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Does anyone but me have the suspicion that the animosity towards solar roads was something to do with a 'nerve being touched', some kind of 'triggering'? Sure,

Does anyone but me have the suspicion that the animosity towards solar roads was something to do with a 'nerve being touched', some kind of 'triggering'? Sure, they might not work out, but lots of stupid-sounding ideas ('a horseless carriage? Whatever next?') have turned out to work, just as much as lots of somewhat futuristic but nonetheless sensible sounding ideas have turned out not to be here yet ('flying cars are just around the corner'). Who knows, at some point in the future, with different technologies and materials, different efficiencies and performance, we might indeed find solar energy being collected from roads. Just as we are laughing right now at the current, ludicrously oversold and patently unsuccessful efforts, future generations may be laughing at our arrogant dismissal of an idea that might ultimately have just turned out to have been ahead of its time. Let's applaud the audacity of the solar roadways hubris in the spirit of uninhibited innovative endeavour, just as much as we pat ourselves on the back for having successfully spotted its obvious shortcomings and predicted its seemingly inevitable struggle for survival.

teawrecks 7y ago
Yeah I don't know why the article is so negative. Any engineer would look at this and say, "cool, a few more problems to solve" not "well golly, I guess there's nothing we can do about a few leaves".
- red75prime 7y ago
  Like placing the panels above roads, for example. It helps to get optimal inclination of panels too, and reduce stress levels, and eliminates losses from cars' shadows, and simplifies maintenance, and reduces pavement costs. Some ideas are just plain stupid.
Mirioron 7y ago
>Sure, they might not work out, but lots of stupid-sounding ideas ('a horseless carriage? It's a monumentally stupid idea. I'm surprised it isn't outright labelled as a scam. They basically cheated money out of governments and gullible people with a project that was never a good idea in the first place. Solar is the perpetuum mobile of our time.
neetdeth 7y ago
It touched a nerve with engineers because nobody listens to engineers and they’re getting completely sick of it. Engineers are paid to work things out on paper and determine whether something will work or not. Bridges, airplanes, power distribution systems, those kinds of things. They don’t use arrogance, they use math. This isn’t particle physics - there are no “unknown unknowns” here that required a real world experiment. The economic infeasibility of solar roadways was an absolute slam dunk case. So now we have confirmation that it was, in fact a bad idea all along. What’s the reaction? “Well, nobody could have predicted this! We had to try.” No, you didn’t have to waste all that money, you could have just listened to competent people in the first place, who all predicted this. I mean, excuse the hyperbole, but you may as well applaud the audacity of launching Challenger in temperatures below the booster o-rings’ rated spec. Who knows? It could have worked!

teawrecks 7y ago

Yeah I don't know why the article is so negative. Any engineer would look at this and say, "cool, a few more problems to solve" not "well golly, I guess there's nothing we can do about a few leaves".

red75prime 7y ago
Like placing the panels above roads, for example. It helps to get optimal inclination of panels too, and reduce stress levels, and eliminates losses from cars' shadows, and simplifies maintenance, and reduces pavement costs. Some ideas are just plain stupid.

Mirioron 7y ago

>Sure, they might not work out, but lots of stupid-sounding ideas ('a horseless carriage? It's a monumentally stupid idea. I'm surprised it isn't outright labelled as a scam. They basically cheated money out of governments and gullible people with a project that was never a good idea in the first place. Solar is the perpetuum mobile of our time.

neetdeth 7y ago

It touched a nerve with engineers because nobody listens to engineers and they’re getting completely sick of it. Engineers are paid to work things out on paper and determine whether something will work or not. Bridges, airplanes, power distribution systems, those kinds of things. They don’t use arrogance, they use math. This isn’t particle physics - there are no “unknown unknowns” here that required a real world experiment. The economic infeasibility of solar roadways was an absolute slam dunk case. So now we have confirmation that it was, in fact a bad idea all along. What’s the reaction? “Well, nobody could have predicted this! We had to try.” No, you didn’t have to waste all that money, you could have just listened to competent people in the first place, who all predicted this. I mean, excuse the hyperbole, but you may as well applaud the audacity of launching Challenger in temperatures below the booster o-rings’ rated spec. Who knows? It could have worked!