Potential last nail in Petroconomy's coffin

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Thanks for showing me this, I spent half the day researching it and it's very interesting.

The FAQ on the website answers almost all of the concerns I had about it, including many that were mentioned ITT.  Specifically, the bit that explained how they did impact testing and how it fares in comparison to asphalt, and lots about other potential issues.  The only thing that wasn't really covered was price, but I think that the $10,000 estimate you quoted might have come from the $10k donation rank on the indiegogo campain giving the donater a full size unit, which ignores that the majority of the donation is funding the project, not the one single unit.  Plus there's economy of scale and all.  I'll save my speculation about costs until they say something official, but I think a gradual rollout as aging roads need work anyway could mitigate the cost a lot regardless.

I really like how Twid said it, it being profitable is the way it gets done, and I for one welcome our new solar hexagon overlords.

Also anyone consider that with its ability to sense weight and thus position and velocity of cars, the road will not only know if you are speeding, it could tell if you sucked horribly at driving and/or are drunk or drugged.  It could also track the path(s) of pretty much anyone for the duration they or their vehicle were traveling on solar freakin' roadways.

But the sheer amount of lives it would save, from lack of snow and ice, improved traction compared to asphalt, and LED-lit roads at night warning of animals or children or idiots in the roadway ahead, could be worth having to actually drive the speed limit and the NSA knowing where I drove yesterday, without having to read my texts to find out.

Even just on an energy level, it's sold for me.

But we still think in terms of profit. This thing raised over a million dollars. Invest motherfuckers! Money is right there in them thar energy producing streets. You know how it is, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and while you're at it make it look like caviar served on a naked pee-on in some rich douche's penthouse. The revolution is pointless if we're all going to fucking die tomorrow.

[P3nT4gR4m]

The first prototype of anything costs 10kilobucks. The second costs 1k. The first mass production run will bring that down to 100 or so. Within a year or two it's $10. Looks like a bog standard tech roadmap to me. I'm not too worried about the price.

One trick these guys are missing is kinetic conversion. Would add a little bang for buck, fairly cheaply.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My main thoughts go straight to durability issues. If they've got that covered this is pretty exciting.

This

Yeah... and how much does each panel-hex cost? That's the fundamental question.

And this.

It's interesting, not necessarily feasible, and kind of ignores that it's butting right up against the issue of non-permeable surfacing.

[P3nT4gR4m]

The surface is far more durable than tarmac/concrete. The cost of the individual panels are inversely proportional to qty required. Materials cost over traditional process may well be mitigated by the labour savings, especially at the maintenance/repair end.

Don't forget that we shouldn't be comparing this like for like with the cost of bitumen. We also need to factor in the cost of powering the towns and cities. Any budget earmarked for nuke and fossil fuel power and infrastructure can be spent here.

Maybe the fact that it looks like some kind of road may be causing confusion?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Maybe the fact that it is speculative might be causing healthy skepticism.

[Junkenstein]

Further thoughts:

Continual obsolescence - As tech improves, the roadways already laid will either need to be removed or replaced to ensure best results

Durability - This is the big one for me. Look at any given road surface. Perfect condition, right?  While this could be an improvement in that area I'd still have to think worst case situation here. Imagine a medium sized car/truck crash. How many panels would this probably damage and need replacing? Overall, the design could be done so this aspect is much quicker than the traditional road making methods but it becomes a problem if you're replacing panels all the time, everywhere. This could probably be sold as job creation though so there's that angle too.

There's also the issue that you'll need to either work with existing surfaces resulting in fairly extensive enabling works. Or you could just use these in new projects but you'll still probably need some kind of solid, stable surface to place them on. Like a road. So this becomes the surface layer of roads? 

Cost - Tied heavily to durability. More durable things tend to have increased production costs. I'm not sure on what a full road costs per SQ/M any more, but they're probably a long, long way from making it close to comparable. Many associated benefits sometimes just don't outweigh the reality of the budget you have to spend. This will probably require substantial incentives and subsidies to get rolling and I doubt there's much political will for that anywhere that's still talking about Austerity. Everywhere, then.

Energy production - While I doubt anyone has any problems with Solar, the project seems to miss out on something else, mainly kinetic energy. (Very fuzzy) idea, but if you had a series of panels that shifted slightly as a vehicle moved over it, you may be able to capture and store the energy created from that tilt. I'm thinking something related to wave power/ sea snake ideas
http://defence.pk/threads/saltire-prize-medal-for-inventor-of-pelamis-wave-sea-snake.168701/
(Bad link but you can find more/better)
My thinking is with busy roads you've got a nearly constant flow of cars so if there was a way to store even a small amount of power per vehicle passing you could probably generate reasonable amounts.


Despite the various issues, I'm overall fairly supportive of this. Personally, I'd prefer to see substantially larger wind/wave operations prior to this as the issues there are somewhat easier to overcome. If I had serious money I'd probably be going all out to build a wave operation substantially larger than all existing ones combined. I'm not entirely sure why some crazy millionaire with money hasn't done some kind of deal with sealand or somesuch place to make this happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

Thinking about that, this needs Dutch or German involvement as a matter of priority, assuming they're not already.

Edit - Typos. Idiot typos everywhere.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Must admit I'm not totally sold on wave/tide barrage collection. They're supposed to be running a couple of pilots in scotland and it's fast turning into an unworkable clusterfuck. If you want to use water then pumped storage hydros seem to be thee best route we currently have.

They're in the process of doubling the capacity at Cruachan. If we get independence in September, we probably won't even need solar roads but for the rest of the world, it might just save your lives!

[Junkenstein]

The angle that sold me on wave over hydro was that the sea is always there and moving. Generating power to pump water back to generate more power just seems a bit of a pointless to me when there's a water source that can constantly provide power without any fucking about. A large scale wave operation is potentially an economic godsend all round, from the construction phases through lifespan.

That said, I suppose the real breakthroughs will start happening when multiple production sources are tied together. Wind turbines covered in solar panels, roads that generate from Solar/Kinetic and thermal(possible, surely? Florida roads get fucking HOT. Arizona probably melt feet.)

[P3nT4gR4m]

The angle that sold me on wave over hydro was that the sea is always there and moving. Generating power to pump water back to generate more power just seems a bit of a pointless to me when there's a water source that can constantly provide power without any fucking about. A large scale wave operation is potentially an economic godsend all round, from the construction phases through lifespan.

That said, I suppose the real breakthroughs will start happening when multiple production sources are tied together. Wind turbines covered in solar panels, roads that generate from Solar/Kinetic and thermal(possible, surely? Florida roads get fucking HOT. Arizona probably melt feet.)

It is couterintuitive but it makes perfect sense when you understand that what they are essentially doing is storing electricity, by the gigawatt, in a huge, wet battery. Try doing that with lead and acid and see where it gets you. So say there's no wind, it's a dull day and the tide is currently slack. It's peak usage o'clock and you got no more generators. What's the plan? Brownout?

Not if you've fully charged your lochs, it isn't. 

[Junkenstein]

That's just it though, the tide is pretty much never slack. At least, not slack to the point where it would stop producing energy.

I get the hydro argument and it does stack up on paper and in reality. I suppose it's the moving water around in the same place that makes it a bit less appealing to me, I'd rather move as much shit off-shore and into a perpetual basis. Pumps break and I'm sure hydro stations suffer similar kinds of fatigue as other installations. Why not simplify the whole structure by removing the need to do 50% of the process?

I suppose Wave could be used to augment hydro as the constant/(hopefully eventual) surplus of power provides the ideal way to power the aforementioned pumps. That would possibly allow for an interesting expansion of both with each being somewhat reliant on the other. Wave can't store energy very well and Hydro provides an excellent storage mechanism. If the level of water stored could be increased further, you're probably looking at a very clean future.

Also, I'm thinking what can be used effectively in other places. Many nations have sea access but not as many have effective potential hydro sites. It could be an good market for island nations to start to try and get into, particularly if they're close enough to neighbours to lay cables and export the surplus.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Yeah, scotland is uniquely placed with regards potential hydro storage sites. It's the same reason we don't run out of water in droughts where the rest of the uk does - we essentially bank our flood water

With tide energy it's a pretty straightforward formula, along a bell curve, over a 12 hour cycle. First hour = 33% flow, 2nd hour 66%, hours 3 and four is full tilt, hour 5 66%, hour 6 33%. There's a half hour or so of zero flow (slack water) then the cycle repeats in the opposite direction for the next 6 hours.

This whole issue becomes moot if we start using solar freaking roadways, tho

[East Coast Hustle]

The angle that sold me on wave over hydro was that the sea is always there and moving. Generating power to pump water back to generate more power just seems a bit of a pointless to me when there's a water source that can constantly provide power without any fucking about. A large scale wave operation is potentially an economic godsend all round, from the construction phases through lifespan.

That said, I suppose the real breakthroughs will start happening when multiple production sources are tied together. Wind turbines covered in solar panels, roads that generate from Solar/Kinetic and thermal(possible, surely? Florida roads get fucking HOT. Arizona probably melt feet.)

It is couterintuitive but it makes perfect sense when you understand that what they are essentially doing is storing electricity, by the gigawatt, in a huge, wet battery. Try doing that with lead and acid and see where it gets you. So say there's no wind, it's a dull day and the tide is currently slack. It's peak usage o'clock and you got no more generators. What's the plan? Brownout?

Not if you've fully charged your lochs, it isn't. 

Yeah, the tide is slack for about a total of an hour per day. There's no reason that tidal power isn't fully feasible and immediately useable.

[Junkenstein]

That's sold me even more on large scale tidal power. 23 hours of generation for free daily is pretty solid, even if only a small period of that is max production it would say to me to increase the scale so that the 33% and 66% times are able to cover domestic needs and use with anything at peak or additionally produced can just get sold back. Assume that you're working big enough to cover your hydro power needs and you're looking at a monstrous project with potential upsides everywhere. Employment? Yes. Ongoing new industry sector based around maintenance and refurb? Yes. The scale of the kind of thing I'm thinking of would probably be a multi-generation project. Seems a little more sensible than running around the north sea arguing about who's oil it is and how much there is there.

[East Coast Hustle]

And the thread title may have just been a touch of flippancy, but unless we're inventing some new thing to drive along the solar roadways I don't see how this would be the last nail in the coffin of the petro-economy, more's the pity.

[Telarus]

Recharge stations at every mile-marker?