Solar Roadways?
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@boomzilla said in Solar Roadways?:
That's how cons work. Don't give the marks time to catch up and figure it all out.
You aren't describing Our Lord and Savior, St. Elon, are you?
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@gąska said in Solar Roadways?:
@lb_ I still can't believe
so many rich peoplean entire fucking country fell for that.
FTFYNote that the Solar Freakin' Roadways people are not connected to this; the PRC government thought this was such a freakin' awesome idea that they copied it rather than bothering to license it, opting for their own design based on 'transparent concrete' whatever the fuck that is. Apparently several other countries are getting in the act, too.
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@scholrlea that doesn't mean that they are not all stupid and wrong.
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@polygeekery That was sort of the point, yes. However, stupid and wrong have always been SOP for everyone, everywhere, so no change there.
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@scholrlea my apologies for misunderstanding. Rereading with your clarification makes it make sense.
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@scholrlea It's a "great leap forward" alright. Let's hope it kills less than 50 million people this time.
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@polygeekery said in Solar Roadways?:
@scholrlea that doesn't mean that they are not all stupid and wrong.
It's good, because while the Chinese are wasting money, the original idiots are not getting compensated.
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@polygeekery said in Solar Roadways?:
@scholrlea that doesn't mean that they are not all stupid and wrong.
Did you RTFA? :smiling_face_with_open_mouth_closed_eyes: I know, I know. But you should at least see the first paragraph:
We are positive and forward-looking on TreeHugger. We are all happy techno-optimists who always look on the bright side of life. But there is one thing that I have never understood, that I have always thought was the dumbest idea ever (until Elon Musk came along with his tunnels) and that was the solar roadway. I used to say that perhaps the only place dumber for solar panels than under a roadway was under my basement floor, but now would say inside Elon Musk’s car tunnels is worse.
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@scholrlea said in Solar Roadways?:
Note that the Solar Freakin' Roadways people are not connected to this; the PRC government thought this was such a freakin' awesome idea that they copied it rather than bothering to license it, opting for their own design based on 'transparent concrete' whatever the fuck that is.
No, they copied the French Wattway.
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@deadfast said in Solar Roadways?:
No, they copied the French Wattway.
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@jaloopa said in Solar Roadways?:
@dkf said in Solar Roadways?:
Uranium is just a relatively normal weakly-radioactive heavy metal
Sounds like fake news to me
You know what uranium is? This thing called nuclear weapons and other things, like lots of things are done with uranium, including some bad things
>99% of uranium is 238U, which is just barely radioactive. 235U is the next most naturally plentiful, and is only slightly more radioactive, unless a sufficient quantity is concentrated together to generate a self-sustaining fission reaction. 238U can also be forced to transmute into plutonium, which is highly radioactive and fissile. But the danger from uranium is higher from its toxicity as a heavy metal than from its radioactivity.
(Yeah, yeah, )
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@djls45 said in Solar Roadways?:
@jaloopa said in Solar Roadways?:
@dkf said in Solar Roadways?:
Uranium is just a relatively normal weakly-radioactive heavy metal
Sounds like fake news to me
You know what uranium is? This thing called nuclear weapons and other things, like lots of things are done with uranium, including some bad things
>99% of uranium is 238U, which is just barely radioactive. 235U is the next most naturally plentiful, and is only slightly more radioactive, unless a sufficient quantity is concentrated together to generate a self-sustaining fission reaction. 238U can also be forced to transmute into plutonium, which is highly radioactive and fissile. But the danger from uranium is higher from its toxicity as a heavy metal than from its radioactivity.
(Yeah, yeah, )
I really look forward to the time when idgits declare it as the next best penis enhancer or other sexual stimulant.
You thought vaginal glitter bombs were great, you'll want to know about this!
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@djls45 TIL after looking at the decay times for 235-U that there's such a unit as
barn
which, among other things, describes the effective target area of a nucleus for slow/fast neutrons.And yes, the origin of the name for this unit is exactly what you think it is.
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@polygeekery said in Solar Roadways?:
The man who fueled a lot of the debunking fire on Solar Freakin' Roadways visits the plaza install. It does not go well for Solar Freakin' Roadways.
I'm just going to point out this one:
Doesn't changing the markings like that totally defeat the purpose of having handicap spaces in the first place? If they readjust like that, the handicap spaces will have no meaning.
Unless they're creating more handicap spaces so there's always at least one more. But that comes with other problems as well.
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@djls45 Obviously, this was meant for the parking lot of Hilbert's Grand Hotel.
Filed Under: Amazing how many problems can be solved by applying at least one infinite resource.
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@djls45 said in Solar Roadways?:
Unless they're creating more handicap spaces so there's always at least one more.
I think this is the intent. That's not necessarily a bad idea. However in the first picture, the red car is parked in a non handicapped space. In the second, the space it's in appears to have been converted into a handicapped space (it may not have the logo, but the car covers it, and the wide dividers on both sides makes it appear to be a reserved space), and the car may be cited for illegally parking in a handicapped space, even though it was not when the driver parked it there.
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@hardwaregeek
Improving the ROI from Solar Freaking Roadways, via increased ticket revenue!
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@rhywden said in Solar Roadways?:
And yes, the origin of the name for this unit is exactly what you think it is.
Barney from Half Life?
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@zecc
I'm still waiting for Barney 3
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@zecc said in Solar Roadways?:
@rhywden said in Solar Roadways?:
And yes, the origin of the name for this unit is exactly what you think it is.
Barney from Half Life?
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@zecc said in Solar Roadways?:
@rhywden said in Solar Roadways?:
And yes, the origin of the name for this unit is exactly what you think it is.
Barney from Half Life?
"Cannot hit the broad side of a barn"?
Related units are
shed
andouthouse
, by the way. Sometimes physics is just silly:"The collision cross-section is about 3 outhouse."
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@rhywden said in Solar Roadways?:
Sometimes physics is just silly
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@rhywden said in Solar Roadways?:
@djls45 TIL after looking at the decay times for 235-U that there's such a unit as
barn
which, among other things, describes the effective target area of a nucleus for slow/fast neutrons.And yes, the origin of the name for this unit is exactly what you think it is.
As in the ability to hit the broad side thereof?
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@rhywden said in Solar Roadways?:
@djls45 TIL after looking at the decay times for 235-U that there's such a unit as
barn
which, among other things, describes the effective target area of a nucleus for slow/fast neutrons.And yes, the origin of the name for this unit is exactly what you think it is.
That's right! It was, of course, named in honor of British weapons designer Barnes Wallis, who developed the still top secret methods of measuring them. Naturally, his connection to the work on the Manhattan Project was Top Secret, so the SOE sent hundreds of agents to the United States to provide a cover story by spreading some nonsensical phrase about shooting big things.
DO YOU BELIEVE THAT? :
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@tsaukpaetra said in Solar Roadways?:
@djls45 said in Solar Roadways?:
@jaloopa said in Solar Roadways?:
@dkf said in Solar Roadways?:
Uranium is just a relatively normal weakly-radioactive heavy metal
Sounds like fake news to me
You know what uranium is? This thing called nuclear weapons and other things, like lots of things are done with uranium, including some bad things
>99% of uranium is 238U, which is just barely radioactive. 235U is the next most naturally plentiful, and is only slightly more radioactive, unless a sufficient quantity is concentrated together to generate a self-sustaining fission reaction. 238U can also be forced to transmute into plutonium, which is highly radioactive and fissile. But the danger from uranium is higher from its toxicity as a heavy metal than from its radioactivity.
(Yeah, yeah, )
I really look forward to the time when idgits declare it as the next best penis enhancer or other sexual stimulant.
You thought vaginal glitter bombs were great, you'll want to know about this!
You're about 100 years late on that, though I suppose it could always get revived.
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@scholrlea Gah! Please don't post links to mobile Wikipedia! :(
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@masonwheeler Augh, I thought I had fixed the link. My bad. Let me go fix it now.
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@hardwaregeek said in Solar Roadways?:
@djls45 said in Solar Roadways?:
Unless they're creating more handicap spaces so there's always at least one more.
I think this is the intent. That's not necessarily a bad idea.
The goal of handicap spaces is also to have them close to the shop (or where ever you go from that parking), because not all handicaps require larger spaces (for wheelchairs), some just make walking more difficult. I hope they also take that into account when dynamically recreating spaces, otherwise that's pointless.
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@remi said in Solar Roadways?:
I hope they also take that into account when dynamically recreating spaces, otherwise that's pointless.
You mean in their imaginary Solar Freakin' Parking Lots?
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@boomzilla Yeah but I feel like the pointlessness of the "solar" bit has been done to death already. So there is more fun in finding other pointlessness in these ideas.
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It will be a huge cycle.
- Shop with solar car park is super popular because it's all eco friendly and shit.
- Lots of people come to it. The car park is always full.
- All of the solar panels are covered, no electric is being generated and the shop has to shut down as they can't power the lights, electric doors and tills.
- Car park empties as there's no shop to go to.
- Shop is powered up again, becomes super popular because it's all eco friendly and shit
Repeat.
Meanwhile, the shop next door has solar panels above the parking spaces, providing shade from the sun, shelter from rain and solar panels that aren't covered all day and don't need to be engineered to have cars park on top of them
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@remi said in Solar Roadways?:
not all handicaps require larger spaces (for wheelchairs), some just make walking more difficult
I used to know a guy here at work who really needed those handicapped spaces. He had severe angina (bad enough that it eventually killed him) but if he was just standing still he looked quite OK. Yet if you watched him struggling to walk even a short distance on a flat surface, he was clearly not well at all. He was extremely keen on having those special spaces, as they made things like shops and entertainment venues accessible at all to him.
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Alternative approach to solar roadways:
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@izzion said in Solar Roadways?:
@LB_ said in Solar Roadways?:
So you’re saying there’s a return?
Since it's not 0 that must mean an error occurred, right?
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@izzion said in Solar Roadways?:
So you’re saying there’s a return?
Deferred maintenance'll get you every time... (Just ask CA about its roads. sigh.)
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Nope, still not profitable or useful...
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@Tsaukpaetra
You know you've failed as the technology of the future when Ars is writing a negative hit piece about you.
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@PleegWat said in Solar Roadways?:
Alternative approach to solar roadways:
For those wondering: These overhead solar panels will definitely not be built. While the idea was received positively, it is impossible to execute this without it being a tunnel under European legislation.
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@PleegWat said in Solar Roadways?:
without it being a tunnel under European legislation
Why is being a tunnel under European legislation a problem?
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@Gąska Added requirement of several million euros in safety systems, which take tens of thousands of euros a year to operate and maintain, and need over a year of testing before the tunnel can be taken into use.
Though as they build a tunnel directly beneath the surface in Maastricht a few years ago and are currently building one in Amsterdam, they might by now be realising in The Hague that a tunnel covered with a metre of concrete and soil is something different than a tunnel covered by a kilometre of mountain, from a safety perspective.
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@PleegWat said in Solar Roadways?:
Though as they build a tunnel directly beneath the surface in Maastricht a few years ago and are currently building one in Amsterdam, they might by now be realising in The Hague that a tunnel covered with a metre of concrete and soil is something different than a tunnel covered by a kilometre of mountain, from a safety perspective.
As long as we don't end up with Chinese standards (WARNING: Liveleak). Mountain or not, I still don't want anything to collapse on me.
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@Tsaukpaetra Wow.
One of the first solar roads to be installed is in Tourouvre-au-Perche, France. This has a maximum power output of 420 kWs, covers 2,800 m² and cost €5 million ($5.8 million) to install
To put things in perspective, my truck's engine has a power output of ~300 kilowatts, and that vehicle cost me about $20k some 6 - 7 years ago. The solar panel installation puts out just a little more power but costs 300X the price!
Hmm, I should offer to park my truck there and have it hooked up to a good generator. I'd gladly accept oh, let's say $2 million, to double their output!
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@Gąska said in Solar Roadways?:
Why is being a tunnel under European legislation a problem?
Trying to tunnel under, work around, fly over, or otherwise avoid dealing with, any legislation is frowned upon.
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@Zecc are you German?
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@PleegWat said in Solar Roadways?:
@PleegWat said in Solar Roadways?:
Alternative approach to solar roadways:
For those wondering: These overhead solar panels will definitely not be built. While the idea was received positively, it is impossible to execute this without it being a tunnel under European legislation.
I didn't know that SimCity had become so realistic that it includes European building legislation...
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@PleegWat said in Solar Roadways?:
Though as they build a tunnel directly beneath the surface in Maastricht a few years ago and are currently building one in Amsterdam, they might by now be realising in The Hague that a tunnel covered with a metre of concrete and soil is something different than a tunnel covered by a kilometre of mountain, from a safety perspective.
Is it? It's still an enclosed space and in case of a fire, it doesn't really make much of a difference to you if you have to chew through a kilometer of mountain or a mere meter of concrete. You'll still be dead without a ventilation system and escape shafts.
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So, we've all agreed that the solar part of the walkway wasn't a very good idea. What about the walkway part of it? Let's go check...