I was thinking more about glass + water (or snow, or ice) = severely decreased coefficient of friction. And the inconvenient fact that water expands when it hits 4°C. Asphalt has enough give that frost heaves are just inconvenient, but glass and the semiconductors in photovoltaic cells are both brittle, and thus anyplace with a winter wouldn't be able to use the panel he's depicted standing on.
Not to mention the cyclic loading from multi-ton vehicles driving over it all day.
I'm pretty sure that concocting a glass that has the same friction as a road (or better) would be the first order of business here. It's hardly impossible.
I'm a little more concerned about frozen water, but not so concerned that I think it's a deal breaker. And they did mention, in the video, that he circuitry would be in a hermetically sealed layer.
Ahahahaha "it's a materials problem!" Yeah, yeah, it's always a materials problem. Materials limitations are a major design driver. Sometimes the driver.
How do you make glass with an increased μ that doesn't reduce light transmission to the point of ineffectualness for PV power generation? How do you make a glass that's sufficiently scratch resistant to not reduce light transmission to uselessness after a month, while also not being so brittle it shatters under the loading the first time a semi trailer goes through?
How do you "hermetically seal" something so that it doesn't break under cyclic fatigue? You have high-cycle loading, the traffic, and low-cycle loading, the yearly temperature changes. They present different problems, and have different, sometimes mutually incompatible solutions.
Their website doesn't link to a single academic publication what the fuck.
Anyway, I'm not dead set against the idea. I just think they're minimizing the problems, which is what business scumbags do, not scientists and engineers. There isn't a single engineering spec on the whole damn website, just some back-of-the-envelope surface area calculations.
This is "Wired". Pie in the sky is often what they do best - but it's still a COOL IDEA.
The way I think of it, reading science news written by reporters is like reading science FICTION - and that's often kinda fun! Thinking of it this way lowers my stress levels.
Agreed. Also, I certainly don't expect a five minute soundbyte do anything but make me excited about a technology that they are still developing. How do you do these things? Hell if I know. And I doubt they know. But if they figure it out, I'll be excited to drive on it.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 05:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 06:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 06:10 pm (UTC)Not to mention the cyclic loading from multi-ton vehicles driving over it all day.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 06:16 pm (UTC)I'm a little more concerned about frozen water, but not so concerned that I think it's a deal breaker. And they did mention, in the video, that he circuitry would be in a hermetically sealed layer.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 06:44 pm (UTC)How do you make glass with an increased μ that doesn't reduce light transmission to the point of ineffectualness for PV power generation? How do you make a glass that's sufficiently scratch resistant to not reduce light transmission to uselessness after a month, while also not being so brittle it shatters under the loading the first time a semi trailer goes through?
How do you "hermetically seal" something so that it doesn't break under cyclic fatigue? You have high-cycle loading, the traffic, and low-cycle loading, the yearly temperature changes. They present different problems, and have different, sometimes mutually incompatible solutions.
Their website doesn't link to a single academic publication what the fuck.
Anyway, I'm not dead set against the idea. I just think they're minimizing the problems, which is what business scumbags do, not scientists and engineers. There isn't a single engineering spec on the whole damn website, just some back-of-the-envelope surface area calculations.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 06:52 pm (UTC)The way I think of it, reading science news written by reporters is like reading science FICTION - and that's often kinda fun! Thinking of it this way lowers my stress levels.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 07:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 10:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 06:08 pm (UTC)-TG
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-24 10:25 pm (UTC)