OCT 14

you guys spelled earned wrong and that would be awsome. i can see it right now

Wow. Sounds like a tough road ahead of them, pun intended. What glass could be stronger than pavement?

I want to know what driving on a glass road is like in rainy and snowy conditions. Can it stand up to being scraped by a snow plow? Maybe the glass can have little wires going through it just like a back windshield has to keep ice and snow melted. Hmmm...

Can this special glass be recycled? Does it get etched by regular wear and have to be replaced in order for the solar panels to work?

Sounds like a good idea yet they certainly have their work cut out for them.

i have a friend who is an engineer that works with a company developing all types of pavement. quieter, water absorbent, eco friendly etc... he told me a while back about a type of clear concrete that was being developed. i wonder if it would be transparent enough to be useful in this type of application.

Why not put the panels OVER the roads, instead, where there's no cars to block them? Then you wouldn't have to make super-strong glass, and they would shade the cars and cool the road - which will help cars save gas (if gas-powered) and save on AC.

Combine solar roads with wireless charging and you might end up being able to make super-light cars that have tiny batteries.

please stop assaulting people with your remarks... watch the main idea. That's why this blog is here, not necessarily to be grammatically correct. I'm sick of you people...

I am continually dumbfounded by how this idea gains so much traction.

It's about time we exploited the potential of the millions of acres of real estate aka our road systems. They can carry much more than traffic. Why not use them to also carry electricity and information, as well as generate power? Now that's a super highway!

As a chemist I can tell you all that glass can be made in an almost infinite number of configurations including very hard durable surfaces that will not be easily etched. I would use this idea on secondary rural roads, where the masking is only 2-10% of the time,(i.e.) that is the road is clear ~ 90-98%,of the time. Heavy vehicles while a problem, impact only seasonally, and still infrequently. A hard surface road would not generate nearly as much debris run off than is generated by a gravel rd. The impervious surface problem is much lower in rural areas since the water should be transported properly to adjacent forests,fields, or wetlands.( shoot, the as___oles that still think water is the enemy, 19th century thinking)Transporting electricity in rural areas wastes a lot of energy and costs tons. having the adjacent roads your generator could save states and townships billions of dollars. This is a static system. no armatures or stators to be replaced or updated,no high pressure steam lines to watch like a hawk lest they rupture and blow up your plant(I personally know this one i was in water treatment for many years), no railroads to be maintained to bring fuel, no fat,lazy executive salaries to subsidize with corporate welfare, no excuse for energy companies to whine about ancient grandfathered, polluting dogs to leave in place to poison you,your children and other living things down stream.
The problem of fall vegetation(mainly leaves) is one i haven't solved yet- give me time. As for winter ice and snow- several options present. 1 tunable reflectors, LCD types under the solar panels, that can be cycled from light to dark and back depending on the the incident luminous flux. 2 Snow plows with flexible rubber guards that take off all but 1-2 cm of the snow, leaving the last bit to be melted off by the reflectors. Country people, in cold regions know how to drive on less than an inch of snow. The damn plows sometimes don't come through for several days in those areas- so what new. So whats to keep brain-dead Sam from running his old plow on his pick-up, on the public road, and tearing up the solar rd.? If he is getting his house current from that rd., his wife(significant other) and children will see to it that does not do it more than once in his life time, or his life time will become a lot shorter.
3. Potassium based salts could be used infrequently in an emergency, they do far less damage to the rd adjacent vegetation or farm fields( not zero but much less). As for maintenance- the counties currently have to maintain rds. anyway. With a better designed surface that does not have to be graded, ditched, weeded or treated with road oil their rd costs will drop. Since the rd will be generating revenue, nobody is going to give away the electricity. Some of the maintenance cost will be in the bill, some will come from local taxes, some should come from federal subsidies, and some should come from vehicle taxes since it is rd maintenance. With a diffuse highly distributed funding network nobody will or should feel abused except the energy pirates who currently make our lives miserable. Contrary to popular myth the private sector is not the most efficient( look at the health care debacle- if you want proof;write me at the above e-mail i will choke your computer with at least megabytes if not terabytes) This kind of generator should be put in where the adjacent owners will get a big benefit and will support it. Light industry, replacing existing sprawl(long term many bedroom communities will not be sustainable) would benefit from such rds.but might need denser output(a staged covered solar road, where the idea of one commentator{ cover the road with solar panels}is very good if you choose your panels to use high frequency radiation by the upper panels and long wavelength by the rd panels {double dipping} supplemented by solar roofs,focusing collectors, and direct solar cooling(yes Virginia there is a Santa Clause- write me if you want info on this-above e-mail)
This is all pie in the sky- the reality is much harder BUT you must have vision if you want change. If you can't see the peaks in the distance, you will never reach the top of Denali in your Aircam.

yeah!! diz iz indeed a great idea. i have an assignment on how to improve green technology in the worl. so we can be sharing our ideas. thnks