MEMORANDUM
TO: Academic Advisor
FROM: Jorge Saro
DATE: April 30, 2014
SUBJECT: Research Proposal regarding Solar Roadways
Proposed Research
I propose to research solar roadways in order to gain a better understanding of this growing field that could possibly be the form that our country creates its electricity in the future.
Statement of Opportunity
Considering the fact that a large period of time has opened up in my schedule, I believe it would efficiently used by researching a topic of interest for possible future benefits of working for a company related to solar roadways or working for a company in a somewhat related field of work. After a few weeks of gathering research, I ultimately hope to be able to inform others of the possible uses and futures for this technology.
Scope of Proposed Research
My research will include the following:
1 1. Possible advantages of solar roadways
2 2. Possible disadvantages of solar roadways
4 4. Survey of people’s opinion towards the idea of solar roadways
Research Methods
My largest amount of research will originate from secondary sources consisting of articles by credible sources with their take on the idea of solar roadways. The interview primary sources will be from civil engineer professors from California Polytechnic University (Cal Poly), and the surveys will come from Cal Poly students.
If you have any further questions, I will be happy to discuss this proposal with you at your convenience.
PROGRESS REPORT
PROGRESS REPORT
TO: Academic Advisor
FROM: Jorge Saro
DATE: May 7, 2015
SUBJECT: Analytical Report
A STUDY OF SOLAR ROADWAYS AND THE DIFFERENT ASPECTS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT WITH ITS TECHNOLOGY
Thank you again for your approval to move forward on my research. Below are summaries of research completed and works still to be done prior to final submission of my completed report.
A STUDY OF SOLAR ROADWAYS AND THE DIFFERENT ASPECTS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT WITH ITS TECHNOLOGY
Thank you again for your approval to move forward on my research. Below are summaries of research completed and works still to be done prior to final submission of my completed report.
Week 1: Submitted research proposal to begin work.
Gathered different sources of information related to solar roadways.
Contemplated different disadvantages to the technology that could cause problems in future implementation of this technology.
Drafted questions for future professor and student interviews.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Week 2: Creating a summarized list of information gathered from reading source information.
WORK TO BE COMPLETED
Week 2: Interview Nathan Heston, Cal Poly physics professor.
Interview Tobin Lau, Civil Engineering Major at Cal Poly.
Week 3: Create a condensed report of all work completed and gathered to submit as a final report.
Submit final report.
MEMORANDUM
TO: Academic Advisor
FROM: Jorge Saro
DATE: May 11, 2015
SUBJECT: Recommendation Report
A STUDY OF SOLAR ROADWAYS AND THE DIFFERENT ASPECTS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT WITH ITS TECHNOLOGY
After a two week period of time spent researching the idea of
solar roadways, I have discovered many of its advantages as well as a fair
amount of disadvantages. This report is meant to inform you of the current
standing of my efforts as well as to suggest an increase to the time interval
allotted for my research. Even though I wish to continue researching the idea
of alternative forms of power, I would like to break away from the idea of
solar roadways for the remaining period of time. If I were able to continue my
research, I would like to spend the time looking into the possibilities of
creating an electric "grid". A grid implies the ability to store away
electrical energy for a period of time and then just call for it whenever it is
required, compared to having to generate the energy on the spot.
Background
The technology that I chose to research is solar roadways;
this technology is experimental and only in its prototype stages. The company
that is behind the research is Solar Roadways(S.R.). This is a very small
company that is based out of Sandpoint, Idaho and is led by Scott Brusaw and
his wife, Julie Brusaw. Scott is an electrical engineer with over 20 years of
industry experience.[i] In
2009, they were awarded a contract by the Federal Highway Administration (FHA)
to create their first phase I prototype.[ii]
Upon completion in 2011, the FHA awarded them a follow-up 2-year contract for
$750,000 in order to construct a phase II prototype.ii Phase II
takes the form of a 36-foot by 12-foot parking lot that consists of 108
prototype Solar Road Panels.ii The phase II prototype, Scott, and
Brusaw can be seen in Figure 1. More
recently they ran a fundraising campaign via a website called IndieGogo that
ended on June 20, 2014 and raised a grand total of $2,250,574.[iii]
With these funds they hope to keep
developing their technology in order to spread it all over the world and one
day see all streets paved with Solar Roadway Panels.
Advantages of Solar
Roadways
The list of advantages to solar roadways is quite long.
The first and most obvious one being that by replacing asphalt
streets with solar roadways, it would allow for streets--which serve no purpose
other than to provide a safe surface for cars to drive on--to generate
electricity. There is currently only one prototype off this technology in the
world and it is located alongside the Brusaw's lab in Idaho. This prototype is
Phase II and takes the form of an 11-meter long parking lot that can produce 14
kilowatt-hours of electricity a day, which is estimated to be about half of an
average US home consumption in one day.[iv]
By implementing an alternative method for the country to produce electricity,
that would decrease the dependency of oil from other countries and need for
much less environmentally friendly forms of electricity generation such as
nuclear power plants. In an effort to decrease the negative impact on the
planet, the production of each solar roadway uses as much recycled material as
possible.
Solar roadways are created in series of panels so that if one
breaks, only that one-broken panel needs
be replaced and can be done so easily, which means that a grid must be created
underneath them in order for them to be placed together and wired. In addition
to the grid, two ducts must be made that run parallel to each side of the
street. One side is meant for runoff water and the other is meant for all the
proper wiring that is required for the panels to function. Now the advantage of
having the ducts on each side of the road is that power lines can also be run through
these ducts, allowing them to be run underground.[v]
This removes the risk of a tree knocking over a telephone pole and causing
power outages. In addition, data lines, fiber optics and internet lines can
also be run through the ducts.
Each panel comes equipped with heating units that increase
the temperature of their surface.v If used in an environment that
becomes hazardous from snow fall on streets, the roadways would be able to melt
the snow off the surface. This would remove the hazard in those environments
and the need to either salt or have specified trucks to clear the snow off
roads. The solar panels' heating feature can be seen in Figure 2.
In addition to each panel being heated, they also include a
series of LED lights that can be programmed for whatever purpose they are
required.v This means that street would no longer have to be
repainted every few years because the paint is fading or that parking lots have
to be repainted in order to change the layout of the parking grid. Another
positive is that it could be used as a surface for child playgrounds so that if
they want to play a multitude of different games they can just push a button
provided and the layout of the lines drawn on the ground will immediately
change to what they want. These games could be the lines for basketball, ball hockey,
four square, or hopscotch. An example of the LEDs can be seen in Figure 3.
They are also equipped with pressure sensors, which enable
them to detect objects that could obstruct the path.v This is useful
for warning drivers within a larger period of time so that they slow down ahead
of time and decrease the amount of accidents.
In an effort to decrease the negative impact on the planet,
the production of each solar roadway uses as much recycled material as
possible. An example of how the solar panels would react to an animal crossing
over the street can be seen in Figure 4.[vi]
Disadvantages and
Possible Problems
Although the advantages of this technology seem to be high,
from what I have noticed from reports, most pros come with a con. The most
immediate one seems so be that cars will be passing over these roadways on a
daily basis and the surface of the each panel is tempered glass. Most people
believe that the problem is the integrity of the glass to support the weight of
a car; however, according to Mohs' Scale of Hardness (a scale the measures the
resistance of a material to break or bend), glass is actually much more
superior somewhere between 5.5-6.0 compared to asphalt which is measured at 1.3.[vii]
So this rules out the glass breaking as a problem, but how will the solar
panels handle the inevitable trash and grime that gets stuck on the surface of
streets? In which case (ruling out the possibility of malfunctions), these
streets will need to be maintained and cleaned regularly to ensure that the
solar panels are able to operate at their 100% potential.[viii]
Now returning to the possibility of them breaking or malfunctioning, there are
no experiments that show the lifetime of a single panel. This makes it unknown
how long a cities investment will run them. Then again how much weight can they
support before the tempered glass actually breaks? In the regards of funding,
there are many different unknowns that allow this technology to be held
superior to asphalt roads.
Unfortunately because this technology is still significantly
young and only consists of one prototype, the cost of manufacturing the solar
roadways per square mile has still not been calculated. Although the Solar
Roadways tries to hide behind the price of paving and maintaining roadways,
they can't prove that their technology is cheaper than the competition. In
addition, since only one driveway has been made out of these panels, it has not
actually been tested to see how it reacts against cars driving on it. This
brings up unanswered questions such as:
+ Will it get dirty? If so, how quickly?
+ How will the tempered glass affect
the traction of cars?
+ What happens to traction under
different environments such as snow and rain?
+ How visible are the LED lights from
the angle of a car driver during broad daylight?
The company
tends to turn a blind eye from different unknown aspects by simply not
acknowledging them. Some examples include the answers or a simple
acknowledgement of the questions stated above.
Something
else I noticed while researching the technology is that some of their numbers
are complete guesses with absolutely no data or support behind them. For
example, they say that by implementing solar roadways the US could reduce the
amount of green house gases that the country produces. While that is accurate,
their website states, "No more power
shortages, no more roaming power outages, no more need to burn coal (50% of
greenhouse gases)." so then they directly claim that their technology can
reduce greenhouse gas emission by 50%.ii Nowhere on the Solar
Roadways website does it show any support for this claim. Then as if this
unsupported claim wasn't bad enough, on their IndieGogo fundraising page they
state, "Solar panels that you can drive, park, walk on. They melt snow
& cut greenhouse gases by 75%?!!!". Ignoring their poor use of grammar,
it is clearly visible that there is no support for their claim considering that
they are making to the same claim with two different outcomes.
Conclusion
After completing my research on solar roadways, I believe that there
still exist too many unknown factors for this to become an immediate viable
technology that we implement nationwide onto streets and highways. Considering
that Scott Brusaw wants to make this a primary source for energy, the biggest
problem would be the lack of the sun at night. For this reason, I would like to
continue my research in the idea of a grid system that is capable of storing
large quantities of electricity to be called later−at night. By developing
technology in this field, that would allow solar roadways to store excess
energy for use at night. As a result, this would remove one of the current
setbacks of solar roadways and getting them another step closer to reality.
[i]
Brusaw, Scott. "About Us." Solar Roadways -. Web. 12 May 2015.
[ii]
Brusaw, Scott. "Introduction." Solar Roadways -. Web. 12 May 2015.
[iii]
"CLICK HERE to Support Solar Roadways." Indiegogo. Web. 12 May 2015.
.
[iv]
Biello, David. "Hard Road Ahead for Solar Freakin’ Roadways."
Scientific American Global RSS. Scientific American, 10 July 2014. Web. 11 May
2015.
[v]
Brusaw, Scott. "Solar FREAKIN' Roadways!" YouTube. YouTube, 18 May
2014. Web. 11 May 2015.
[vi] http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qlTA3rnpgzU/maxresdefault.jpg
[vii]
Brusaw, Scott. "Clearing the Freakin' Air." Solar Roadways. Web. 11
May 2015.
[viii]
Kirsner, Scott. "Do Investors See Bright Future for Solar Firm, or Are
They Blinded by the Light? - The Boston Globe." BostonGlobe.com. 13 June
2014. Web. 11 May 2015.
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