http://archive.is/4CVqH

10 year plan. Twice as effective as the USSR's 5 year plans

...Fully rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, restoring our natural ecosystems (needed), dramatically expanding renewable power generation (needed, but it also doesn't mean we should be throwing money away on stupid shit like solar roadways), overhauling our entire transportation system (regional flights, which sort of make up around 70% of total flights, would be targeted for elimination and massively expensive (slower) electrical trains would be put in their place), upgrading all our buildings (most businesses are already moving to green solutions) , jumpstarting US clean manufacturing (see highly expensive and non-competitive with cheaper overseas mfg), transforming US agriculture (forcing a move from cows/pigs/chickens to plant based proteins)...

While we are at it, might as well do the following:

A job with family-sustaining wages, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security (Nice, but you can't just make these jobs available. They are supply and demand.)

High-quality education, including higher education and trade schools (Needed)

High-quality health care (Needed)

Clean air and water (Needed)

Healthy food (Subjective, is meat considered healthy?)

Safe, affordable, adequate housing (because this works, ie Projects...)

An economic environment free of monopolies (Technically this exists already, except in countries outside of the USA and EU)

Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work (SWEET! SIGN ME UP FOR THAT CHECK!!!)

I get that his spiel is comedy based, but the GND is about half reality and half looney tunes.

And then on top of all this we now seem to have more and more populist snake oil nonsense like 'solar roadways', actually starting to siphon government funding away from real projects.

Good article BTW, thank you.

The worlds first real solar roadway (bike path)
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/11/09/netherlands-is-the-first-country-to-open-solar-road-for-public/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_cylinder_engine

Read the last few paragraphs to see that this is basically another "Solar Roadways" situation. E.g. too much hype, not enough practical purpose.

Let's breakdown the problems here: extra complicated machined parts, excess usage of oil (to lube everything up), low rpm and horsepower due to the amount of material needed to move (sure a standard engine might weigh more, but less of it actually moves), additional wear over time, and the potential for explosion with extended use.

Basically, these things are only used in torpedoes, where a massive explosion is the whole point.

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There is also a whitehouse.gov petition now: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fund-solar-roadways-create-national-clean-energy-surplus-and-end-wintery-road-conditions/3hjb7XbS

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According to the American Road and Transport Builders Association, the upfront costs of current construction are pretty significant already:

"Construct a new 2-lane undivided road – about $2-$3 million per mile in rural areas, about $3-5 million in urban areas.

Mill and resurface a 4-lane road – about $1.25 million per mile.

Expand an Interstate Highway from 4 lanes to 6 lanes – about $4 million per mile."

So really you'd have to look at the replacement costs of a technology like this rather than just assigning all those initial costs to the category of boondoggle.

But this really points to a larger issue that makes this question very hard to quantify and is actually addressed by the Solar Roadways people:

"For an accurate cost comparison between current systems and the Solar Roadways system, you'd have to combine the costs of current roads (including snow removal, line repainting, pothole repair, etc.), power plants (and the coal or nuclear material to run them), and power and data delivery systems (power poles and relay stations) to be comparable with the Solar Roadway system, which provides all three. So the comparison is more like an apple to a fruit basket."

One further interesting note from their website is that the numbers they used for electricity generation of the solar roadway system came out of their testing. In Northern Idaho. In the dead of winter. In other words, the worst possible conditions for solar panel systems.

I think this'll have to wait until there's some kind of photovoltaic/thermovoltaic asphalt or other wearable textured surface that is cheap to lay down. I'm all for solar roadways but yes I agree the engineering requirements of this concept are a bit out there.

Part of the premise is that, since the cost of solar panels is coming down and the cost of asphalt is skyrocketing, at some point it will be cheaper to lay down panels than asphalt.

I'm still not sure this is all a good idea, but it's certainly an interesting one.

>> ^Jinx:

Still seems like a silly idea to me.
Wouldn't it just be cheaper to run Solar Panels alongside the road instead of making them the road. I mean, whats the advantage in driving on the solar panels? Ok, you could argue it kills two birds with one stone, but consider the cost it requires to make solar panels you can drive on...it start to become quite an expensive stone.