A Couple of “Electric” posts 1 of 2… Science Vibe 10-6-16… “Route 66 To Be America’s First Solar Roadway”

I’ve read about these before, and this showed up yesterday (via FB, most likely)… so I felt it was an appropriate time to post. This may be a transition type of energy generation, prior to full release of overunity (“free energy”) devices.

“Since it was first established in 1926, Route 66—the 2,451-mile stretch of highway that extends from northeast Illinois to southwest California—has been an icon of American’s folklore. Yesterday, Missouri’s highway department announced that its portion of the iconic roadway will soon feature the nation’s first solar road panels for public use.

“The street pavers were developed by Solar Roadways, a company created by inventors Scott and Julie Brusaw which raised more than $2.2 million in crowdfunding in 2014 to bring their technology to market. The Brusaws claim that replacing all of America’s roads and parking lots with their solar pavers would generate more than three times the country’s electricity consumption in 2009.

“Brusaw’s solar roadway have a layer of high-strength translucent glass that has the same traction as asphalt. That glass protects a layer of electronics–solar collecting cells with LEDs and the ability to store the sun’s energy for later use. Underneath, another layer distributes the power and data signals to homes and businesses connected to the solar roadway. It’s a smart system able to display LED messages on the road or even sense when something is blocking the way, like a deer, and send a message a few miles up the road to warn drivers of potential danger.”

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Route 66 To Be America’s First Solar Roadway

“Get your kicks on Route 66…” was the famous song written by Bobby Troup’s that he wrote during a cross-country trip on that highway after World War II. Since it was first established in 1926, Route 66—the 2,451-mile stretch of highway that extends from northeast Illinois to southwest California—has been an icon of American’s folklore. Yesterday, Missouri’s highway department announced that its portion of the iconic roadway will soon feature the nation’s first solar road panels for public use. The fact that both Route 66 and Missouri are to be the first to carry America into a new frontier is symbolic. “It’s only appropriate that the rebirth of the nation’s interstate system begin at its birthplace,” said Stephen Miller of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission (MoDot) in a statement. The street pavers were developed by Solar Roadways, a company created by inventors Scott and Julie Brusaw which raised more than $2.2 million in crowdfunding in 2014 to bring their technology to market. The Brusaws claim that replacing all of America’s roads and parking lots with their solar pavers would generate more than three times the country’s electricity consumption in 2009.

The company was founded in 2006 by Scott and Julie Brusaw, with Scott as President and CEO. They envisioned replacing asphalt surfaces with structurally-engineered solar panels capable of withstanding vehicular traffic. The proposed system would require the development of strong, transparent, and self-cleaning glass with the necessary traction and impact-resistance properties at competitive cost. Brusaw’s solar roadway have a layer of high-strength translucent glass that has the same traction as asphalt. That glass protects a layer of electronics–solar collecting cells with LEDs and the ability to store the sun’s energy for later use. Underneath, another layer distributes the power and data signals to homes and businesses connected to the solar roadway. It’s a smart system able to display LED messages on the road or even sense when something is blocking the way, like a deer, and send a message a few miles up the road to warn drivers of potential danger.

Brusaw calculates that by covering every square mile of asphalt in the continental United States with his solar roadways, “we could produce three times as much electricity than the U.S. needs.” He estimates that greenhouse gas emissions from power generation would be cut in half by an intelligent roadway. It would take 5 billion solar panels to cover every road, parking lot and driveway in the United States. At $10,000 for just one panel, the cost would be enormous. But Brusaw believes an intelligent roadway would pay for itself by generating electricity.

“We’d be shutting down coal-fired plants by generating electricity in a different way, and it would also allow electric cars to recharge wherever they wanted,” Brusaw said. Electric car owners could plug their vehicles in at rest stops along any solar highway or at a business that has an intelligent system in their parking lot. That’s not all. Brusaw envisions driveways covered in solar road panels that would connect into the solar highway. Electricity would flow through that grid to your home, eliminating power lines.