Solar Roads

In my life time I have spent much of my time on roads.  The cars I have driven recorded that time in distance.  A million miles?  Even more!  35 years ago I began spending more time on a bike on roads.  Twice across country.  In many other countries.  In my peak bike touring years it was 50,000 miles in three years.  For 20 years I trained for triathlons.  Training on roads per week was maybe 250 miles.

I love roads.  They have taken me on so many adventures to so many places.  Simply, they have been pathways to everywhere I have gone.  I am a guy that believes that an adventure starts when I open the front door.  Beyond my front door it is never far to the road that continues that adventure.

The road starts and stops at my driveway.  Since my driveway is the road I own then I can say that the road starts and stops at my garage.  An amazing thought.  That thought flashed in my mind many years ago.  It happened when I was on the road driving somewhere while my mind took side trips of it own desire.  That thought expanded to the idea that my driveway is connected to a public road system that would take me anywhere and everywhere in the country given enough time.  Virtually, the road system can now be traveled almost everywhere on Google map and Street View.

If I put one foot on my driveway I put a foot on a road system that is connected by roads to everywhere.    It is like the internet in a way where everyone has an internet access point and can go anywhere on the system they wish to go but quicker than driving, riding a bike or walking.  What happened to "all the fun is getting there"  Being there instantly is fun too I guess.  I live on the west coast but going to a webcam of the Atlantic ocean in Bar Harbor, Maine is not like getting there to enjoy the view and the accomplishment after a 5,250 mile bicycle ride!

An amazing thought.  I love roads!

This morning while roaming the internet to see where it would take me just like I roam on roads to do the same I found this link.  Finding things like this is excitement and adventure of the road, paved or electronic:

Solar Roadways  A Youtube video.

That linked to Scott Brusaws TeDx talk about his Solar Roadway concept.  It is at the same time the most fantastic possibility as well as the most fundamental physical transportation network that mankind could build.  Physical transportation not only for vehicle travel but for the path of water on one side of the road and utilities on the other side.  It is the ultimate physical connection and distribution network that humans could build.  A road network to transport us and the principle things that serve us.  On top of that it provides the energy of the sun necessary to power the system.

Scott is turning Science Fiction into fact.  He is doing it with his wife and doing it all himself.   Building by hand it in his own driveway. I cannot think of a bigger system beginning with a smaller prototype that can scale to full implementation.

The test of any system prototype is how well does it scale.  "Mr. Watson.  Come here.  I need you" scaled into a national telephone system.  Much of it physically alongside a road system.  It scaled well over time.  Hardwire migrated to radio wave wireless point to point transmission. 

Scott's concept boggles my mind.  What moves it from fantasy to fact is that it is undoubtedly doable.  Long term output benefit appears to be greater than input cost.  When the nation's economy is producing at less than capacity for want of something to do to utilize that capacity then lets do it simply because we can.  It is worth doing.

I wish I could be around to travel on the roads that his concept creates.

This link is Scott and Julie Brusaw's Solar Road website. 

Solar Roadways: The Prototype  video at the link.

There are other ideas that leverage off the road network.  One of the most recent ones is a state change of matter at the nano level that stores heat energy with a change of state and releases it with a controlled reversal of its state.  Heat could be stored in the road itself and released to do work as required.

A broader way of looking at connectivity, the broadest possible, is to say that the fact that I touch the earth connects me physically to all other people that touch the earth.  Unless, of course they are not touching the earth.  Gee,  that is a "touching" but rather un spectacular thought.  Of course we are connected that way.  What elevates the connectivity of all people and their activity via the road system is that it is a pathway of and for connectivity that we created ourselves, not a natural one that was created for us like the world or its river system that is a natural "water road" system.  Likewise, the internet is a "road system" with a physical and conceptual nature that we created ourselves by utilizing natural resources and the conceptual resources of the human mind.