Tag Archives: roads
FUTUREWATCH: Sensors Embedded in Roads
In many countries there are regulations in place to prevent trailer owners from overloading their vehicles. This leads to the need for periodic inspections. To weigh a large vehicle one obviously needs to stop it. After the inspection, when a vehicle accelerates to normal speed, it wastes a lot of fuel for no good reason. [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Self-Healing Concrete
Researchers at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands have developed a bacterial additive for concrete, the most widely used building material in the world, which could dramatically extend the life of concrete-framed buildings, and thereby save billions. Cracking, or ‘spalling’ in traditional concrete (caused by the freeze/thaw effect of rainwater expanding and contracting inside hairline [...]
Solar Roadways: Powering the United States?
Solar Roadways, the futuristic project thought up by an Idaho engineer about whom we first wrote more than two years ago, has a new short film out on Vimeo. Solar Roadways | Michéle Ohayon from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo. As you’ll see if you watch the three-minute clip above, Scott Brusaw wants to transform [...]
In Focus: Solar Roadways
Imagine covering all our sun-drenched roads with solar panels instead of concrete and asphalt - that’s what Solar Roadways has in mind for getting us unhooked from fossil fuels. They’re starting small with driveways, bike paths, patios, sidewalks, parking lots, and playgrounds, to perfect their technology. The Solar Roadway is a series of structurally-engineered solar panels that can [...]
Capturing Solar Energy from Asphalt Roads
Scientists at the University of Rhode Island (URI) are developing ways to convert the solar heat generated by asphalt roadways into usable energy. The researchers say asphalt can reach temperatures of 140 degrees ormore in the summer. The URI team has designed four different methods to use this abundant resource. 1. Wrap photovoltaic cells around the [...]
More Than 1M Electric Cars on Asian Roads by 2015
National and local incentives promoting the use of electric vehicles in Asia will help put more than 1.4 million plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on roadways by 2015, making it the largest market worldwide for electrified vehicles, according to a new report. While Asian markets have so far focused onproduction of plug-in hybrids, market attention [...]
The Potential of Solar Roads
Imagine a world-wide system where the "lit" half of the world is always powering the "dark" half of the world. In this world everyone has power. No more power shortages, no moreroaming power outages, no more need to burn coal (50% of greenhousegases). Less need for fossil fuels and less dependency upon foreignoil. Much less [...]
Overweight solar-powered rickshaws pulled of roads in India
A disappointment to the green community in India, solar-powered rickshaws have been pulled off the road. These rickshaws wereunveiled last year by the Municipal Corporation, to whom they have beendolefully returned. Besides the already overweight passengers, the solar panels act as an added weight to the rickshaw pullers, increasing their workload. Ironically, this project, costing [...]
Solar Roadways
Whileroof-top solar installations are a great way to keep your home off thegrid, highways offer a completely new dimension to solar installations.Researchers predicts that if a mile-long stretch of a highway is fittedwith solar panels, the energy generated is enough to move 500 homes offthe grid. The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded Solar Roadwayswith [...]