I grew up in construction. My dad is a civil engineer who specialized in bridge and overpass work on highways. I worked for his company for years doing pricing, so yes I do know about the materials, what they cost, and how much repairs to roadways should cost. So don't tell me I'm full of crap.
Unless you worked with glass substrates, then yes, you're still full of shit. You may know the cost of asphalt, but you don't know jack about the cost of these solar panels. Also, I'm a civil and electrical engineer, not my dad.
Asphalt can be repaired very quickly and cheaply if it gets damaged. You pour hot mix into the hole and stamp it down. It's why you don't see concrete being used more often. It lasts longer but it's costlier build and to repair.
I have actually designed roads, not just repaired them. Also, you're talking about fixes that are very small. Your initial reason for why the solar panels would be a bad idea was because they would be hard to replace if something much larger scale happened. Tell me the process for removing an entire section of road due to a chemical spill that compromised it and then you'll be on the same page with your initial statement. If you want to talk about ease of replacement on a small scale problem, a solar panel would be just as easy, if not easier, to replace. It's bolted on and that means it will look like new instead of like a patchwork quilt after the repair. Lastly, patched asphalt roads degrade far more quickly and develop potholes much more readily. There's no comparison here.
Where I live, the roads are nearly 100% concrete because they're far more rugged and cost effective long term compared to asphalt.
If one of these solar panels get damaged, you're probably going to have to replace the whole unit. That's expensive. Which is why the ROI matters.
ROI matters? Someone alert the president. You're basically trying to explain to me what I said in rebuttal to your shortsighted ideas about why the solar panels are a bad idea. The initial investment will probably be higher than traditional roads, but the long term cost will probably be lower. Take notice of the words I'm using because we still don't actually know the cost. You keep trying to sound authoritative on the cost aspect of this idea, but you don't actually know.
People in the green industry assume people are going to want to fork over more for electricity and road taxes just to get clean energy. They aren't. That's been proven time and time again. That whole philosophy has devastated manufacturing and mining here in Ontario, and cost a lot of jobs.
First of all, Ontario isn't the whole planet. Secondly, this still has nothing to do with the viability of the actual solar panels on a road, which was your initial premise. You still don't actually know the cost, which makes this whole paragraph pointless. If you really want to talk about ROI again, then the solar panels rate much, much higher than traditional roads because they're actually generating power unless they have to be replaced before they pay for themselves, which we don't know.
Without any cost information from the company, it's difficult to say whether the project is even viable. It may be very practical and work out to be a lot cheaper than asphalt in the long run, but none of that information has been provided.
Thanks for coming full circle and admitting you don't know anything about the cost of this product. This point, while true, effectively invalidates the rest of your cost related arguments.
Plus if we were to go ahead with it, I want to be certain the product is going to stand up to harsh conditions.
You should write an email to the couple who designed the panels. I'm betting they haven't considered this.
Just saying glass is tough isn't enough. If we're going to implement an expensive roadway technology, I need to be certain it's going to stand up far better than both asphalt and concrete. I think it would work much better on a small scale for now.
You're making it sound like you're the authority on whether or not this idea comes to fruition. You clearly have no idea what design cycles are actually like if you think they aren't trying it on a small scale first (hint: that's already happening).
As for hydro and electric generation not being the same, they are in Canada. Hydro is used as a catch all term for electricity generation regardless of the source. It's a cultural thing because the first power plants were all hydroelectric. Sort of like how kleenex has become an umbrella term for all facial tissues. Now we use nuclear, gas, coal, solar, and wind but the name stuck. So if I refer to hydro rates or hydro generation, that's why.
I understood that's why you were doing it after spending five seconds to google the term, but that makes absolutely no difference. Hydro is not electricity nor is it a viable word substitution just because you've somehow been conditioned to use it that way. It's not a cultural thing in any capacity. It's a stupid thing.