EEVblog #632 - Solar Roadways Are BULLSHIT!

[Legit-Design]

I wish I knew. It looked so implausible that I didn't even bother to go. This area is really fertile ground for these "faith-based" enterprises.  Solar Roadways is but one of them.

To me, it really shows the need for 100-level chemistry and physics.  When I was in college, one of my profs went on the local news to explain why a local inventor's plan of putting car crash barriers on the front of train locomotives would not prevent RR crossing deaths. 

We've got bad science-based business by the bushel up here.

Sounds like a lot of idiot money flowing free there. Do you have to believe in Jesus FRICKIN' Christ to be part of this club?

[edy]

I agree with you Dave, it is mostly cow excrement but because the concept is neat and great to sell... they have amassed a huge amount of funding!! $2 million and growing! As Dave would say... "You got to be $#!&ing me".

You will notice that most people CONTRIBUTING on IndieGogo are getting "pendants" and "stickers" and really no product at all, nor will they ever see or directly benefit from such a solar roadway. Why the heck are they giving their money away? They are primarily funding this project out of PASSION alone, and BELIEF in supporting this idea. This is in HUGE contrast to other crowd-funders where people are typically paying for the product and the inventor/seller is usually just barely making any profit at all, simply to get their product out there before they hit the large retail phase.

So the moral of the story is, come up with some B.S. idea that sounds good, pulls at your heart-strings and offer your backers stickers and mugs. For example, crowd-fund "research" on further refining a bark/meow translation box for your puppies or kittens or something else really cute, and give people mugs and stickers in return. Then maybe in 20 years as you continue to do "research" to make such a device, people will forget and have their mugs and stickers to remember only. Meanwhile you've walked away with tons of $$$ and your backers got what they were promised (mugs and stickers) so technically you have fulfilled your obligations and backers can't complain.

This solar roadway is the same thing, only worse. You have just sucked $2 million dollars into privately funding somebody's research into technology that is grossly inefficient. You want a "warning system", just crowd-fund an APP DEVELOPER to create a SmartPhone app that taps into a nation-wide system to warn people of traffic issues or collisions. Doesn't Google already have that? Why put lights into the roadway? The tiles will also settle and shift, you need a base-layer and that is still costly and subject to damage, causing tiles to become uneven, breaking connections between them. There are so many issues.

I suggest the solar roadways money goes to install a solar farm out in California to feed energy into the grid, and to plant 10,000 trees around it, and tell backers that their investment has gone into greening the environment and reducing "X" amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere, and call it QUITS. Everyone will feel better and the result will be immediate and beneficial!

[Wim_L]

can't you angle the LEDs towards oncoming traffic to increase their efficiency?

Yup, they can be angled.  Lights embedded in " roadways" are already common.  Go to any major jet airport at night, and you'll see embedded guide lights in taxiways.  And they are angled.  For two-way traffic, they have to be in sets that face opposite directions.

Dave is right though.  Project as a whole stinks.

Mike in California

The problem with this is, you need to interrupt the surface to do this: you need to have a piece of glass that's close to perpendicular to the viewing direction to get good efficiency.

At shallow angles, glass is very reflective, even if you had a LED inside flat glass tiles with the LED pointed at incoming drivers, most of the light would be reflected back into the tile. Making recessed structures in the tiles, as in those markers, would make this kind of thing possible, but the little pits in the surface would likely get full of dirt. Elevated light guides would also work, but that might get uncomfortable at high speeds. But if you're trying to keep the tiles completely flat, the output coupling efficiency at shallow angles isn't going to be good.

[SeanB]

Every LED and built in marker also takes surface away from having solar cell to absorb light. Worsens conversion even more for the panels.

[Rufus]

Making recessed structures in the tiles, as in those markers, would make this kind of thing possible, but the little pits in the surface would likely get full of dirt.

Horizontal reflectors get dirty and need (self) cleaning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_eye_%28road%29

[Legit-Design]

33$/m^2/year  so they are actually claiming maximum of 30 years for these, that comes to around 990$/m^2/lifetime how much solar energy they have produced. If they are going to get roads that pay for itself during the lifetime.... 

real quotes from their site:

How long will these Solar Road Panels last?

We're designing our panels to last a minimum of 20 years. Solar cells are the limiting factor: they can continue to work up to 30 years but they're at the end of their life cycle by then.

Years ago, when we were working on our very first prototype, we estimated that if we could make our 12' x 12' panels for under $10K, then we could break even with asphalt. That was mere speculation and had no relevance to the cost of even our first prototype, let alone our second.

They should make 1 m^2 panels that lasts 300 years. Would almost break even on that $10K price point?

I FINALLY CRACKED THE SOLAR ROADWAYS CODE!!!

I just found their rough estimate on the 15 million views pitch video:

Original screencap from their video @ 0:55 https://youtu.be/qlTA3rnpgzU?t=55s


Since they are already using pseudoscience, I put my sherlock hat on and started looking for their calculations! Can clearly see X-axis with incandescent bulb symbol for time in years. And Y-axis has dollar sign for profit times 10. Since 300 years closely matches that $10K and years. Green line is for their solar road panels and Red line is for normal asphalt based blacktop. I also marked some important milestones over the years. You can clearly see the thickness of lines represents the spread of these estimations.


Next frames has DIRECT reference to another crowdscamming success

SOAP ROUTER those lightning bolts are like radio waves?

[delmadord]

I wonder how many people would be putting here HOW COULD IT WORK comments here, if Dave did that instead of what he did. I am not saying that Dave did something wrong, or that I deliberately believe that the solar roads will work like a charm. Haters gonna hate, but how many of you haters have an ongoing project known to public for 4+ years (I do not really know how long they have been working on it, I am assuming that it is at least 4 years old project, because associated TED talk was in 2010) ? Yeah I know, If it won't work, and it most probably won't, the taxpayers and the funders will lose their money, with no visible result. But success is mostly a result of a lot of failures in a row. What if the authors of this project won't stop here, and move on? Or someone else will learn from it? It could lead on some nice technology in the future, leveraging the experience gained here. What I really admire is they are actually doing something, even though they are doing some shit like deleting comments and hiding the data and so.

Please excuse me, If my comment is completely wrong, I did not read the entire discussion, because I got disgusted by some of the really bizzare and negative comments about the project. Once again, I am not saying they are perfect, I just like they actually do something.

[DJ]

Doing something is fine, as long as it is on you own dime, or with willing investors.

Pimping blatant BS for government grants is fraud.

[EEVblog]

It seems that some moron is flagging hundreds of comments on this video as SPAM, but it seems only ones that are against solar roadways.
Seems like we have a rabid fanboy

[EEVblog]

Please excuse me, If my comment is completely wrong, I did not read the entire discussion, because I got disgusted by some of the really bizzare and negative comments about the project. Once again, I am not saying they are perfect, I just like they actually do something.

Sure, one person doing something is worth a million who just bitch about it.
But if facts are facts, then, well, facts are facts.
Having worked on something for 5 years on taxpayer dime and not have any real data to show for it, except for a bunch of outrageous and clearly ridiculous claims and an admittedly fantastic prototype that you claim is working and proven, does not earn you any respect. Then when take 2.2 million more of public money on what are demonstrably false claims, and you delete comments and refuse to substantiate your claims with data, you just dig your hole deeper. This project deserves every bit of criticism it gets.

[DJ]

Does youtube have a views/day sort function?

This one seems to be getting rather popular.

[EEVblog]

Does youtube have a views/day sort function?
This one seems to be getting rather popular.

Yes, but the data lags a few days, so don't have much yet.
This is my most shared video ever 

[LabSpokane]

I wish I knew. It looked so implausible that I didn't even bother to go. This area is really fertile ground for these "faith-based" enterprises.  Solar Roadways is but one of them.

To me, it really shows the need for 100-level chemistry and physics.  When I was in college, one of my profs went on the local news to explain why a local inventor's plan of putting car crash barriers on the front of train locomotives would not prevent RR crossing deaths. 

We've got bad science-based business by the bushel up here.

Sounds like a lot of idiot money flowing free there. Do you have to believe in Jesus FRICKIN' Christ to be part of this club?

No.  You have to stand on the sidewalk with a bullhorn shouting that everyone is going to hell.  Just watched a little girl, maybe ten years old doing this last night outside the stadium during a football game.  It happens every day here. 

And yes, there is a ton of money to be had here if one drops the J-bomb frequently enough.

[DJ]

I wish I knew. It looked so implausible that I didn't even bother to go. This area is really fertile ground for these "faith-based" enterprises.  Solar Roadways is but one of them.

To me, it really shows the need for 100-level chemistry and physics.  When I was in college, one of my profs went on the local news to explain why a local inventor's plan of putting car crash barriers on the front of train locomotives would not prevent RR crossing deaths. 

We've got bad science-based business by the bushel up here.

Sounds like a lot of idiot money flowing free there. Do you have to believe in Jesus FRICKIN' Christ to be part of this club?

No.  You have to stand on the sidewalk with a bullhorn shouting that everyone is going to hell.  Just watched a little girl, maybe ten years old doing this last night outside the stadium during a football game.  It happens every day here. 

And yes, there is a ton of money to be had here if one drops the J-bomb frequently enough.

Charlatans abound across the spectrum of humanity. Tying it to any particular flavor dilutes the discussion.

JMO, but sticking to technical aspects reduces bias and promotes clarity. YMMV

[edy]

Someone mentioned that because Dave had negative views that people on the forum who are also negative are just following his lead... and people would have been positive if Dave was positive.

I think we need to give more credit to Dave's viewers and also the healthy and open discussions we have here. Dave happened to call it as it is... And I never even heard of this project until Dave did his video. If I had seen this Solar Roadway idea before I would have come to the same conclusion.

Put panels in areas that can get optimal light, in large arrays that are optimized and maintained at reasonable cost. Find a way to store excess energy efficiently for nightly usage. A road made up of panels with suboptimal light capture, subject to wear and tear, huge maintenance issues and even bigger costs sounds like the dumbest idea ever.

Why not work on altering traffic and congestion which causes needless waste and emissions. Why not offer bigger incentives to go hybrid, or all electric, or convert to LED lighting. There are so many ways that can make a bigger difference with existing proven methods that could use the investment.

[Ross_ValuSoft]

... sounds like the dumbest idea ever.

Which brings into sharp focus the "crap filled" video endorsement by Senator Crapo.

[Legit-Design]

It seems that some moron is flagging hundreds of comments on this video as SPAM, but it seems only ones that are against solar roadways.
Seems like we have a rabid fanboy

If one (or just a few) people set to targeting a video's comments as SPAM, what of it? Do the comments get automatically removed?

EEVblog1 hour ago (edited)
 
IMPORTANT NOTE: I seems apparent that some moron is flagging a huge proportion of comments going against the solar roadway as SPAM. Therefore, don't fret if your comment doesn't show up, I'll unmark it as spam as soon as possible.?

Dave has to manually clear it. Maybe they are doing this to make Dave's video less popular? Since youtube rates videos how many comments they get in the beginning and views and all that stuff. Even one way to attack someone might satisfy them.

Youtube should limit how much someone can flag comments since it's clearly being misused, maybe let Dave ban someone from flagging the comments? If they can't disclose that who flags the comments, then just anonymize them with idiot1, idiot2, idiot3 or something.

[Legit-Design]

pic.twitter.com/HJUHRwrsLU

@MythBusters
Why didn't anyone think of this before? Solar-powered roadways that light themselves ? http://dsc.tv/x0UIW  pic.twitter.com/HJUHRwrsLU



 
Dave please, another video quickly, otherwise this will be written off in the history books (like Thunderf00t said) saying "no one had a clue because they were so stupid".

[Stonent]

pic.twitter.com/HJUHRwrsLU

@MythBusters
Why didn't anyone think of this before? Solar-powered roadways that light themselves ? http://dsc.tv/x0UIW  pic.twitter.com/HJUHRwrsLU



 
Dave please, another video quickly, otherwise this will be written off in the history books (like Thunderf00t said) saying "no one had a clue because they were so stupid".

I think it can all be summed up with this Simpsons quote.

[EEVblog]

If one (or just a few) people set to targeting a video's comments as SPAM, what of it? Do the comments get automatically removed?

No. I have the option to manually approve or delete each comment.
Haven't found one single real spam comment yet, rare as hens teeth on my channel.

[VK3DRB]

There is an old saying: A fool and his money are soon parted. The world is full of fools.

I learnt years ago never invest in something you know nothing about. The investors in these road tiles will lose their money. A masters degree or a PhD does disqualify you from being a fundamental idiot.

There is a story about a roofing tiler who invented a revolutionary engine - the split cycle engine. Sir Jack Brabham even endorsed it. To cut a long story short, it went nowhere and investors lost virtually everything. The roofing tiler walked off with many millions of dollars in his pocket.

Peter Brock made a fool of himself with his "Energy Polarizer"containing crystals and magnets in an epoxy resin that, it was claimed, improved the performance and handling of vehicles through "aligning the molecules". A load of .

The religious Y2K spruikers gave the computing industry a bad name. Conmen who had few abilities other than spreading fear over Y2K and making money out of it.

Dave's video reminds us that if it is too good to be true, it probably is. And do your homework always.

Not to want to divert this thread off topic but the Y2K issue may have been inflated by mass media but there still were many systems that would have produced errors had there not been a MASSIVE remedial effort to update them. A great deal of money time and effort went into replacing and testing to ensure it was all a complete fizzer on the day.

My intent is not to revisit Y2K since it is historic now, rather that if you are going to argue against others beliefs in something then you ought to not include your own biases as well. Whether or not Y2K spruikers and conmen did or did not give the IT industry a bad name and rake in money is an opinion as much based on your particular beliefs.

There were systems that were not Y2K compliant, agreed, and they were fixed. Here is one hard example of a dodgy Y2K spruiker. I knew a Y2K guru who was a prophet of doom, saying up until Dec 31 1999 that GPS satellites will be wiped out and worlds IT infrastructure will cave in soon after Jan 1 2000. It didn't. He then revised his estimate by saying the world will crumble with the next leap year. It didn't. He had trouble getting a job after that malarkey. How many IT people would dare have "Y2K consultant" on their resume? 

Same with the religion called 6 Sigma. A load of that made some consultants a lot of money. In general, people want low price over everything. Forget 6 sigma. IBM execs were spruiking 6 sigma like it was the holy grail back in the 90's. They were too embarrassed, proud and protective of their own interests to admit they had got it wrong. They did not have the guts to admit to the employees they had stuffed up; and the low level converts were left holding the baby not knowing what to do with it.

Never believe an expert knows everything. There are a lot of "experts" in the financial sector was are nothing more than semiskilled artists, ripping gullible people of their hard earned savings.

Sometimes electronics engineers and technicians get it wrong. The bad ones are pig headed know-it-alls who are vexations to any workplace. The good ones are those who admit their mistakes and listen to others including young new hires.

[EEVblog]

Someone mentioned that because Dave had negative views that people on the forum who are also negative are just following his lead... and people would have been positive if Dave was positive.
I think we need to give more credit to Dave's viewers and also the healthy and open discussions we have here.

The majority of my audience are engineering professionals, it's simply impossible for me to put anything technical over my audience, I get called out literally within minutes of upload. I get pulled up on the most obscure things on almost every video.
I was actually afraid I had completely goofed the calculations, and was hesitant to release such a video knowing that I'd get called out on any errors.
Luckily no show-stoppers have been reported. Lots of minor quibbles on some of my calcs, but nothing that changes the basic result in any way.

[EEVblog]

This is from their FAQ page:

Currently, the full size hexagons are 36-watt solar panels, with 69-percent surface coverage by solar cells. This will become 52-watts when we cover the whole surface when we go into production. When we add piezoelectric, they'll be capable of producing even more power. Also, as the efficiency of solar cells increase, more power will be converted.

WTF? 
They are saying they can 100% cover the tiles with solar cells!
Physically impossible!
They must know this, and that any such calculations resulting from such assumptions will not be valid.
I think I'm going to have to elevate my status of them to flat out charlatans.
If he seriously think this then he should get back the money for his masters EE degree. 

And piezoelectric!?
They are jumping on the low energy harvesting bandwagon now!

[peter.mitchell]

If he seriously think this then he should get back the money for his masters EE degree. 

Was probably only $450.

[DJ]

(obscure dr who reference removed)

Back on track, I note that the University of Dayton offers online masters degrees. Not that online programs are intrinsically bad, but may explain a few things...