Credit: citymetric.com
And that’s on a good day. To call it a failed experiment would be an understatement.
An expensive solar road project in Idaho can’t even power a microwave most days, according to the project’s energy data.
The Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways project generated an average of 0.62 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per day since it began publicly posting power data in late March, reports The Daily Caller. To put that in perspective, the average microwave or blow drier consumes about 1 kWh per day.
On March 29th, the solar road panels generated 0.26 kWh, or less electricity than a single plasma television consumes. On March 31st, the panels generated 1.06 kWh, enough to barely power a single microwave.
The panels have been under-performing their expectations due to design flaws, but even if they had worked perfectly they’d have only powered a single water fountain and the lights in a nearby restroom.
Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways has been in development for 6.5 years and received a total of $4.3 million in funding to generate 90 cents worth of electricity.
Full report: Solar Road Cost $4.3 Million, Generates 90 Cents Of Power | The Daily Caller
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Reblogged this on Utopia – you are standing in it!.
Well, they got 4.3 million, so it wasn’t a complete failure.
Reblogged this on Wolsten and commented:
And the the environmentalists wonder why there are so many sceptics….
[…] Source: Idaho’s $4.3 million solar road generates enough power to run ONE microwave | Tallbloke’s … […]
Are they done yet?
PING!
Let’s call it $4.3 million virtue signal and be done with it.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Novelty energy update…
It’s not even a road. Follow the links to a picture of 30 hexagonal panels of about 100 square feet total. They are set on a concrete plaza next to a building. Looks like foot traffic only. The guy that sold this could sell snake oil to snakes.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Solar is s***.
Now tell me something I don’t know- God how I loathe and detest “greens”.
How is a French solar road doing?
George: 2 year test period in progress
http://www.constructionjunkie.com/blog/2017/3/12/france-officially-unveils-worlds-first-solar-panel-road
OT but did anyone hear the odious “professor” David King on the Beeb tonight?
Warbling on about that “he was misled” in the 1990’s about diesel engines.
He was the CO2-obsessed cretin who ignored the industry advice that diesels were inherently dirty.
The only one doing the misleading was King, himself.
Fast forward ten or twenty years and we’ll be hearing the same sort of thing from the politicians “But it’s not our fault, all these experts and industry people promised us that wind farms were the answer to all our problems”
An Australian engineer take a look at some fundamental costs. BTW he is keen on domestic solar installations but as he enthusiastically explains the fundamental costs and inefficiencies ensure that solar roadways can never be effective.
How does one remove snow from solar roads? Dust? Tire rubber? Diesel soot?
Do clouds and cars block sunlight? What angles of incident work?
Maybe this is silly? Wasteful to the point of stupid?
Northern Illinois gets 60 inches of snow on average. And lots of dust. Al Sleet reports a lot of dark at night.
[…] No media interest here, except the internet ‘new media’: Idaho’s $4.3 million solar road generates enough power to run ONE microwave […]
Best angle for solar panels depends on latitude but flat on the ground is never going to be good
I have read your comments and some of you have brought up valid points. My question is this, where are the sources for this information? I don’t see any cited sources. I have seen some videos about the “solar road” but that’s it. Is there somewhere that can get a hold of the actual data?
[reply] you could start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Roadways
Liberal economics: the government pays you, the politically favored, a lavish living —> the tax payers are told it’s for the common good. I call this the Moon Shot paradigm. Politicians latch on to a grand scheme which involves large amounts of money, sell the idea as a national or societal vision, gets re-elected by the gullible rubes.
The Strategy: get as many people or groups invested in the scheme that in some way might benefit them thus insuring their support, use the public purse to finance it and let human nature take it’s course.
The Moon Shot paradigm is neither bad or good, we did after all land on the Moon. Like all things it is easily corrupted by the Sagacious.