June 4, 2014
IT'LL NEVER FLY, ORVILLE...:
Solar roads are more practical than they sound (John Aziz, 6/04/14, The Week)
[T]he really strange thing about a lot of this rampant criticism is that Solar Roadways aren't really dependent on unproven technology, the way the Wright brothers' attempts at powered flight were. It's not like Scott and Julie Brusaw have claimed they can invent human teleportation. Tempered glass technology already exists, and many large companies beside Solar Roadways are already spending lots of money researching even stronger glass technologies, like Sapphire Glass. The solar cells also already exist, and are rapidly decreasing in cost and increasing in efficiency. Advanced and highly efficient battery technologies for energy storage are emerging.So this isn't some wild utopian fantasy founded on untested or undeveloped technology. This is a bringing together of existing technologies. Ambitious, yes, but the Brusaws' small protoype -- built as part of a contract with the Federal Highways Agency -- is already generating electricity.
Posted by Orrin Judd at June 4, 2014 6:52 PM
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