they are a self-healing surface, and they are not intended to conduct light.
For a transparent road surface (necessary for PV), this is a deal breaker, because it makes the road surface become more and more opaque over time, reducing function for PV. Additionally, transparent surfaces tend to be rigid, and not self-healing like asphalt. that means the repeated action of multiple vehicles tires with little pointy rocks stuck in them tearing at the surface will cause it to shred, chip, and then crack and split when water gets in the dimples and shredded areas.
If you use a deformable self-healing surface, then the rocks will get stuck in it, like they do in asphalt pavement. This will also reduce the transparency needed for the PV to function.
All of these features could have been identified with just a test stretch of the proposed road surface material, without the PV installed (and could have been accurately predicted without even that, just based on the material's published qualities.)
For this to work, it needs to be a surface that is not driven on, and does not get abrasion applied to it. Something like the outer surfaces of overpass bridges, Pedestrian facing retaining walls, and roofs over catwalks.
Those dont amount to nearly as much square footage as solar rooftops for city buildings though.
Re:EEVBlog debunked this for 5+ projects (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody listens to engineers anymore. Engineering education probably spends more time on what does not work than on what works. Hence engineers are these nasty people that always try to kill all these "innovative" projects. Since the politicians behind them only care about a short time popularity boost and the companies making these things only care about fast profit, actual engineers are being kept out of it. Do enough of that stupidity, and society crumbles though. The writing on the wall is getting clearer, with a nation like the US having an unstable and hackable power-grid, Germany being incapable of building an airport, the whole now long-term ongoing inability to do anything about global warming, etc.
Solid engineering seems to be mostly over. It will be re-discovered if the human race survives somehow.
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Nobody listens to engineers anymore.
Don't be absurd. Of course people listen to engineers. They then take that information and hand it to a marketing team. That marketing team then massages the result and it gets given to management to turn into a project and handed to the government. The government then gets soundbites that include only the best of what the engineers said (probably along the lines of "OMG SOLAR FRIGGING ROADWAYS") and approves it all.
I do take issue with the idea that this was $5m wasted. The largest cost here is labour, and
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Germany being incapable of building an airport, the whole now long-term ongoing inability to do anything about global warming, etc.
That is actually a shame isn't it?
The contract goes to the lowest bidder, or a set of low bidders. Those outsource most of the work to work slave companies.
Everyone knows: the lowest bidder can not complete the project for that price. But a high bidder, who actually might have some experience and a track record in just that work, has no chance.
Unless he has friends, plays the sy
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Nobody is trying to legislate a damn thing.
Bullshit. We have seen France and Germany declare that they will be shutting down all nuclear power with no intention to build any new nuclear power. They believe that they can run their economy on wind, water, and sun. This was done by legislation. These legislators are ignoring the warnings of engineers and scientists that have done the math on this and discovered that wind and solar energy cannot support a modern economy.
We've seen the same thing in the USA with the Democrats trying to ban the use of
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BS. The push for renewable energy is unending.
And it's opened the market to charlatans and hucksters.
A napkin, a pen, and a little math would have shown that these things were a waste of money from the get go.
Politics (Score:3)
This is the problem with politics in general, when spending money is not an issue to the politician.
Engineer: Here's all the reasons why this won't work. It's not going to be efficient. It's not going to be durable. There are a dozen other places to put panels that will be much more cost effective.
Sales Guy: Yeah, but WON'T IT BE COOL! It will be SO COOL. Just give me the grant!
And a few million Euro/Dollars/etc.. go down the drain.
The solar cycleways in NL are working well (Score:3)
Don't lump NL in with France's failure, as the article says, the NL cycleway is beating expectations. Probably because cycles and pedestrians are light loads.
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Better than expectations != good. The initial costs would produce expensive energy based on the projections, so presumably the beating expectations still makes it expensive just not as expensive. The building costs were higher than a standard cycle way and it's needed various repairs over time. Maybe it's not failed beyond repair as the French one (or the Netherlands Road one), but that still doesn't put it anywhere near a sensible idea.
The biggest problem with all these solar roadway projects and their failure is that they will now become the poster children of the right wing for why solar energy does not work, why it will never work, why it will never be economical, always a waste of money, always need government subsidies and why we should go with (government subsidized) coal and (government subsidized) nuclear and never mind the fact that optimized solar installations are more cost effective then both coal and nuclear.
Re:The solar cycleways in NL are working well (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. They become a poster child for why solar ROADWAYS don't work.
They also become a cautionary tale about throwing money at every last thing, especially when engineers are going "No! Bad! DUMB!"
Renewables have their place.
But so do things like nuclear power.
Trying to put all our "eggs" into a single basket is a recipe for disaster.
Especially since the current answer to EOL solar equipment is "Disposable Culture!" (aka A LANDFILL).
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"The biggest problem with all these solar roadway projects and their failure is that they will now become the poster children of the right wing for why solar energy does not work,"
So? They're not affecting anything. The market is choosing solar and wind because they're cheaper.
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Cheaper because of the big subsidies to roll it out.
AKA: government boondoggles.
Obviously not all solar/wind is boondoggles. But the hype sucks the oxygen out of the room.
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Cheaper because of the big subsidies to roll it out.
AKA: government boondoggles.
Obviously not all solar/wind is boondoggles. But the hype sucks the oxygen out of the room.
Both solar and wind are far cheaper than nuclear, cheaper than coal and on their way to become cheaper than natural gas in terms of levelized cost (i.e. completely without subsidies).
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Don't believe the hype claiming capacity factors around 0.2 or higher for Europe. You can back it o
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And *all* of the projects failed, including the Dutch ones mentioned in this article.
The only mention of Dutch projects in any of the articles says that it is working far better and exceeded the initially estimated energy calculated during the design. So please keep on topic and don't magically lump all projects together with the France's stupid idea.
But while you're complaining about tax dollars wasted, for every dollar we waste in one pilot project another becomes a roaring success. What do you suggest? A full time department staffed with scientists in the government to do detailed engine
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The one in the Netherlands is working just fine. As a proof of concept it was a great success.
The issue in France is not the basic concept, it's the implementation. They need to develop a better road surface for it. You can argue if it was worth â5M to try, but chances are someone will figure this out eventually and start making a lot of money out of it.
To understand why you have to understand the economics of roads for governments. Unlike commercial outfits they can budget for a 25 year ROI because th
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For just the road surface it doesn't seem reasonable for building a solar cell into the road is ever going to be cheaper on build cost vs a very well established construction technique with no fragile parts, no need for fle
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Solar roadways don't have to be cheaper to build than traditional roads. They just have to have a lower overall TCO, including the energy they generate and maintenance costs.
Covering the road isn't really practical in many places. Aside from having to be very tall to accommodate buses and trucks, it creates hazards (solid pillars to crash into) and increased lighting costs.
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It was always a stupid idea and it still is. Roads are subjected to too many kinds of abuse for it to ever make sense, mostly because interstate highways don't make sense.
We needed an improved transportation network for military reasons. But we needed rail, not interstate highways. We got the interstates as a handout to the automotive, oil, and tire industries.
The right answer to the problem of too many roads isn't to build solar roads. It's to build rail, and separately, to build solar.
Combining power gene
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The problem with laymen, and most pseudo engineers here on /. are exactly that, is: thy believe or are convinced that $5M (or EUR 5M) is a lot of money. It is not. For 5M you can not even pave 1 mile of a high way.
Actually the rule of thumb for one km "Autobahn" aka Highway (and 1km is roughly 0.70 miles) is EUR 50M.
Go figure. That "experiment" was 10 times cheaper than a real highway, but I guess it was not a highway but two lanes road ...
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Maybe look up what a "proof of concept" is.
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We now have an actual measurement for the amount of energy it produced, and drivers didn't seem to have difficulty with it. So we can now say what the ROI is likely to be, and calculate what it needs to cost to be economical, and have some confidence that on that basis it would be acceptable.
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Yep. Thunderf00t is laughing his sick ass off at this too.
What? No more SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS? (Score:5, Insightful)
The solar roadway concept was a classic example of how a ridiculous meme can grab the imagination of the public against all logic, and result in technologically illiterate politicians throwing money at an idea that could not possibly work.
I distinctly remember sitting in a passenger jet a few years ago and listening to two women in the row in front of me discuss how evil asphalt makers were conspiring against the people who wanted to build solar roadways, because the asphalt makers didn't care about the planet. This despite the fact that asphalt is one of the most recycled building materials in modern roadway construction.
I also remember arguing how ridiculous the concept was with one of my in-laws. He simply didn't want to listen. It sounded so cool, so obviously we had to least try to make it work.
However, my hat is off to Scott and Julie Brosaw of Solar Roadways (neither of whom had any background in road construction) for figuring out the perfect way to separate fools from their money. They've made out like bandits, paying themselves nice fat salaries while running a company that could not possibly create a workable product.
Re:What? No more SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well said. In this age of raising incompetence, "cool" seems to have replaced "makes sense". We seem to have reached a post-science and post-engineering age where the things that made civilization on the present level possible in the first place are not valued anymore. Instead, people seem to assume that science and engineering will just continue to deliver (they do to a degree, but they have started to deliver pretty harsh warnings nowadays and these then get ignored, ridiculed and disputed by clueless non-experts) and that ignoring them and focusing on aesthetics and style is the right thing to do in order to move forwards. I would imagine that the last few decades of the Roman empire and others did look pretty similar: Experts ignored, arrogance replacing insight, one useless or negative-effect effort started to great applause after the other.
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There were a lot of people who thought flying was impossible, turns out they were wrong.
Look, I think this was a dumb idea myself, at least with our current solar technology, maybe at a later stage when we have a better or a different way to harness solar energy it will become viable. It is a nice concept though, that all those miles and miles of black road top can be used to harness energy to power the vehicles that run along the top, but trying to use
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And nobody with the least clue is surprised (Score:3)
This was just another stupid "can do" hype project informed by absolutely no real-world engineering insights. Its abysmal failure is no surprise at all.
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Not to forget that the politician in charge, Segolène Royal, is an extremely stupid politician to begin with. And it was not her money.
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This
The road met all its expectations: Nobody with any technical knowledge expected it to work as it was an obvious stupid idea from the Start. But Segolène Royal was seduced by the idea and pushed it. And she is indeed even more dumb than your average French politician. She is used to that kind of shenanigans.
But the real scandal is how much money France wastes in wind turbines when it already had a very low carbon electricity production to begin with.
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But the real scandal is how much money France wastes in wind turbines when it already had a very low carbon electricity production to begin with. ... moron very much? Or just ignorant? No nothing, but post plenty?
You seem to live behind the moon.
30% of France nuclear plants are either more or less decommissioned or in maintenance. Why is it a scandal to have wind plants that can compensate for that slack in a country that has a lot of wind!!
And the wind plants produce power for half the price anyway
Science (Score:3)
The results seem very unsurprising but at least they're trying something and as government silliness goes 5 million is not that much.
Color me surprised! </sarcasm> (Score:2)
They'd've been better off putting up solar panels next to roads.
Pointing them at the sun doesn't really help. (Score:2, Offtopic)
Solar panels are most efficient when pointed toward the sun. Because the project needed to be a road as well as a solar generator, however, all of its solar panels are flat.
(Which, I take it, means "horizontal".)
Individual solar panels collect more energy (NOT 'are more efficient' - the efficiency is unchanged because they convert the same fraction of what hits them) when pointed into the sun.
But when you are "paving" a large area (where you can't really tilt things up and shadow your neighbor to grab extra
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"In fact, you may get MORE power if they're flat, because tilted panels may shadow each other part of the time"
No. Absolutely not. The people designing tracked arrays are smart enough to figure that out. Meanwhile the incident angle is the angle most relevant to efficiency. If you don't take it into account, you are throwing efficiency away.
"To avoid shadowing you need to space tilted panels farther apart, so they don't shadow the next rank back when the sun is at its lowest."
Honestly, they've got this. Th
Doesn't seem like a flop (Score:5, Insightful)
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For a relatively small sum France trialled an idea and got to see what worked and what didn't.
Exactly. The trick is to determine what worked and didn’t and use that to help future projects. Not every technological idea worked on first try; and it’s easy to Monday morning quarterback an idea than actually learn from the failure. That’s the most important part of engineering, using the experience to move forward.
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It was a bad idea on all levels. Zero dollars needed to be spent to determine that. Therefore it was a sum infinitely larger than necessary.
Who are you people? (Score:3)
I've just sat here for 10 minutes straight, trying to think of a way to satirize this. I can't. I simply can't. There's really nothing I can think of that is so obviously wrongheaded as trying to replace asphalt with solar panels. You just don't do that. It's at an inefficient angel and there are shadows and oh by the way it's going to get scratched to hell and back by debris and then fall apart because, oh hey look,
It's not a flop (Score:5, Insightful)
You can do 100 experiments like that, and if 99% don't work out, you are waaaaaaay ahead money wise.
Re:It's not a flop (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an experiment that cost just about 5 million Euros and for those 5 million Euros it produced a result. Had it been successful, it would have led to many billion Euros of investment. It wasn't.
Here's an experiment: take a screwdriver and stab yourself in the eye and document the result for us.
Did you do it? Of course not. Not ever experiment is a good idea on paper. Not every pilot plant needs to be built or even makes sense to. Now here's a proposal: I have a method of generating electricity. It's less efficient than solar rooftops. It costs more than solar roof tops. It won't overtake solar roof tops even with perfect economies of scale. It will require a change in building for local governments. Wadda ya think? Common give me money! You know you want to give me money! With a sales pitch like that why wouldn't you give me MONEY!
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It is probably not even an experiment. It is a scam by people who claim to do civil engineering while not having a background in civil engineering. It was not a fluke because nobody expected it to work. It was a joke from the start.
Either crooks or cranks who found a well known vulnerable prey prone to finance idiotic initiatives. It is not Segolène's first failure. And the dumb public pushing for stuff they don't have a clue about because they look "cool" or they fit their uninformed ideology.
I am afr
An any competent engineer could have foretold (Score:3)
This is not a surprise. The first time I heard the idea "solar roadways", my engineer's instinct immediately declared the idea absolute bullsh*t. A little back-of-the-envelope calculation confirmed it. Hence, as soon as politicians started getting behind the idea, it was popcorn time. We now come to the inevitable result.
The shame is that the politicians don't have to pay for the catastrophy out of their own pockets - it's the French taxpayer whose money has been wasted.
Re:It's was and still is worth attempting. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't imagine it being impossible to correct the flaws and produce an improved model.
You can start by moving the panels off the road and stop driving on them, that'd make things better.
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What, as simple, smart, effective and obvious solution? We cannot have that!
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And how would they then warm up the asphalt in winter and melt snow?
You only think about "power generation", but the panels where supposed to have two effects ... panels above the road might prevent a bit of snow, but not much, and would call for extra heating elements in the road in winter.
Re:It's was and still is worth attempting. (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be possible, but it is still a stupid idea - the road is probably one of the worst places where you can put solar panels. 1. 1.The road has to be horizontal, so you lose efficiency by not having the panels at the correct angle.
2.The panels have to have thick strong glass so you can drive on them without destroying them. Thick glass passes less light, so you lose efficiency.
3.Dirt will accumulate on the surface further reducing the efficiency, also, driving over that dirt and pebbles will scratch the panel glass, permanently reducing the efficiency.
4.Making a solar panel to survive as the surface of a road is more expensive than making a normal solar panel.
Instead of putting solar panels on the surface of the road, how about putting them over the road, at the proper angle? It will produce more power and be cheaper.
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Greedy morons with even more greedy and stupid investors. Probably the core of the issue.
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Also, PV cells crack during transport even under much less stressful conditions. [review.solar]
And yet cracking isn't a problem described in the article. In fact it doesn't mention any of the panels have failed, only that Normandy has no sun, cars cause shade and noise, and the resin is splintering off and turning yellow.
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Instead of putting solar panels on the surface of the road, how about putting them over the road, at the proper angle? It will produce more power and be cheaper.
At what height ? With what support structure ? How about not putting them on roads before every more usable surface has been covered ?
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THIS! Solar roadways aren't a bad idea. They are just a poor investment because there are better places for solar panels.
Let's revisit this in 100 years when all roofs are covered with solar panels and we don't have space to put anymore.
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Roads are a bad idea. They take up a lot of space and cause a bunch of problems. Solar roadways are just doubling down on a bad idea. Rail. Light rail. PRT. We have alternatives and not only can we use them, we must. Using roads isn't working. It's killing us.
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Instead of putting solar panels on the surface of the road, how about putting them over the road, at the proper angle?
Safety, objections from people who think it's ugly, that kind of thing. The cost would probably be quite prohibitive as well. It would have to be high enough for the largest trucks and busses, and sturdy enough to survive high winds or large heavy vehicles crashing into the pillars.
Side of the road is a possibility where the government owns that land, but it may already be in use for noise reducing foliage. Also it would need to be designed so that if a vehicle comes off the road it isn't so rigid that it c
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Instead of putting solar panels on the surface of the road, how about putting them over the road, at the proper angle? It will produce more power and be cheaper.
Why not shade the roads with solar panels? Because the sun melts ice and snow, dries off rain, and illuminates hazards.
I remember while in high school a section of road that was shaded by a neighbor's line of trees used as a wind break. I had to drive to school and this section of road was often a hazard as it would be wet or icy while the rest of the road was clear. I can only imagine the number of people that could be injured or killed in traffic accidents if all the roads were shaded like this.
This mi
Re:It's was and still is worth attempting. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, maybe not impossible, but most certainly a lot more expensive than to do both separately.
And those flaws are obvious, as is the improvement (Score:2)
Build a roof over the road and put the panels on it. If you really need to use the road space for solar panels. Solves all the problems, and with the high cost of trying to make solar panels a road surface, it's probably cheaper, too.
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Pretty much as stupid as the original idea. Why do you think roads do not have roofs? Right, you did not think.
Re:And those flaws are obvious, as is the improvem (Score:5, Insightful)
Presumably the reason roads do not have roofs is that there is traditionally was no need for them to have roofs, nor any advantage to adding one, so why increase the cost of the road for no reason?
Now that there is a (potential) advantage, what is so wrong with the idea of adding a roof and using it to collect solar power?
Presumably you have thought long and hard about the problem, and that is what entitles you to be a dismissive ass about it on the Internet.
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Because there's almost never a good reason for roads to have roofs you ass. In addition to creating additional height and width restrictions, adding roadside supports that constitute cras
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"Now that there is a (potential) advantage, what is so wrong with the idea of adding a roof and using it to collect solar power?"
Maintenance access, obviously, first and foremost. Also, cost of construction.
It doesn't make sense to build a solar over the top of a road, ever. But it double extra doesn't make sense until every parking lot is covered with panels, and this should be obvious
"Presumably you have thought long and hard about the problem, and that is what entitles you to be a dismissive ass about it
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Putting roofs over roads would actually make them last a lot longer by preventing weathering. Think how many potholes show up after a storm. As long as you make them as tall as any relevant underpasses so it doesn't reduce the height of vehicles, I can't see any downsides... except that existing roofs are much cheaper to use.
Re: And those flaws are obvious, as is the improve (Score:5, Informative)
Well roofs canâ(TM)t float in the air so you have the possibility of someone taking out the supports causing it to collapse or twist and bend over a long stretch. Any maintenance or repair has to be done by crane and possibly create road closures. I think itâ(TM)s still an impractical and expensive solution and space is not that scarce. Long distance cables can bring power from a solar farm quite far away for less.
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At least we all learned some things from the French experiment.
Did we though? I think a lot of people already knew that running over sensitive electronic equipment with a truck doing 60 mph was pretty obviously a bad idea.
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They didn't learn anything. They will try again and again until adults put stop to it,
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". Next gen nuclear walk away safe is the future."
There is no such thing. You can only walk away from it until containment degrades. It has to be decommissioned eventually, and that is dangerous and thus expensive. The People always wind up paying for that.
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They'd still be colossally stupid in Texas, given that Texas has insane amounts of open area to utilize already. Line the solar panels up in the medians of the highways in Texas (vast stretches of Texas highway cut through empty land or ranchland, so they're not exactly crowded and the usual wide medians are present) and you've got all the benefits of a solar roadway (easy cabling run and maintenance access) without any of the huge engineering problems.
Why is this not being treated as an obvious solution? E