Solar FREAKIN' Roadways

[evensgrey]

Not for this purpose. You know enough about economics to know how important that is.

Sorry, but no, I don't put much stock in what they say. A lot of innovations end up being implemented or even designed quite differently than the inventor originally envisioned. If SFWs are to work, then yes, it does look as if it'll have to be significantly different than what they originally planned--but what invention HASN'T worked that way?

One thing I've been kicking around in my mind is something I saw on Dara Ó Briain's Science Club. I just looked around for the video and couldn't find it online, but they had the audience come in over a panel that was hooked to a device that converted the pressure of their feet into electricity. Even though it was a fairly small audience (looked like about 100 people), IIRC they actually generated enough electricity to charge an iPhone. That could be incorporated into panels and potentially solve some of these issues.

They already though of incorporating that one.  It also goes along with their (as yet unimplemented) pressure sensors.  Of course, that will have to go under the solar cells, and they don't appear to have noticed that the whole thing needs to be one solid mass and adequately stuck down (or alternatively, stuck adequately to the adjacent tiles) or the fact that it's TILES of glass will make the whole thing fall apart with tiles being knocked right out of the road.  I think there are epoxies that will do the job, but that does put paid to their claims of easy and quick replacement of tiles.

They keep heaping features on these things without solving the faults the existing features have.  If the whole point wasn't to snare that government grant for new road pavements, they never would have come up with the lame idea of putting solar cells UNDER the road surface.

[MrBogosity]

They keep heaping features on these things without solving the faults the existing features have.

That's probably the biggest criticism that could be levied against them. A lot of these features seem like add-ons, and yet they're trying to incorporate them from the start.