Electric vehicles look to be the future of our transportation now, unlike concepts from the 60’s, when they said we’ll drive rocket cars. But even though EVs have zero emissions, they still need to feed on electricity, which currently is not all being made using green techniques.
We still rely a lot on fossil materials to create electricity to power our daily lives and burning more black stuff from underground to provide enough for millions of electric vehicles will also turn the sky black.
Not even fuel cell vehicles can hide from this. Despite using hydrogen to create their own electricity on the go, they are not entirely green. Yeah, there’s a lot of hydrogen on this planet, but it’s mixed with oxygen and other stuff to create our water. And to separate it from all the other ingredients will require... you guessed - electricity.
So, basically relying on electricity to make an intermediary product which will be turned again into electricity won’t cut it. What we need is a form of free energy.
Let’s see what can we get. Hmmm, there are plenty of energy sources like wind mills, geothermal plants, waves and other things of that sort, but the problem is their ephemera nature - you can’t rely solely on them to have a reliable power source.
Solely.... sol... Oh, the Sun is constantly bombarding us with enough energy every hour to power our things here for years. Only if we can capture it all.
Massive solar panels in Earth orbit that transmit electricity down wirelessly might be a solution but the maintenance would cost us more than we can produce here on this planet.
We can also build those solar panels right here on the ground, but it still comes at a big cost. First of all, imagine how much space they will take in order to provide us enough energy. Fields stuffed with these things might affect our crops, which is not quite a good idea since population is in full expansion.
Then imagine you’ll need to clean all of them from dust and bird crap. Hell will regularly await the maintenance team once a month, coming with all its goodies - high temperatures, burns, sweat, shattered glass and crap to top it off.
Luckily, Scott and Julie Brusaw came with an incredible idea. Why not turn our roads into solar panels? Imagine the advantages! Around 0.06 percent of our planet is covered in asphalt. It’s not much in numbers, but it’s a huge amount in reality, and it’s also in a continuous expansion.
The two have studied the problem for enough years and have put together two functional prototypes. In their vision, all asphalt surfaces should be replaced with individual hexagonal solar panel cells, interconnected to also communicate between them.
They will also contain small LEDs to create road markings and even messages for drivers. Pressure sensors will warn you way before you’ll encounter debris or any other stationary object on the road.
Moreover, wired meshes in each one of the units will act like resistances and heat up a bit to melt snow. It will be a small problem with mud, but usually, cars traveling at high speed on roads covered with muck will pulverize it away eventually.
So basically, all we need to do is fund this holly project and start replacing dull asphalt with the intelligent one that will also power our cars along with providing them an even surface to roll onto.
It won’t be cheap nor easy, but if we gradually start with our front driveways and suburban areas, enough money will be spared in time for not paying the electricity bill and go into further expanding the whole infrastructure.
Also check the video here for more details about the engineering couple and their planet-saving project.
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