EEVblog 1603 - Colas Wattway Solar Roadways is DEAD

Рет қаралды 63,621

Күн бұрын

The 1km Colas Wattway Solar Roadway in Normandy in France is finally being scrapped.
Press F in the chat.
€5M of taxpayer money down the drain. That money could have bought a 5MW commercial solar farm that produced 15 times the output power, and lasted decades longer.
Forum: www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/ee...
Reference links:
www.auto-moto.com/en-bref/cet...
actu.fr/normandie/tourouvre-a...
time.com/4616912/solar-panel-...
www.theguardian.com/environme...
www.forbes.com/sites/johnparn...
www.wired.co.uk/article/franc...
www.businessinsider.com/first...
www.colas.com/en/innovation/g...
mymodernmet.com/france-wattwa...
www.marketwatch.com/guides/so....
www.popularmechanics.com/tech...
www.digitaltrends.com/cars/fr...
www.wattwaybycolas.com/en/ref...
Technical specs: www.wattwaybycolas.com/media/...
Map: www.google.com.au/maps/@48.58...
My previous videos on Colas Wattway:
• EEVblog #850 - French ...
• EEVblog #1047 - Solar ...
The near 18 year grift of Solar Freak'n Roadways:
www.startengine.com/offering/...
00:00 - Colas Wattway Solar Roadways is DEAD
07:47 - Not even the biggest road construction company can make Solar Roadways work
08:32 - Even Colas admit it's a failed concept
10:13 - How may homes can it power?
11:29 - How big a solar farm can you buy for €5M ?
13:16 - One final walk down the biggest solar roadway in the world
16:37 - What ever happened to Solar Freak'n Roadways?
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#ElectronicsCreators

Пікірлер: 831

@leonkernan 3 ай бұрын

@a2rgaming863 3 ай бұрын

@PhonePhone-sf8te 3 ай бұрын

@Notsogoodguitarguy 3 ай бұрын

@tkzsfen 3 ай бұрын

@sz-zr6rn 3 ай бұрын

what does f in the chat mean?

@finkelmana 3 ай бұрын

To be fair, it would have worked if physics wasnt a factor.

@whatnow9653 3 ай бұрын

Yea, I am so sick of reality.

@brumby92 3 ай бұрын

Damn physics always ruining my plans

@gorak9000 3 ай бұрын

It depends on what your definition of "worked'" is. It's goal was to extract taxpayer money from the government to the shysters that sold them the idea. When you look at it that way, it worked very well - probably too well

@JayMaverick 3 ай бұрын

Or you know - DIRT.

@LordZordid 3 ай бұрын

@@gorak9000 I also feel like many of these government bodies are just there to keep them themselves occupied. Lobbying for more money, handing out billions and never producing any results. Doing the typical public sector thing where activity is seen as achievement.

@BenHeckHacks 3 ай бұрын

Solar roadways are the perfect grift. Government workers don't know engineering, they have a green mandate, and full dominion over the roads. "Oh! Let's put these fragile glass panels under trucks!"

@florians684 3 ай бұрын

This should be illegal. It sounds much better to invest into these „innovative technologies“ than the boring stuff that already exists and would start to solve real problems if they put some money into it. It’s the same reason why American railroad companies love to talk about battery trains, even though overhead wire would make much more sense and they could have done that 50 years ago already. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jJahltuq3tLQgWg.htmlsi=-VqDU2qF_OLk5Blo

@podfuk 3 ай бұрын

Just ban trucks, more green points for you ;)

@iMadrid11 3 ай бұрын

@@podfuk If you ban trucks. How do you propose to deliver every piece of stuff you own and food to you?

@podfuk 3 ай бұрын

@@iMadrid11 Horse carriages ;)

@konayasai 3 ай бұрын

@@iMadrid11That's the neat part: you don't!

@Poxenium 3 ай бұрын

putting fridges in sidewalks would solve world hunger

@IntegerOfDoom 3 ай бұрын

Stop stealing my ideas! I have good lawyers.

@joeds3775 3 ай бұрын

Nope. You can't eat fridges.

@marcogenovesi8570 3 ай бұрын

@@joeds3775 you can eat anything if you are brave enough

@Poxenium 3 ай бұрын

@@joeds3775 the government would fill fridges with food and they'd be powered with solar panels floating in the wind

@fredlaroche6969 3 ай бұрын

@@Poxenium replace ''would'' with ''will'' and don't forget to add that ''it's something we can do NOW'', then you've got your money maker!

@mc1993 3 ай бұрын

If they only thought of Solar Fricken Rooftops... It might just be the next big thing.

@PollokPoochesDogWalking 3 ай бұрын

Yeah but they'll need solar frikin ramps to get your car on the roof. How else you gonna drive on them?

@erick_ac 3 ай бұрын

Elon Musk tried... Thats the best thing I have to tell you about them

@richardmetzler7909 3 ай бұрын

@@erick_ac yeah, solar roof tiles are like the holy grail of PV - very elegant in principle, really hard in practice. Regular solar modules on top of regular roofs are a mature and affordable technology, though.

@you2uber530 3 ай бұрын

or solar on the side of roadways.... or above the roadways...

@georgH 3 ай бұрын

Never understood what's wrong with solar panels over the rooftop

@werner.x 3 ай бұрын

They should have built a tilted roof above the bike path with this solar material, if anything - it's a rainy area anyhow. There are two things you want, when cycling: Rain protection and sun shade.

@BobDiaz123 3 ай бұрын

I was thinking the same thing, a solar roof to provide shade and some protection from the rain would be ideal for a walkway or bike path. If they had it would be working a whole lot better than what they did.

@ReachOutToWilliam 3 ай бұрын

Actually, three things. Add, "a car."

@monad_tcp 3 ай бұрын

@@BobDiaz123 It would also generate 10 times more power and cost 100 times less.

@tech29X 3 ай бұрын

You are right, except they want to sell more cars. There's little money to be made from bike sales in comparison to cars.

@wombatillo 3 ай бұрын

Or even a 'solar fence' next to the bicycle path. Would have been cheaper, lasted for 25 years and made some darn sense.

@SaccoBelmonte 3 ай бұрын

Next we see how much they pocketed from building that.

@whatnow9653 3 ай бұрын

They should have built the road at a 45 degree angle, that would have worked.

@sandrorass890 3 ай бұрын

And use magnets to keep cars from falling off.

@IntegerOfDoom 3 ай бұрын

@@sandrorass890 Magnetic generator fucking-roadways!

@sandrorass890 3 ай бұрын

@@IntegerOfDoom We could create energy if put magnets on the car which in turn interact with the magnets on the street

@whatnow9653 3 ай бұрын

@@sandrorass890 and then use that energy to power lights, to make the solar panels work at night and more better in the daytime. Dam, I think we have cracked it, I can already taste the Nobel peace prize. Now Mammy will have to be proud of me.

@AndSawMir 3 ай бұрын

@@whatnow9653And now we have "perpetuum mobile". Nobel? You deserve Oscar ;)

@ChaosSwissroIl 3 ай бұрын

If only there were these things called beams that could have been used to raise the solar panels to shade the pedestrians and protect pedestrians from the elements...

@jaqssmith1666 3 ай бұрын

MADNESS! Such technology simply doesn't exist.

@Hailfire08 3 ай бұрын

A man can dream, though! A man can dream...

@Starcruiser81 3 ай бұрын

Then how would you drive on top of them? lmao

@ChaosSwissroIl 3 ай бұрын

@@Starcruiser81 There are these two ancient technologies related to each other called bridges and tunnels. Turns out that you can have overlapping topologies.

@InfernosReaper 3 ай бұрын

@@ChaosSwissroIlHeresy

@entropyachieved750 3 ай бұрын

Surely there was at least 1 engineer that did a feasibility study

@iswm 3 ай бұрын

and then they fired him for being White and replaced him with a diversity sycophant.

@HappyfoxBiz 3 ай бұрын

sales consultants go to the same school, so they do the same thing right?

@larrybud 3 ай бұрын

It's a government contract. What do they care if they blow 5 million of tax payer money? You're assuming good intentions to evil people.

@smalltime0 3 ай бұрын

"Can we do it?" "Technically yes, but why?" Feasibility study: We can do it

@totojejedinecnynick 3 ай бұрын

and that person should have their license revoked, their name put on no-go list for any government related contracts.

@1975RStefan 3 ай бұрын

Stones got stick in the tire tread and cause cracks in the resin coating. Permanent mechanical stress causes delamination. If it rains, water got in and the self destruction domino starts.

@akshonclip 3 ай бұрын

Politicians are the kings of “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should”

@WarrenGarabrandt 3 ай бұрын

I saw this coming from so far away, it felt unfair to put it on my 2024 bingo card.

@pyr3x849 3 ай бұрын

Well it's on mine...

@franciscojrosero 3 ай бұрын

The French Goverment had to choose between the SolarbPanel Road or Springfield's Monorail

@AWriterWandering 2 ай бұрын

Should’ve gone with the monorail

@spectrum1324 2 ай бұрын

Monorail all the way at least that one goes out with a bang

@63801170 3 ай бұрын

Nice example at 9:05 with the carpark and cleverly putting the solar units down the middle, so they're not covered whilst people park... oh dear, why are those shadows forming over the panels? 🤣

@samholdsworth420 3 ай бұрын

5 million well spent!!!

@lolilollolilol7773 3 ай бұрын

She had wasted 20 millions in a failed electric vehicle to rent project before that.

@robertw1871 3 ай бұрын

5 million is nothing we burn though that in less than a nanosecond on far more ludicrous things…

@cjay2 3 ай бұрын

This is the best that macron can do.

@jutukka 3 ай бұрын

I don't understand why it failed. If that solar way gave energy to street lights, and the light of those street lights was transformed again to power in those solar panels, AFAIK, it was an absolutely perfect perpetuum mobile. 🤔

@johnwest7993 3 ай бұрын

They could solve all of the dust and damage problems by setting up their PV arrays in caves!

@phillyphakename1255 3 ай бұрын

Might have issues with moisture, what with the dripping stalactites. Give me 10 million dollars, 5 million for the install, and another 5 million for the further R&D.

@philojudaeusofalexandria9556 3 ай бұрын

Solar Freakin' Underground Hyperloop!!! (don't you dare call it a subway!) Pays for itself! Protected from the elements!

@wtmayhew 3 ай бұрын

Ah, this solar roadway could be a perfect means of dealing with unemployment. You need an army of people to go out and sweep the dust off every day and another army of people constantly replacing broken solar panels. It would be such a French approach. I can’t believe they missed it.

@spot997 3 ай бұрын

Yeah, but that approach only works as long as the Germans pay. As Germany has been actively bankrupt by our own government, that business model is no loger viable.

@wtmayhew 3 ай бұрын

@@spot997 Agreed.

@biffbavaqua4400 3 ай бұрын

Whats next? Indoor wind generators?

@IntegerOfDoom 3 ай бұрын

How did I not think of this?!

@Pyxis10 3 ай бұрын

It can power the fan that drives it!

@SianaGearz 3 ай бұрын

I can pass wind myself, no need for something to generate it for me.

@sk4lman 3 ай бұрын

Politicians will never care about efficiency or cost. Waste is their game, that way they can demand even higher taxes from people who are actually productive.

@qweqwe9678 16 күн бұрын

the point is to have a cayman entity 😜

@fzigunov 3 ай бұрын

A dollar per watt, or a MEGADOLLAR per MEGAWATT!

@IntegerOfDoom 3 ай бұрын

Megadollar per milliwatt is more accurate.

@SianaGearz 3 ай бұрын

I smell GIGADOLLARS.

@barrybogart5436 3 ай бұрын

I've cycled near there. Years ago. I bet that surface is slippery for bikes. Especially with mud or wet leaves! The French love their 'Bois'. There are trees everywhere.

@tomaszlis993 3 ай бұрын

If a person in power makes a decision which goes against what is taught in school, it should have that part of education revoked. This is high school physics - so now the minister should be left with primary education only. That would increase prestige of schools, and make politicians mind the physics. Though additional regulations to avoid prolonging failed projects would be required.

@undeath6010 3 ай бұрын

did you see what they have to the side? space for poles and regular solar panels!

@jensschroder8214 3 ай бұрын

There are certainly still a lot of suitable roofs without solar in France. The houses also have a power connection and can use some of the electricity themselves.

@AWriterWandering 2 ай бұрын

You could also put them above walking paths, providing shade to those underneath.

@johnwest7993 3 ай бұрын

How could anyone have known?

@filthylucreonyoutube 3 ай бұрын

Especially with the dirt road shoulder slightly above the road grade, so the rain can wash the dust down on to the solar panels. I thought that was particularly smart.

@cgourin 3 ай бұрын

Ségolène Royal's last job was "Ambassador in charge of international negotiations for the Arctic and Antarctic poles" honorary if not fictitious job, ambassador to the penguins, but she couldn't hold on to such a demanding job and lost it 4 years ago to a TV anchor. My bad the guy is a diplomat and the brother of a TV anchor.

@RomeoG39 3 ай бұрын

You were right for sure. And it is frustrating to see all of the wasted effort and dollars in the name of "being green". But the schadenfreude is also depressing.

@fltfathin 3 ай бұрын

As i understand it some sabotage real green initiative by making these monstrosity

@meanderinoranges 3 ай бұрын

No, the schadenfreude is pure joy.

@1975RStefan 3 ай бұрын

Hi Dave, thanks for the google streetview link. If follow that and have a closer look, a lot of the cover material on the inside of the road is missing. It nothing than a million euro graveyard.

@mshepard2264 3 ай бұрын

you know what makes way more sense is solar panels over parking lots. It hot as hell here in the summer. We have a couple here and it also keeps your car from being burning hot.

@richardmetzler7909 3 ай бұрын

What would also make sense in some places is solar panels OVER roads.

@sirp0p0 3 ай бұрын

Even then, just build a roof over the lot for the solar panels. Keeps the cars clean and cool, and the panels output whether there are cars there or not.

@j.f.christ8421 3 ай бұрын

@@richardmetzler7909 In Korea there's a highway that has a bike path down the middle, and they put panels over that. 20-30km worth, too lazy to look it up. Works fine, funny that.

@user-hc6uo5fp8n 3 ай бұрын

I don't know why they don't cover supermarket car parks in solar panels.

@philojudaeusofalexandria9556 3 ай бұрын

Because.... SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS!!! The world wants SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS!... Not solar roofs... We've already had solar roofs for decades. They are not as cool, mindblowing, or hexagonal. And who could dance on the LEDs when they're on the roof?! Stop spouting dumb ideas, please! SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS!!!

@torstenscholz6243 2 ай бұрын

Yeah, great idea. I don't see any problems with them being covered by cars most of the time at day, which would severely limit the outcome. I even have another great idea: Solar panels covering the floor of underground car parks!

@FusionDeveloper 3 ай бұрын

Please invest in my Solar Freakin' Nails! That's right! I've invented steel nails where the head of the nail has a solar panel! This panel is permanently attached to the nail and cannot be removed. If the panel cracks or fails, the nail must be removed and replaced. Hammer lightly, the glass is very scratch resistant, but as a trade-off, it is very brittle. 1 nail could power 90 million earth size planets! I'm working on a prototype of a Solar Freakin' Hammer. The flat head of the hammer will have the solar panel and should achieve 100x as much as a single solar freakin' nail! (for those that can't figure it out, this is a joke, you don't want to drive on solar panels and you shouldn't hit them with a hammer either.)

@SianaGearz 3 ай бұрын

I would like solar freakin fingernails. Just some cheap decorative flex PCB things with solar and LEDs that i can wear to a festival or the like by lacquering them to my fingernails. If you can make them under $20 per set retail, you have my attention. You can have 10fold profit margin, that would be well par for the course.

@FusionDeveloper 3 ай бұрын

@@SianaGearz Hahaha, good one. If you are not joking, the cost, coverage and effectiveness would not be practical in any way. The issue, is that you either have it only work while in the sunlight or you have to include a battery and you aren't going to want to have a battery on each fingernail and it would be weird to have a big battery glues to the back of your hand or on a wrist band, which then would require a bundle of 10 wires, which would snag on stuff. If you are serious, excluding the solar panel is your best bet. Just wire up LEDs to a battery.

@SianaGearz 3 ай бұрын

@@FusionDeveloper I am a computer engineer, so if there was a good way to construct solar freakin fingernails that was fairly obvious from the "state of the art" in wearable electronics, i would have likely been aware. So no i'm not being serious. But i'd still want them! Just like someone else would be truly aware that flying cars make no sense, but still sort of want one. I am also aware that if you want a flexible solar cell, it's going to be a-si, and it's not going to power the LEDs well enough to fight the sun even at miniscule emission area. And of course the eternal question: where do you hide the batteries and which type? I guess i could have fingernails come with finger rings, which i mean, you get a lot of mileage out of hearing device zinc air reaction cells. You can potentially modulate the power at high frequency over a single wire, and use capacitively assisted return current via the body, but i'm not convinced the complexity and loss is worth it at the cost of an extra wire. I don't anticipate i'll be building something, but i will keep considering it. There exist actually light up fingernail products, they used to be all the rage in the past, activated by cell phone signal, NFC and the like, scavenging RF power at short distance. Oh btw check out "mitxela" for DIY electronic jewelry.

@SianaGearz 3 ай бұрын

I think i know what i might do. Build a blacklight LED halo that is suspended above my head, run a wire to a power bank mounted on the thigh under the skirt, and have blacklight reactive fingernails and other decorations. If you ever see that, say hi.

@TheRabidTech 3 ай бұрын

how is there still so many doomed solar roadway projects slowly failing after so much time.

@filthylucreonyoutube 3 ай бұрын

Hey, they're failing as fast as they can. This is new technology. You need to be patient.

@torstenscholz6243 2 ай бұрын

Here in Germany, the first solar roadway, a 90-meter long part of a cycleway near Erftstadt, was inaugurated in November 2018, and guess what happened: Exactly the same. It had multiple technical problems, caught fire several times, never produced any energy (and couldn't, since it wasn't even connected to any energy network🙈), has been completely shut down and covered for years, and is now still lying there unused in derelict, crumbling state. Some of the glass panels are already broken, and the shattered glass is a danger to cyclists and pedestrians, which is why it is to be removed now. And bear in mind, it was part of a cycleway, so it never had any cars or truck driving over it.

@toba-bonjour 3 ай бұрын

I am ashamed of my government and certain companies. I hope this failure will serve as an example to the rest of the world.

@STSwhisperer 3 ай бұрын

What’s next? The yellow brick road? Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain…

@Allen.Christian 3 ай бұрын

I almost feel like stunts like this are conceived to deliberately discredit alternative energy projects. In what way was this supposed to be more beneficial than regular solar farms?

@larrybud 3 ай бұрын

How else was the company who built this was able to grease the palms of the government officials who gave them the contract!?!

@davidfries63 3 ай бұрын

Solar farms take up a lot of space. Unless you happen to have an empty desert where you want your solar farm, that might be a problem. Just think, if you could economically make use of all that horizontal roadway space (and there is a lot) that even happens to be more abundant in areas where you need power (cities). I've even seen arguments that with the electronics in the roadway it could use a little bit of the electricity to help thaw out the road and keep ice from forming, think of the safety benefits from that! I agree with EEVblog on this one, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, and with the numbers he presented, and that they are tearing it up, says build your traditional solar farms, add roof solar, do the canal top solar, integrate it with farms and crops that need some additional shade, or something that is going to be economical and last. Road based solar doesn't make the cut.

@j.f.christ8421 3 ай бұрын

@@davidfries63 Yeah, that's the same argument that our beloved SolarRoads used. Look at all that wasted space just sitting there!

@drkastenbrot 3 ай бұрын

@@davidfries63as always with these pitches, they conveniently leave out the numbers. keeping roads snow free without salt sounds like a great idea until you look at just how much energy that would require (a LOT more than we even have). as long as you find investors who dont have someone check the physics, its a golden idea.

@DoNotEatPoo 3 ай бұрын

This was actually a resounding success .......... for those who profited from it.

@RoyClendaniel 2 ай бұрын

I loved the concept of solar tiles in parking lot tarmacs. They never bothered to think about all the parked cars during the day blocking the sun. We already put solar roofs over parking lots that give us shade and power, but nah... They need them in the frikin' ground.

@arvetemecha 3 ай бұрын

Thank you Ségolène Royal, that's been a pleasure. 😞

@tweed532DaveH 3 ай бұрын

Design aim requirement No.1:- Use solar panels to power the villages street lights. When? At night when it's dark, when there's no sunshine .. Government grant money, (incentives/bribes like for EV's) = Residents Taxes. Doh.. 🤔🙄😣🇬🇧

@chuckl7713 3 ай бұрын

I'm eternally grateful to you and ThunderFoot (Phil Mason) for teaching me to be skeptical about things that the mainstream science/tech press is clamoring over.

@harrysmbdgs 3 ай бұрын

Why do I feel like this still won't stop more from being built in the future?

@ncot_tech 3 ай бұрын

Indeed, the only thing learned here is that people with money will pay for stupid projects. And if you can stick in "reducing carbon emissions" somehow then any lazy government looking to hit their targets will sign up immediately, no questions asked.

@harrysmbdgs 3 ай бұрын

@@ncot_tech Exactly! As long as the right people are getting paid, nobody cares.

@Pyxis10 3 ай бұрын

Depends can we sue them for wasting taxpayer money?

@Ciborium 3 ай бұрын

The local Veterans Administration Hospital did something innovative with solar panels. They have a large lot of handicapped parking -- many veterans are handicapped -- so they have built sun/rain shields over the handicapped parking spaces so people can get in and out of their vehicles without being rained on or in blazing summer sun. I don't know how effective they are, but we do get a lot of sunshine here, much more than Normandy, France, but I imagine that if they have a way to use them to supplement mains power, it would be a good thing.

@mqb3gofjzkko7nzx38 3 ай бұрын

France just needs to build an elevated solar road to avoid leaves and shading. Then they could close it off to traffic to avoid damage. Then since there's no traffic they could angle it toward the sun.

@teardowndan5364 3 ай бұрын

What? Solar panels that are being walked on are getting ripped out instead of repaired? What a shocker for such a great idea! The inevitable fate of any solar installation with traffic going over them. Repairs will practically always outweigh benefits except maybe near the equator where straight-up is fine.

@torstenscholz6243 2 ай бұрын

Here in Germany, the first solar walkway also caught fire multiple time because rain water entered the panels and caused short circuits.

@gordonlawrence1448 3 ай бұрын

The thing that drives me batty about this is why can't politicians do maths? Where I live there are hundreds of thousands of square meters of roof suitable. Sodium cells are now in bulk production. So we have suitable space for both generation and storage. Oh and flow batteries which have a reasonable energy density are suitable for most factories. IE a 5 tonne battery will store 100kWh.

@MrMistery101 3 ай бұрын

Detroit recently installed an inductive charging roadway. Company, near as I could tell never released any figures regarding their efficiency or longevity. A quarter mile cost the city 2 mil USD.

@makeshift_battlefield_music 2 ай бұрын

They can find the money for a worthless pipe dream but can't find the money to fix the potholes.

@trondhansen9896 3 ай бұрын

roadside solar might be a better way to get energy as in vertical solar panels,vertical solar panels get better cooling that compensate for the energy loss of the less than optimal solar angle.

@fnordpol 3 ай бұрын

All those parking spaces at the side of the beginning of the street! Perfect Spots! I am not sure about the Areas size but I am quite sure that would have worked better!

@wtmayhew 3 ай бұрын

Putting solar arrays on rooftops seems so obvious and so much simpler because they don’t have be driven upon by vehicles, you’d think that option would have been thoroughly exploited before turning to making solar roads. Most curious.

@ChrisJackson-js8rd 3 ай бұрын

i wonder how much it cost to tear it up. and then replace - even regular roads aren't exactly cheap.

@fatboy7609 2 ай бұрын

Still better than Solar Freaking Roadways.

@JCWren 3 ай бұрын

I get the impression you don't think solar roadways are viable. Am I correct?

@EEVblog 3 ай бұрын

I'm still on the fence, need more data.

@Herby-1620 3 ай бұрын

@@EEVblog

@Arwiiss 2 ай бұрын

To think that if they've spent 5mil EUR on traditional solar installation nearby, it would still be powering the lights.

@CAESARbonds 3 ай бұрын

In my old town there is now a very successful “solar roadway”. Next to the autobahn is a small solar park. And it is working very well. The created energy is enough for 700 houses. And 2GW maximum power. This really makes a difference and powers the town. Another system functions as noise protection, 0.7GW and in the summer shepherds let their sheep trim the grass. So no overgrow panels and when it gets hot the sheep have shade.

@cjay2 3 ай бұрын

And then you woke up.

@j.f.christ8421 3 ай бұрын

@@cjay2 He said on a farm next to the road, not on it. Putting solar on sheep & cattle farms works well, there's a couple near me. Some people grows crops as well, agrivoltiacs is a thing.

@koma-k 3 ай бұрын

I noticed this or something similar around Barderup just south of Flensburg last summer when passing by on the Autobahn - a few kms of solar farms along the road. No idea if the area is used for animals as well - the panel edges seemed a bit low so maybe OK for sheep but maybe not cows.

@j.f.christ8421 3 ай бұрын

@@koma-k It's an easy win for the farmers. They get paid for a 30 year lease and still get to use the land pretty much as they did before. The sheep are happy as well.

@dogwalker666 3 ай бұрын

@@j.f.christ8421We wanted to put one up but the council wont let us, Instead we have too run a diesel generator at 600kW per hour.

@chromatic91 3 ай бұрын

I'm impressed it lasted though, considering how the ground freezes and and thaws constantly during winter.

@smalltime0 3 ай бұрын

0:25 You can't tear down a road surface, it will in fact be torn up

@joeds3775 3 ай бұрын

Not in Australia

@clintabc123 3 ай бұрын

Not a problem. The Canadian Government will buy it for Northern Canada.

@ianleitch9960 3 ай бұрын

I think that the logic in leaving them so long before actually ripping them up, was in the hope that either people would have forgotten their initial fanfare, or to give the guilty time to have moved on and to avoid public censure while still in office. Ah well, it gave you at least three episodes in which to bring us the facts . . . I have to say that EEVblog is significantly longer lasting, for which we are all eternally grateful.

@retrozmachine1189 3 ай бұрын

00:52 Beaker Dave!

@brumby92 3 ай бұрын

Yeah that really looks like Beaker.

@MrFryfish 3 ай бұрын

Physics worked against as was expected. Thank you for presenting FACTS! Hopefully more people take notice of this complete WASTE OF MONEY!

@fredbloggs5902 3 ай бұрын

SUGGESTION: I was in Fuerteventura last week (Caleta de Fuste) and I saw a cycle path fitted with lighting where the panels were on the lamps themselves. This seems a better idea. Maybe you could do an analysis?

@j.f.christ8421 3 ай бұрын

That's pretty common. Some have motion sensors to save battery power. The only problem with these you need to replace the battery every so often, but in theory you could easily get 50 years out of them.

@fredbloggs5902 3 ай бұрын

@@j.f.christ8421 My point is that I have no idea how viable they are and an in-depth analysis would be interesting.

@j.f.christ8421 3 ай бұрын

@@fredbloggs5902 Define viable. They're supposed to be easy to install, produce light and up your green cred, seems to me that's what they do. Define what you think they're supposed to do, or compare them to another solution, like regular mains-powered street lamps.

@foobarables 3 ай бұрын

I just found a new busyness. Solar roadway cleaning machines. Of course they run on petrol.

@edgarwalk5637 3 ай бұрын

Above footpaths, and above cycleways to provide shade, and some power.

@_DML_ 3 ай бұрын

Wow didn't see that coming.

@aiao90 3 ай бұрын

You calculated 1/3 the capacity for 9 times the price. So a factor of 27 times more expensive. They are only 15 times more expensive. So in that sense they overperformed by a factor of almost 2.🎉

@SJ-co6nk 3 ай бұрын

Imagine the environmental impact of all these scams being done throughout the world...

@samuell.foxton4177 3 ай бұрын

Yeah, it’s not sustainable if you need to tear it up after a few years… at least normal road building materials can be recycled…

@erichpoly4434 3 ай бұрын

You can dissipate the heat from the asphalt in a heat pipe. To use it to generate electricity for an ORC with a space cooler.

@j.f.christ8421 3 ай бұрын

Sticking pipes under the tar roads to heat water and pumping it to nearby houses would actually work better than this. I know there was a trial in the Netherlands ages ago, and one in the USA, dunno what the outcome was.

@erichpoly4434 3 ай бұрын

@@j.f.christ8421 In summer the asphalt warms up to between 45°C and 65°C due to the sun. The space cooler works at delta 20°C to 60°C below the air temperature. In the best case -25°C (+35°C(air temperature)- ∆60°C) to 65°C it is ∆90°C. It is almost like a geothermal power plant

@j.f.christ8421 3 ай бұрын

@@erichpoly4434 I looked up the Dutch one, it was called "Road Energy Systems" by Ooms Avenhorn Holding. Pipes laid in asphalt, pump to a storage tank (basically like rooftop water heating systems). Apparently it worked fine in their cloudy weather. One 200 yard long system heated a building with 70 apartments, a second trial system heated 35 houses. Could de-ice the roads as well, take that SolarRoads!. That was in 2008-2009, and nothing since. Would work great in Oz, gets hot enough to melt the asphalt here.

@danosdotnl 3 ай бұрын

LOL@ AC in Normandy (for heating). Big gas tank in the garden, coal/oil pit under the house or stack-o-wood next to it more likely! For electricity, I am not sure, but it seems almost half of France's nuclear power plants are offline atm?

@caseyrevoir 3 ай бұрын

I'd love to see a breaking and handling comparison test on this glass Road.

@scottwolf9914 3 ай бұрын

I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and, by gum, it put them on the map!

@randomrando8350 2 ай бұрын

Let's put solar panels on windmill blades. *Solar Freaking Windmills.*

@ilanmagen 3 ай бұрын

Solar Roadways is a gold mind for you Dave, you love it , we all love you bashing it. pure entertainment.

@switzerland3696 3 ай бұрын

Looks like a great success to me. Lots of money was made, which was the point.

@vincei4252 3 ай бұрын

Oh no!

@rrrandommman 3 ай бұрын

If they put them above the road, it'd prevent heat from damaging the roads in harsh summers in hotter climates, here it just is the road and breaks immediately. Why are we so dumb?

@Herby-1620 3 ай бұрын

It seems to me that for the same cost you could erect a south (northern hemisphere) facing wall and put the solar panels on that. As I understand it, the cost for a mile (1.6km) of what we call here in the USA a "sound wall" (put next to freeways to stop the road noise from getting in residential neighborhoods) costs about $1e6. a little bit more and you have SOLAR FREEKING (sound) WALLS that don't have such nuisances as cars driving over them to ruin the photoelectric cells. You heard it here first folks. Would I invest? Not in your freeking life! p.s. Patent pending idea. Which goes to show you can patent just about anything (LOL).

@zonavarbondagoo4074 3 ай бұрын

One for you Mguy !

@gmgunner 3 ай бұрын

Wow. Does it ever get tiring knowing what you know and still watching these missteps? A little inquiry would have saved millions.

@lisaleone2296 3 ай бұрын

When I heard solar road, I was imagining a canopy over the road that shielded the cars and was smooth and always getting sun. No, they literally put panels under the cars. We need more multi-tiered highways and more use of the vertical space.

@pursuitforspeed 3 ай бұрын

If only some form of technology existed where they could have elevated the panels off the ground 🤔

@tylersutton2216 3 ай бұрын

I love that top gear clip. It's so good.

@msys3367 3 ай бұрын

It would probably be cheaper and more usable to just construct a roof with panels over parking lots.

3 ай бұрын

We know it doesnt work, they probably too, yet they went for it. It is 100% mismanagement and should be punished by law. And rotten leaves is a pathetic excuse by professional road building company.

@MisterMakerNL 3 ай бұрын

Google maps says it's a 50km max road, but the article said they had to lower the speed to 75? But France speed limited are 50/80/130. So they probably went from 80 to 50.

@andrewdowling6321 3 ай бұрын

You could have given the whole town 1000$ per person. For a whole list of "energy reduction and efficiency purposes" that's a heat pump air conditioning/heat for everyone in the city (single room type). Sure install might add a small amount. That's a sure bet. Or money for LED lighting. Or insulation, windows. Reducing consumption is the same as increasing production but usually with less maintenance.

@samcan9997 Ай бұрын

ok but i have one question whats the traction like on those pannels as yaknow if a truck needed to emergency stop or the weather was wet wohow badly at risk would they be of just sliding off the surface as it aint exactly a normal hard and grippy surface

@didierdubos 3 ай бұрын

I leave in france (near paris) and the ecologists keep pi..ing us off everyday with stupidity like this

@pyredynasty 3 ай бұрын

I keep telling these people if they would just put them on the sun they will extract the most possible energy from them.

@sebaalge6674 3 ай бұрын

"just 44 days of strong sunshine a year" remember me when they built here where i live that "energy crane" in the most windy area of the region (:

@ttyridal 3 ай бұрын

47kWh/day a lot? up here, a little bit closer to the north pole we averaged 160 kWh/day (peek 210) in January!

@robd1365 3 ай бұрын

I think the locals should be allowed to reuse parts of it after it’s taken up, then they can have a solar frickin garden path that’ll run the lights in their garden shed or something.

@user-il7xt9ml2q 3 ай бұрын

@11:35 UK houses use about 6 kWh but European houses probably use heat pumps because the unit price is cheaper. You could add 20 kWh easy if you include heating and hot water.

@redtails 3 ай бұрын

UK homes use 6 kwh of electricity per day maybe, but 20-50 kwh of gas equivalent. It's not fair to only list the electric energy and forget about all the non-electric energy.

@miketel01 3 ай бұрын

How my goodness that is so ridiculous. They could’ve paid one of those residents to put a 5 MW solar firm in one of their fields that wasn’t yielding any useful agriculture. They could’ve done a 25 or 50 year lease with the homeowners to install a 50 MW system on the land, complete stupidity

@pulidoggy 3 ай бұрын

A lesson to be learned for public administrations: when planning to embark in fancy and expensive projects, seek for Dave's opinion first...

@piad2102 3 ай бұрын

So what is the total cost, inc dismanteling and re applying asfalt??

@Fluxkompressor 3 ай бұрын

10:20 I need that much for double the space on a cold day with the AC on full blast heating. But 17MWh annual is indeed a huge amount. France has a lot of resistive heating because they have cheap nuclear power