What is Digg?81 Comments
- ai52487963, on 08/30/2008, -1/+31Seems to me like if something went wrong, it would be a pain in the ass to fix. A good idea, but the main obstacle to overcome at the moment is energy storage. A report came out recently talking about using electrolysis as a means of energy storage, as opposed to conventional batteries. I think that, combined with this idea, would be a fantastic leap forward in terms of bringing prices down, and helping out our current situation.
- XeroPhoenix, on 08/31/2008, -1/+18Too bad it hasn't showed up in the US yet. Looks pretty promising though.
- War3Zone, on 08/31/2008, -3/+20I'll make sure to go extra quickly past them, you know, for environmental purposes.
- inactive, on 08/31/2008, -1/+17Now that is an awesome idea. I would love to see the US implement that.
- hockachu, on 08/31/2008, -0/+12Splitting water into its base components, hydrogen and oxygen. You can then use the hydrogen in a fuel cell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water - inactive, on 08/31/2008, -0/+12I travel Iinterstate 80 in NJ daily. With 71 miles of interstate, just with I-80, which already has sound barriers in place along a good portion of it, it wouldn't take much to top the barriers with solar panels as it is wasted real estate anyway.
If every interstate was fitted with solar panels, the coal/oil fired generation stations could cut back on generation during the peak demand times of the day.
Why create a solar panel desert when you can use the real estate that is already being used.....now take it one step further and add panels to the rooftops of every home and business (especially the large warehouse structures with acres of rooftop space) and you can LITERALLY wipe demand for generator stations ALMOST completely.
I will be the FIRST to volunteer my home's roof as the roof is just absorbing heat anyway, - thestrongrope, on 08/31/2008, -1/+11This just makes so much sense. There needs to be more renewable energy integrated into our current infrastructure. There are just so many possibilities out there, we just need people to think of them.
- cornerback42, on 08/31/2008, -4/+13When I read the title I was thinking the road surface itself was going to be collecting the energy. Meaning they adapted the surface to collect the sun and process into electricity, altering the building process of roadways. This is just building walls (while nice looking) across all freeways in America, just more crap to clutter the already cluttered landscape. I mean its impractical really, why not just take 30000 acres and devote it to 1 giant solar panel instead of creating millions of miles of solar panels spread out everywhere. I mean if your designing a sound barrier by residential populated areas then I can see but this taking off across the US is dumb, it wont happen because its too costly and inefficient.
Besides they'll just get graffiti'd and dirty (Cleveland) where I live.
Whats the backside of the panels look like? The side thats facing the residents. No photo shown so I wondered what Suzy Homewrecker was staring at when she looked out here kitchen window. - bixby1, on 08/31/2008, -0/+8Solar panels doubling as sound barriers. I like
- LiberalKid, on 08/31/2008, -0/+8I think thats the brilliant part of this idea, by building the solar panels near houses, the energy doesn't have to be stored because it can be used right away.
- Salinesolucion, on 08/31/2008, -1/+8This is a brilliant idea - why can't we do this for all of our highways in the sunny American west?
- DeskFlyer, on 08/31/2008, -4/+11How about we fix our roads first.
- santaliqueur, on 08/31/2008, -1/+8What's wrong with the roads? We can fix them anytime, we need alternative energy right now.
- Culyt, on 08/31/2008, -0/+7Didn't we already see this except for somewhere in America (Oklahoma or somewhere else starting with O?)
Seems to me it would be heaps more efficient to just build regular panels in an out of the way area, here in Australia we have plenty of land even around cities.
Putting them on the side of the road just seems to be government greenwashing, people drive by, see token solar panels and think the government is ecofriendly.
You lower maintenance costs (someone has to clean bird ***** off them and fix them) and reduce the chance of them being stolen or vandalised. You also don't need to pay for as much wiring all along the freeway.
In addition to that, these systems don't work in a distributed fashion, they are still on the grid which means if there is a blackout they stop working and they will still be stored the same way as the rest of the power in the area, unless they bother with some specialised setup, which is unlikely (all normal house installs are the same), costly, and infeasible since they are spread out over such a wide area.
Its not like we are running out of places to put solar panels.
☢ - eebeelive, on 08/31/2008, -0/+7excellent post, thanks for the story...that's the ticket merging everything together into one great workable recycling energy efficient new world!
- Timmmm, on 08/31/2008, -0/+6Megawatts per year? Why don't people understand units?!
- sayoshinn, on 08/31/2008, -0/+6How could there be a downside to this? As long as the city (obviously) makes plans for back up energy sources if the panels break or you have extensive cloudiness, then your still getting a soundproof barrier that would have been there anywhere. Its like Mitch Hedberg said about escalators: “An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You would never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.”
The soundproof solar paneled barrier can never break: it can only become a soundproof wall. "Solar Paneled Sound Barrier Temporarily a Sound Barrier. Sorry for the convenience." - thestrongrope, on 08/31/2008, -0/+5We want to have solar panels everywhere (as well as other renewable energies) because we want to have a diversified portfolio, so as not to be reliant on one single source of energy, in one single area. There are too many things that can go wrong if you put all your eggs in one basket. Being in Cleveland you have the lake which could possibly give you some tidal, albeit not much since it is Lake Erie, You could have wind, Solar for those days that it is sunny (being from Rochester I know that sun can be hard to come by), and you have the rivers. That is just a couple of things that can be taken advantage of. Start integrating innovative ideas like this and you are starting to answer the problems we face. Hell, they put up sound barriers anyways on highways why not just retrofit them?
- theshoreways, on 08/31/2008, -0/+5It has....
In Oregon.
http://cleantechnica.com/2008/08/13/oregon-launchi ... - norman619, on 08/31/2008, -0/+5A form of hair removal.
- kreatre2007, on 08/31/2008, -1/+6Um. No. Let's be serious. Solar power is great but, it's nowhere near ready to power an entire city. Let's be patient and allow the technology to grow and to develop. Nuclear is the way to go.
- quinters, on 08/31/2008, -0/+4whoa! i was just talking with someone about the real estate problem posed by solar plants!
- JickBahTech, on 08/31/2008, -0/+4Well, again, on it's own I don't think this would have a huge impact, but when used in conjunction with solar farms, wind farms, geothermal, tidal, and other forms of energy we could be sitting pretty.
- bananasluggy, on 08/31/2008, -0/+4The sad thing is that there's no reason for large-scale industries to make something cheaper, so long as the old technology brings in the money. If a thing costs you a nice chunk from your paycheck each month, you suffer, but the people you send your money to are quite happy and hardly likely to make things easier for you, if it costs them money.
The only way realistic solutions to the "energy crisis" are going to come about is from outside the U.S., or by research teams at universities.
Our infrastructure is working against us in a big way, as we're stuck with a system of roads, houses, and pretty much everything else, that worked well in the 1950s (which many of those in power remember fondly, as they were too young to know any better.) (Sucked if you were a woman, didn't like monotony, weren't white, or didn't live in the 'burbs.)
Not so much now.
Hell, even the hours most people work are stupid. It'd make a lot more sense to stagger the hours people go to work, so you wouldn't wind up with pretty much everyone slamming the roads at the same time. Banks and post offices (at least around here) still work on the 9-5 schedule, which sucks if you also work 9-5 and can't manage to leave work during those hours.
Our entire system is poorly managed and badly designed. The only way to fix it would be a quick and brutal realigning of everything. Some things you just can't do slowly. You do them quick, you do them hard, and people just STFU and deal. Later on they'll thank you. In the short term, they'll hate your guts.
Of course, no one who relies on voters being happy will offer to do such a thing. People want candy, not veggies, for dinner. - localzuk, on 08/31/2008, -0/+4Centralising an installation results in several problems.
1. You create a giant target for anyone wishing to take part in the terror war.
2. Transmission of electricity over large distances is ineffecient.
3. If something goes wrong with a giant site, you could lose the entire output of said installation. In a distributed system, you can lose bits and pieces without effect. - localzuk, on 08/31/2008, -2/+6how would it be a pain to fix if something went wrong? Someone crashes into the barrier, taking out 10 panels of the 10,000 in the installation (random numbers used as examples). The panels would not be in series, so this wouldn't kill the entire installation.
Compare that to a nuke plant, where a problem means the entire reactor shuts down. So, we have a 100% loss compared with a minor glitch with the other system... - lead2thehead, on 08/31/2008, -0/+3Storage may not be a big problem if we use solar during the day, when energy consumption is at its peak, and then supplement it with wind power at night.
- theshoreways, on 08/31/2008, -0/+3Yes. Oregon.
http://cleantechnica.com/2008/08/13/oregon-launchi ... - santaliqueur, on 08/31/2008, -1/+4Yeah, mankind was a pretty sweet investment.
- gavintlgold, on 08/31/2008, -0/+3What about some sort of installation under the asphalt which captures the heat and turns it into electricity? (I guess we need a medium/low heat -> electricity device that isn't steam)
- eebeelive, on 08/31/2008, -2/+5what is electrolysis?
- yeahbuddy, on 08/31/2008, -0/+3This idea is so obvious, it's embarrassing.
Hopefully we see more of this in the very near future. Unfortunately, government feet dragging will take years. Maybe by 2030 they will start rolling this out. Very sad. - inactive, on 08/31/2008, -2/+5One of the greatest investments since mankind.
- kd1s, on 08/31/2008, -0/+3Here's a better idea. Why not take that power to feed an inductive grid built underneath the roadways and let the cars use that for motive power. What a concept.
- inactive, on 08/31/2008, -0/+3Great concept, I'd love to see this idea make it to the US.
- inactive, on 08/31/2008, -1/+3instead of the top-down approach to the energy problem, what if every one of us was to provide for our own energy needs? I'd like to see some articles about individual household energy generation that's both practical and affordable. The corporate level approach doesn't seem to be trickling down too much to the average plumber or carpenter down here where most of us live our lives everyday.
- rstinnett, on 09/01/2008, -0/+2Wow! This is great! This is the type of innovation and action we need. Can't wait to see this in action!
- Culyt, on 08/31/2008, -0/+2Build the panels in one location, you can still survive an individual panel dying, anything bad enough to take out the whole system will likely effect the ones along the road as well.
- shawnanigans, on 08/31/2008, -0/+2It isn't a good idea because it's too complicated. They absorb a termendous amount of heat why not harness that by putting a heat pipe in and generating electricity from the steam like in all power plants. All it would require is replacing rebar pieces with hollow pipes filled with water.
- slapthemonkey, on 09/01/2008, -0/+2Necessity is the mother of invention. I like this
- Culyt, on 08/31/2008, -0/+2This is in Australia not America (although there was one being talked about over there too).
I doubt the panels completely replace the sound barrier, they are probably just put on top of it.
There isn't that much in the way of graffiti on Australian freeways (they are freeways not highways). What there is would probably be done on the giant orange concrete bit under the panels anyway.
You can't make 1 giant solar panel, the technology isn't there but it does make more sense to me to have them in one location from a construction/maintenance perspective.
☢ - Ev3nt372, on 08/31/2008, -1/+3I thought of this before but not as walls along the side of the road but overhangs above it. It would also keep drivers cooler.
- SonicRush, on 09/01/2008, -0/+2Especially on a blog about sustainable energy. Noobs.
- WishItWerePaul, on 08/31/2008, -0/+2sounds cool but i wont subscribe to it until i see some solid research into environmental impact of manufacturing of these on large scale. i mean i'd like to reduce our carbon foot print as much as the next guy, but i dont want to spread cancer from chemicals required to make these solar panels.
- olik, on 08/31/2008, -0/+2Pannels embedded in the roads is something I have heard in the past and I love the idea. Imagine how much sunlight all the country's road surfaces are exposed to. Long, costly, etc, but none of that is any different than other alternative fuel sources. Lets put the roads to work .
- shaneomac27, on 08/31/2008, -0/+2this is a great idea and it will make highways look cooler 8)
- wunksta, on 09/01/2008, -0/+1http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.htm ...
- wunksta, on 09/01/2008, -0/+1well they try to offer incentives to get alternative energy produced by the public and theres plans for energy purchases from the public prodcued sources etc, its just expensive right now
- AngelFyre, on 08/31/2008, -0/+1I had this idea like 10 years ago. :/
- inactive, on 09/01/2008, -0/+1Governments need to start funding this solar panel stuff!! Basically any place that gets a good amount of sunlight could be generating green energy for your community! Support solar research!
-
Show 51 - 81 of 81 discussions
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is