Solar Roadways...

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#1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101718219

Forget high-tech cars—Dreaming up high-tech roads
Paul A. Eisenstein | @DetroitBureau
9 Hours Ago
CNBC.com

Step onto the pavement on a hot day and you might get a sense of the energy that Scott and Julie Brusaw hope to tap into.

The Idaho couple are thinking up a way to pave the country's roadways with solar cells, rather than asphalt or concrete. The so-called Solar Roadways are an edgy idea that the entrepreneurs said could replace much of the need for traditional sources of generating electricity in the U.S., including coal-fired power plants.

And they aren't the only ones who see the potential for roadways to become energy sources.

Artist's rendition of a solar roadway, by Solar Roadways
Source: Solar Roadways
Artist's rendition of a solar roadway, by Solar Roadways
Volvo is working with the Swedish Transport Association to turn a stretch of roadway in the city of Gothenburg into a rolling battery charger that would be used by specially equipped electric buses for recharging. The concept could someday help eliminate the "range anxiety" that electric vehicle owners suffer due to the limited capacity of today's batteries.

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"Years ago, when the phrase 'global warming' began gaining popularity, we started batting around the idea of replacing asphalt and concrete surfaces with solar panels that could be driven upon," according to the Solar Roadways website.

Translating that into a practical solution hasn't been easy, as it isn't as simple as taking solar cells off of a rooftop and burying them into the pavement. Scott, who was trained as an electrical engineer, has come up with a hexagonal block that contains a solar cell protected by a thick glass cover. Add LEDs, and there would be no need to paint lines or messages on the roadway. Small heating elements could also be installed in colder climates.

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Laid out like pavers, he contends they are strong enough to support a truck weighing as much as 250,000 pounds. And with an estimated 29,000 square miles of roadways making up the U.S. landscape, according to Solar Roadways, the couple claims that if they were all converted to the solar pavement system, there'd be enough power to eliminate the use of fossil fuel generators.


The transition wouldn't be cheap. Scott estimates the cost would run anywhere from 50 percent to 300 percent more than the cost of using asphalt to pave a roadway. How the material would stand up to weather, road salt in colder climates, snowplows, crashes and other challenges also remains to be seen.

While there are plenty of skeptics, the Brusaws also have been gaining backers. They've secured several grants from the Federal Highway Administration, including one for $750,000 in 2011.

They've since turned to the Indiegogo crowdsourcing site for more support, and the reception has substantially exceeded their $1 million goal . As of Friday, Solar Roadways had already pulled in more than $1.6 million from more than 38,000 supporters, a record for the most individual contributions to a single campaign.

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While the Brusaws want to use roads to generate electricity, others see a way to provide electric power through the roads to power battery vehicles. That could be a major breakthrough for proponents of alternative energy, offering a way to overcome the limitations of battery-based vehicles.

Volvo is pairing up with the Swedish Transport Association to create short stretches of electrified roadway in Gothenberg, the Scandinavian country's second-largest city. Using a concept called inductive charging—essentially, what's used to wirelessly charge many electric razors and toothbrushes—specially designed city buses would simply have to drive along dedicated portions of pavement to partially replenish their batteries.

Because there are no exposed wires, the system would be safe for humans and animals, who might inadvertently walk across the chargers.

"Vehicles capable of being charged directly from the road during operation could become the next pioneering step in the development towards reduced environmental impact," said Niklas Gustavsson, executive vice president of corporate sustainability for the Volvo Group.

Other induction charging systems have been put to use in several locations, including Utah; Torin, Italy; and Gumi, South Korea, with more under study. Longer-term, proponents believe the technology could be incorporated into highways for use by electric passenger cars such as the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S—perhaps built into existing high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes or dedicated lanes for use by battery cars only.

Right now, such induction charging systems have to be linked to the conventional electric power grid. But the Brusaws have suggested that they could combine in-road chargers with their solar roadways, eventually allowing highways to both generate power and use that energy to operate a fleet of zero-emissions cars, trucks and buses.

—By CNBC Contributor Paul A. Eisenstein. Follow him on Twitter @DetroitBureau or at thedetroitbureau.com.
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#2
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/05/30/...16811.html

sunny.freeman@huffingtonpost.com
Solar Roadways Spark Public's Imagination, But Cost Could Be Barrier
Posted: 05/30/2014 8:42 am EDT | Updated: 05/30/2014 11:59 am EDT

FOLLOW: Video, Shannon Forrest, Indiegogo Solar Roadways, Julie Brusaw, Scott And Julie Brusaw, Scott Brusaw, Solar Freakin Roadways, Solar Roadways, Solar Roadways Cost, Solar Roadways Indiegogo, Canada Business News
Is your Facebook feed suddenly crowded with friends posting about solar roadways?

If so, it’s probably because of people like Shannon Forrest. The mother of two was so moved by an online video explaining the “smart road” technology, she posted messages to 70 Facebook friends to spread the word.

“I can't say that I have been so driven about an invention as I am about this one,” she said from her home in Kitchener, Ont.

“It just makes sense! So I want to do what I can to make others see the simplicity in this and the good that can come of embracing this technology.”

Solar roadways are the brainchild of a husband and wife team from Idaho, who have spent the last decade developing the technology. They launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign on Earth Day, April 22, with the goal of raising $1 million to take their vision from “from prototype to production.” The couple, Scott and Julie Brusaw, want to manufacture interlocking hexagonal panels that could replace asphalt with roads made of solar cells.

The panelled roads could generate massive amounts of renewable energy. By replacing all roads in the U.S. with solar panels, the country would generate three times the energy that it consumes, the claim goes.

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“You need to know about this technology, you need to get behind it, you need to share it with everyone you know because this is actually happening,” the voiceover in the video suggests.

The concept has gone viral, and their Indiegogo campaign surpassed its goal by some 160 per cent, two days ahead of the May 31 deadline.

The campaign has been shared a whopping 157,000 times on Facebook, tweeted 15,000 times and even has 4,000 shares on the lighter-traffic Google Plus platform as of Thursday night.

The idea is to replace all roads — starting with private driveways and parking lots — with the solar, heating and LED panels sandwiched between layers of ultra-thick glass.The initial $1 million would go toward hiring a team of engineers to expand the project.

Using grants from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, the Brusaws have already built a 4-metre-by-11-metre parking lot using the glass-covered panels. They say it can handle 250,000 lbs of weight, and have even uploaded a video of a John Deere tractor driving over it for evidence of its durability.



The company lists many benefits to the road panels — everything from the panels heating up to melt ice and snow on roads to LED displays that can be used as road markings or can warn drivers about moose crossings ahead.

Other promises: It could power electric vehicles! Make driving safer! Pay for itself by collecting energy! End our reliance on fossil fuels! Cut greenhouse gases by 75 per cent!

Those revolutionary ideas have attracted plenty of online enthusiasts, and the video “Solar Freakin’ Roadways” has been viewed nearly eight million times since it was uploaded May 18.

News about the concept has been upvoted on Reddit (the forum’s way of showing approval) tens of thousands of times, and tweeted about 29,000 times in the past month, more than the Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks combined.

The concept has received accolades from influencers including Margaret Atwood and TechCrunch.


Passion for the project is trans-Atlantic. In England, radio presenter Pete Allison tweeted: “I wasn't aware so many of my friends were so passionate about the benefits of solar roadways.”

Allison says he has seen five or six friends post a link to the campaign since last week, when he overheard his partner watching the video.

“I think it's the style of the video that's engaged people,“ he says.

“It makes a comment about how roads may finally make it look like we're living in the future, and the novelty of that may resonate too.”

But can the company deliver on those promises?

Critics in the tech community have been quick to caution that the innovative idea could remain a pipedream.

Extremetech.com said the concept is “verging on utopian.”

“On paper, it really does sound like one of the greatest inventions ever. In reality, though, where, you know, real-world factors come into play, it will probably never make the jump from drawing board to large-scale deployment.”

The site points out that asphalt costs between US$3 and $15 per square foot, whereas the cost per solar panel could amount to about $70 per square foot based on 2010 calculations by the company.

One estimate pegs the total cost to repave every road in the U.S. with panels at $56 trillion, or about four times the country’s national debt. That's according to Aaron Saenz, writing for the site Singularity hub.

But the cost argument isn’t going to stop people like Forrest from spreading the message in your newsfeed. To her, the science makes sense and the roadways are “win-win” because they can eventually pay for themselves.

“How can you not get passionate about something so great?” she asked.

The marketing and account manager has shared the message through texts to professional contacts and plans on changing her work email signature to include a message. She pledges to speak to everyone she knows about the technology she believes could improve the world for her children and theirs.


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