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If the cost is right, land won't be an issue. If solar tech were cheap and rugged enough, it could be added to paint, tarmac, billboards and many other artifici
by chriswarbo 9y ago
If the cost is right, land won't be an issue. If solar tech were cheap and rugged enough, it could be added to paint, tarmac, billboards and many other artificial surfaces, even at very low efficiency. I've seen work in this direction with organic molecules (i.e. plastics).
- klodolph 9y agoI'm not optimistic about solar power being added to paint, tarmac, or just wherever you want. See for example the dumpster fire that is Solar Roadways. At this point, there's enough land / rooftops for proper PV installations that easily last decades, so trying to shoehorn fragile PV in places where it has to withstand daily abuse, like tarmac, stinks of bad engineering. Maybe that will change, but it doesn't need to change, because we still have plenty of places to stick solar.
- chriswarbo 9y agoYes, to be clear I didn't mean the sort of rigid, silicon/glass PV panels we have right now; and solar roadways is evidence enough that it would be a bad idea. I meant something more like a polymer, bought by the bucketful and mixed in as an additive.