DUmmies Discuss A Really DUmb Idea

[GOBUCKS]

This loony idea sounds familiar. It may have been discussed at the DUmp earlier. It's still amazingly stupid.

SoCalDem  (1000+ posts)        Thu Jan-20-11 11:37 AM
Original message
Solar-powered roads could make snow disappear
The same solar panels that heat our homes could soon keep our streets free of snow and ice.

By John PlattWed, Jan 19 2011 at 1:20 PM EST Comments
Winter storms recently left Atlanta and other cities paralyzed by an overabundance of snow and ice. But what if road crews weren't as important to clearing streets and highways? What if the roads could clear themselves?

Mallick's idea is to embed pavement with fluid-filled pipes. The fluid, which would be resistant to freezing, would be heated up by the sun, then stored in an insulated chamber.

Blah, blah, blah, moonbat blah.

The project's cost is estimated at $12,500 for every 50 meters of pipe, plus annual maintenance costs of $1,000.  The Federal Highway Administration helped fund development of his prototype.

Blah, blah,  more ecomoonbat blah.

According to Brusaw's website, "The Solar Roadway is a series of structurally-engineered solar panels that are driven upon." The solar panels would power LED lights in the road lines, help melt ice and snow, and provide electricity for charging electric cars and for nearby buildings.

Each 12x12-foot Solar Roadway panel would cost $6,900, according to a 2009 report from PhysOrg.com. But each panel would also generate 7.6 kilowatt hours of power per day. While solar-powered roads would cut state budgets for plowing, sanding and salting, finding the money to pay for them could be a challenge.

But Brusaw said that opposition to solar roads is more based on fear than cost. "Change. It scares people, I think." (how sad)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x235022
Your tax dollars hard at work, poured into a shovel-ready hole. $12.5K per 50 meters of pipe, $6.9K per 12 feet of one lane solar panel. So, for a four lane road, the panels would cost $12,000,000 per mile, plus the pipe. Sounds like good democrat economics.

My problem with this: What are its implications with respect to bobbolink's free beach cottage and Zumba lessons?


A thoughtful moonbat chimes in:

hlthe2b  (1000+ posts)      Thu Jan-20-11 11:45 AM
Response to Original message
1. I'd just like to know the toxic profile of the chemical in the pipes
as an unintentional leak is almost inevitable. Most of us know that antifreeze (ethylene glycol)is highly toxic to all animals, as an example. So, what chemical would be used?

The only thing standing between us and millions of miles of solar panel roadways is fear of change, and antifreeze pollution.

[JohnnyReb]

I believe it would be cheaper in the long run if we all just took the winter off and went to Florida.

[Ralph Wiggum]

It would probably be cheaper to try and put a dome over every road.

Not that I'm recommending it, just saying.  Stupid, stupid, stupid idea...

[DumbAss Tanker]

I think a thousand bucks a year for maintaining every fifty meters of pipe is at best a first-year cost, and over the system lifetime is wildly off the mark.  Even aside from fluid's toxicity (Good point the DUmmie made on that one, I have to say, it was one of the first things that occurred to me reading the OP), assuming a lifetime of 20 years at an acceptable level of efficiency (probably also much too favorable), it sounds like it would be cheaper to buy hundreds of new plow trucks and put one every ten miles, which is to say, it's ridiculous. 

[jukin]

The estimate is a mere $48/sqft. I'm sure by the time it is done it will be well north of $100/sqft. I mid level house cost about $100/sqft in SoCal.

As to just going to Florida for the winter. There is a light rail project in NoCal that runs between Fremont and San Jose.  Not including capitalization and debt service, just routine maintenance it would have been cheaper to buy each of the very few riders a Ferrari every year to commute. Such is the gloriousness of the future our CDP elites have in store for us komrades.

[Ralph Wiggum]

The estimate is a mere $48/sqft. I'm sure by the time it is done it will be well north of $100/sqft. I mid level house cost about $100/sqft in SoCal.

Wait until the union workers get involved.  Costs will skyrocket.

Not that this stupid shit will ever actually happen...

[DumbAss Tanker]

Wait until the union workers get involved.  Costs will skyrocket.

Not that this stupid shit will ever actually happen...

Ah, the ridiculous 'Technology demonstrator,' 'Feasibility/pilot study,' and 'Proof of concept' projects for boundlessly-expensive hyper-overteched replacements of perfectly satisfactory cheap analog systems I could talk about from my life in DOD, if it weren't for my pesky professional ethics...  

[AllosaursRus]

I also notice there is no estimate for the cost of rippin' up the perfectly good street that's already there! No problem, it will work just like their great idea of a sewer hooked up to every house and a handicapped sidewalk. They add it onto your taxes, you can't pay them, so the county takes your house, demolishes it, sells the land to a developer who puts up more soviet style apartments and we all live happily ever after, as sheep!

Wonder how much this "study" cost, DUmbass? $40 mil, $50 mil, more? Hell they could have built at least 4 miles already!

[franksolich]

Personal observation and experience makes me not fond of this idea, melting snow off of roads.

The geology of Nebraska of course varies considerably, but there's parts of the state that are barely above water.  For those who don't know this, Nebraska sits atop the largest underground ocean of fresh water in the whole entire world.  Nebraska is the Saudi Arabia of water.

Not this winter, but last winter, we had tons of snow, mountains of snow, more snow than the state had seen for generations and centuries and eons.  It was as if Nebraska had become upstate New York or New England or something, there was so much snow.  The other oddity of that winter was that, highly unusual for Nebraska, there was no wind to blow it away.  The snow just sat there. 

The snow of course ultimately melted, sinking into the ground, raising the "water table" damned near to the surface of the ground.

The particular area where I live, this meant that all the concrete and asphalt highways were undercut from below, from all that water, making the roads crumble and break up.  It's been really bad.

I think melting snow off of roads would cause the same thing.  Better to just shove it off.

[Boudicca]

All you have to do is invent flying cars.  There, simple, problem solved.
I can live in fantasy land as well as they can.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Frank, there actually is a technical issue with this which your post brings up.  It's basically only suitable for urban highways that have drainage into subsurface sewers, since otherwise the melted water has no place to go because it is still confined to the roadway by the unmelted snow on the sides, which means either the shoulders and even verges would have to be plowed, or open country highways would have to be built with the highly-expensive urban drainage systems engineered into them.  In flat terrain like the upper midwest, exactly where those drainage sewers would empty is also a serious fault.

[Freeper]

Why do we need anything to clear snow off roads?
According to algore snow is supposed to be as rare as a DUmmy with a job.

I thought global warming climate change was real.

[miskie]

Problems --

as a primitive was astute enough to point out, there will be leakage of the antifreeze substance - who knows what effect that will have on environmental concerns.

also a leak undetected will result in a fail point, that will cause a break in the road, followed by massive drainage of the antifreeze substance.

LED lighting - terrible idea.

Now don't get me wrong, I like LED lights, there are super efficient and durable but they generate almost no heat - meaning once it snows, all of that LED lighting will get buried, and stay that way.  Places where it snows that have LED traffic lights have had to retrofit heaters into them, to keep the lights visible - negating all of the energy savings.

Plowing -

The moment a plowblade hits that solar panel road that didn't defrost because the pipes broke during the first cold snap will destroy it. Period.

[Randy]

They don't have heaters on the LED traffic lights here.....

[true_blood]

All you have to do is invent flying cars.  There, simple, problem solved.
I can live in fantasy land as well as they can.

Yes! And make them all solar powered.

[AllosaursRus]

Personal observation and experience makes me not fond of this idea, melting snow off of roads.

The geology of Nebraska of course varies considerably, but there's parts of the state that are barely above water.  For those who don't know this, Nebraska sits atop the largest underground ocean of fresh water in the whole entire world.  Nebraska is the Saudi Arabia of water.

Not this winter, but last winter, we had tons of snow, mountains of snow, more snow than the state had seen for generations and centuries and eons.  It was as if Nebraska had become upstate New York or New England or something, there was so much snow.  The other oddity of that winter was that, highly unusual for Nebraska, there was no wind to blow it away.  The snow just sat there.  

The snow of course ultimately melted, sinking into the ground, raising the "water table" damned near to the surface of the ground.

The particular area where I live, this meant that all the concrete and asphalt highways were undercut from below, from all that water, making the roads crumble and break up.  It's been really bad.

I think melting snow off of roads would cause the same thing.  Better to just shove it off.

Any one who lives with four seasons knows this Coach, DUmmies live in major cities where they are taken care of by the establishment. I f they lived where we do, they'd move back to the cites where the gubmint would take care of them.

Disgusting that so much of our population has lost the survival instinct! We used to be able to grow our own food, plow our own fields, saddle a horse, and teach our own.

What percentage of the population do ya think still has these traits?

Better yet, what percentage do ya think reside at the DUmp or places like it?

[GOBUCKS]

All you have to do is invent flying cars.  There, simple, problem solved.
I can live in fantasy land as well as they can.

I doubt anyone remembers when Dick Tracy and Sam were flitting around in anti-gravity pods, which looked like a cross between a Segway and a trash can, and flew around by cancelling the force of gravity. Anti-gravity pods were a DUmmy's dream come true.

[franksolich]

I doubt anyone remembers when Dick Tracy and Sam were flitting around in anti-gravity pods, which looked like a cross between a Segway and a trash can, and flew around by cancelling the force of gravity. Anti-gravity pods were a DUmmy's dream come true.

I don't remember "Sam," but I do recall that Dick Tracy hung around some guy named "Diet Smith" who had a space-vehicle similar to the one you mentioned. 

According to historians, the "Moon Maid" was when Dick Tracy started going downhill; I doubt if the comics exist today.

[GOBUCKS]

I don't remember "Sam," but I do recall that Dick Tracy hung around some guy named "Diet Smith" who had a space-vehicle similar to the one you mentioned. 

According to historians, the "Moon Maid" was when Dick Tracy started going downhill; I doubt if the comics exist today.

Yes! I had forgotten Diet Smith, the enigmatic good guy billionaire! Sam was Tracy's sidekick, like the first version of Sergeant Gannon. Sam was an exceptionally homely fellow, with very high cheekbones and very prominent freckles. I haven't seen him in decades, but his image is seared into my memory.

[franksolich]

Whoa.

There's a lot more to Dick Tracy than I thought there was.

An interesting read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy

[franksolich]

This one's even better:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%27l_Abner

I had no idea.

[AllosaursRus]

Damn I miss the old comics! What's amazing is how many little of the tech embellishments Tracy used, are now reality!