Random Politics & Religion #00

"new-age conservative" shouldn't be taken as a slight in my eyes, but w/e I guess.

It's just another label to try to pigeon hole people under one flag. Conservative, Liberal, Neocon, w/e.

Lazy language.

"Mittens" sounds like the name you give to HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE cat.

"Mittens" sounds like the name you give to HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE cat.

What you talkin' about son?

Solar Roadways is a scam. It's that simple. The panels don't even produce the electricity required to run the LEDs, and the creators knew this before taking the government grant to develop a larger scale operation.

I always had my suspicions based on the fact that roads take a lot of abuse, and I couldn't see glass standing up to that demand. At least no economically feasible glass.

got a source for this claim?

Oh but it isn't his "brain child" and a large chunk, especially the insurance mandate was all from the "right" look into it, you may learn something.

republican's lost their taste for the aca somewhere around page 47 million of absolute bureaucratic horseshit...

PARKER Edit:

I'm not sure if this is the right video, Thunderfoot has like a million of these that tear Solar Roadways apart.

I had a long winded explanation of things he's ignoring or didn't consider, and basically why he's wrong, and not tearing anything apart, but the keyboard on this laptop sucks (more specifically the touchpad).

So again: proof? because that's nothing more than a naysayer, not evidence.

Okay, this is gonna be long, so either prepare to do some reading or don't read it. Please no "TL:DR"s.

To preface, I appreciate skepticism. I understand that it has it's place, and we do need people to question things, especially when there's a lot of attention and hysteria about something, such as this. So while I am about to get very critical of this video, I appreciate the intention behind it. I'm not going to question Thunderf00t's motivations and speculate that he's being paid off by energy companies or something. I think he means well, but he's just mistaken.

So here goes...

1) Let's start off with the cost concerns.
Thunderf00t claims that the costs are prohibitive. He does a lot of quick calculations based on some assumed costs, mostly based on what he shows to be amazon.com prices of individual pieces of the materials. So his research looks to be rather limited, at best.
He's also assuming that those would be the actual costs. The whole point of trying to get these modules mass produced is to lower these costs. That's what mass production does, it makes things more cost efficient. So multiplying a fixed price found on amazon doesn't accurately predict what the real costs will be.

Another thing Thunderf00t doesn't seem to be taking into account is how much of the cost would be offset; not just by the energy the roads would produce... but by the expenses they will be rendering obsolete. The maintenance costs he calculates sound high, and as explained, those likely aren't even accurate. But even if they were accurate... they wouldn't be prohibitive. Maintenance costs for roads are ALREADY high. Billions of dollars a year.

Thunderf00t presents these numbers as though they would be new expenditures added on top of what's already being spent. But that's not true. They would just be using the same funding that road maintenance already gets. And as I'll explain later, solar roadways are actually easier to maintain, not harder.

So the cost issue, while a legitimate concern, is not as bad as it's presented in this video. And when you add into this the fact that solar roadways would produce energy, they would, as Solar Roadways proclaims... pay for themselves.


2) "Roads are not a good place to put solar panels"

There's a few reasons Thunderf00t and others are saying this, so lets go through them individually:

- They'd be covered up a lot of the time.
Yes, this is true. But not all the time. And any time that they're not, they're producing energy.
I'll get into this more later, but I feel like a lot of the concern in this area is stemming from people not having confidence in how efficient solar panels are. They think solar panels need lots of sunlight for long periods of time to generate any energy worth anyone's time... this really isn't true. Not only are solar panels getting more and more efficient by the year, but at their current quality, they can generate quite a bit of energy in even moderately good conditions. They don't need direct sunlight (even though that's obviously ideal), they work even with cloud cover. And if they can be made sensitive enough in the future, it's even possible for them to work from moonlight (there's a glass orb design for a solar energy rig that can already do this. If that can be applied some way in a panel form, then boom. But I digress)
If employed en masse, then it wouldn't really make a huge impact if, say, 30% of the panels were covered up at any given time. The beauty of roads is that the cars are (ideally, anyway) always moving, so it's not like the majority of the panels would always be covered up every day. They'd be covered up part of the time, and not covered up at other times. There'd be different balances on different days... some days would generate more energy, some less (just like is already the case with solar energy), but it ultimately balances out and we'd find what the average energy draw would be and then improve and optimize from there. Thunderf00t acts like these problems are just plain insurmountable. No, there's ways to deal with them.
This isn't even a huge issue. Sure, it's a dent in what the efficiency would ideally be given perfect conditions, but the whole point here is that this system wouldn't have to be perfectly efficient... ANY energy it produces would be more energy than roads currently give us, so there'd be nothing but gain even at 0.0000001% efficiency. But it would never go that low, because you're never going to cover up even close to 100% of the surface. We don't park bumper to bumper... there's space in between cars. We don't drive bumper to bumper... there's even more space between cars when driving. There'll always be enough surface exposed to catch enough sunlight to make it worthwhile. You can look at any overhead footage of traffic on a road... the cars really don't cover up that much of the road.
And then when there's less cover-up, it's just even better.

- The panels wouldn't hold up under road conditions.
This is purely people reacting instinctively. You'll notice that at no point does Thunderf00t provide any actual evidence that tempered glass can't do the job. Whereas Solar Roadways has had their materials tested, and they claim they can withstand more than 250,000 pounds of pressure, which is the most weight that would ever theoretically be put on them. I don't have the data, but I don't see any more reason to doubt them than we have to trust Thunderf00t as being more of an authority on the situation. Tempered glass is strong. It's the stuff used for bulletproof glass, for crying out loud. We're not talking the stuff they use in your cheap wine glasses.
As for traction, they've thought of that too (I love how all the skeptics assume that these people, who have been working on this for almost 10 years now, just plum never thought about these things). They've been tested and meet the requirements. Again, we're not talking run-of-the-mill glass here. I found it borderline humorous that Thunderf00t was talking about how asphalt has the right texture and that glass doesn't... and then he cuts to a picture of the Solar Roadway glass, and IT'S TEXTURED TOO! Guess what: They thought about traction and designed the glass to have traction.
Even more humorous is that he talks about how glass would cause cars to slip out of control... while showing a video of a car slipping out of control ON ASPHALT! This is already a concern with asphalt. There's no reason to believe it would automatically be worse with glass, especially when the texture of the glass can actually be designed and re-designed to be optimal. There's only so much you can with asphalt to optimize it's traction. Glass with a designed texture on it is actually MORE capable of having traction than asphalt. Not less.

- Wouldn't it just be easier to put solar panels elsewhere?
Easier is a relative term. Easier than what? Building and maintaining roads? We already do that. Just like with the cost concern, this is a concern that seems to assume that solar roadways only create more work, instead of just replacing work that we already do.

Yes, we could do Thunderf00t's idea and put the solar panels beside the road or build roofs to put them on... but THAT'S the idea that would actually create more work, because you'd be building that and maintaining them in ADDITION to also building and maintaining the asphalt roads/parking lots. The whole point here is to combine these two things (roads and solar energy) so we're not doubling our efforts.

So no, it's not easier to put them elsewhere. It would be MORE WORK to put them elsewhere.


3) Maintenance
I've pretty much already gotten this concept across, but once again: We already do road maintenance. Solar roadways wouldn't require any more maintenance than asphalt roads. In fact... I told you I'd explain this:

Solar roadways would actually be easier to maintain and repair than asphalt roads. When asphalt gets damaged, what do you have to do to fix it? You need to bring in machinery and dig the road up and lay new asphalt. To fix potholes, you need to bring in machines to lay new asphalt... you need to keep the road sectioned off while it dries. Then you need to paint new lines on it.

Whereas with solar roadways: If a module gets damaged... just pull it out and insert a new one. Literally ONE WORKER can do it, in a fraction of the time.

Repairs would be a cinch.

Thunderf00t also brings up the dirt issue. We'd have to keep them clean. Okay... so... street cleaners. Done. Take the money you're saving on the easy maintenance (and the energy the roads are producing, lest people constantly forget about this fact) and put it towards a few more street cleaners running a bit more often. Really not a big issue.


4) The energy they would use.

This is a really frustrating one... and it amazes me that people don't catch themselves the second this concern rises in their minds and then go, "Oh yeah, never mind. That was stupid."

THE ROADS PRODUCE ENERGY!

A large portion of this video is spent criticizing the LED and heating features because they would use too much energy. At no point does Thunderf00t even acknowledge, in any small way, that this is offset by the roads PRODUCING ENERGY.
Sure, the heating elements are the most concerning factor, because they would require a lot of energy and MAYBE they would use more energy than the roads are producing... But the heating elements are only necessary some of the time. Only in winter, and even then, only in SOME parts of the country, and ONLY when it snows, which isn't always, even during winter. And they wouldn't even have to be on at all times either... just enough to melt the snow and then turn off again. So unless it's constantly snowing so hard that the heaters have to stay on at all times to keep melting the new snow... it's just not gonna be that big of an issue.

LEDs don't use much energy. That's what great about them. And the part of this video that questions their visibility in sunlight... it's embarrassing. I don't know if you've ever seen a video billboard during daylight, but they're pretty damn visible, even with direct sunlight shining on them. Those billboards are made of LEDs. These roadways aren't gonna be using the cheap, low-intensity LEDs that Thunderf00t picked up at the dollar store for this video. I think they just might be using better quality ones.

Again, remember... these people have been working on this for almost ten years, and have gotten government grants for it... They've put some thought into it!

More than was put into this video, at least.


5) The scale of the project.

Yeah, it's a big idea. Converting every road in America to solar roadways... That'd be a monumental project!

So don't do it all at once.

This isn't going to be an overnight transformation. This is a long-term project. Start with parking lots and intersections. Then do city streets. Then gradually start working out into rural areas and go from there.

It doesn't even have to be done as it's own project. It can just be implemented whenever a road needs to be re-paved. Maybe just do one lane of it for a stretch and then add over time.

Building a new bridge? Put solar roadways on it.

Widening a road? Make the new lanes solar.

Building a house? Make the driveway solar.

You get the idea. The project as a whole looks Herculean... when you look at it as a step-by-step gradual process being implemented wherever there would have been work anyway, then it's actually pretty simple. Again, this is being switched out for our current roadwork methods... it's not new work.

The biggest aspect of it is the manufacturing of the modules. And yes, that's the most expensive and labor-intensive part. But again, we're switching this out for our current roadwork methods. Would the modules be any more expensive than all the asphalt, cement mixers, road paving machines (I admit, I don't know what they're called), road painters and painting machines... all of which would be made obsolete? The government wouldn't be paying to buy all that machinery and material, so it'll be transferred over to the module production. Maybe it would ultimately turn out to be more expensive... Okay. That's really not the worst thing in the world. Money is just money, after all. It's supposed to be a tool, not a commodity. If the government needs more money to fund it, then maybe we should try... oh, I dunno... taxing the rich corporations that currently have billions upon billions of dollars that they drained from the economy, sitting around in tax havens, doing nothing?

sigh... But I digress again.


6) How long will the modules last?

This is actually a legitimate concern. We don't know. But guess what? We'll never know if we don't try it.

Asphalt doesn't last that long. As Thunderf00t pointed out, roads need to be repaired every frickin' year.

They're going to test this stuff. This isn't an idea that's expected to come to fruition next year, or even this decade. They have a lot of work to do to get it ready, and that will involve a lot of R&D in working out any of these problems that may be present. Again, these problems are not insurmountable. They can be managed and improved. They can be overcome. Guess what will help that go faster? Support. Guess what will only kill that and make us reject an idea without ever knowing if it could have actually worked given the proper support? This kind of skepticism.


By "this kind of skepticism", I mean skepticism that encourages not even trying it, without any actual evidence that it wouldn't work. Everything in this video is either assumptions or off-the-mark information. There's no real evidence. We haven't seen a solar roadway implemented yet, and until we do, we won't know if it works or not. So people getting mad at this idea and acting like anybody who supports it is stupid and doesn't understand physics and is just getting taken in by a couple who is either stupid or duping us for IndieGoGo donations (even though there's absolutely no evidence they're pocketing the money and not using it for what they're saying they are)... that's just narrow-minded. Why don't you guys try waiting and seeing?


7) How to manage and use the energy.
This criticism is a head-scratcher to me. Thunderf00t asks how they'll actually use the energy and get it to where it needs to go...

Umm... the power grid that we already have, perhaps?

Part of the design is quite clearly presented as a channel on the side of the roads to house the necessary cables. Thunderf00t says that putting cables underground is more expensive than running them on poles... That's completely irrelevant. This isn't a choice between how we're gonna run new power lines. This is a choice about how we're gonna build new roads. The cable channel would be a part of THAT project, not a separate project for power lines.

Running power lines underground, as it's own project, is very different. You have to dig new tunnels and access points and cut under huge sections of land and all that...
This is just digging a small channel next to the road. During a project that would already be being done for the roadways. Sure, it adds some extra digging labor... This really isn't prohibitive, though. This criticism is completely unnecessary.

And even if it were a choice between above ground and under ground... then okay, let's go with above ground. Run some new cables along the poles to connect to the roadways. Again, how is this an issue?

If the concern is amount of energy that will be added to the grid, so we'll need more and/or bigger transformers and such... then, yeah, that's something we'd have to do. But it's something we're going to have to do ANYWAY as our power needs continue to grow. This isn't a concern that solar roadways is introducing to us or anything.

Yeah, this one's a head-scratcher. I'm not sure what Thunderf00t is actually getting at here. It's a completely hollow criticism from what I can tell.


Furthermore, some of the more pointless criticisms in the video:

The recycling stuff.
Yeah, they're shovelling some crappy coloured glass they found at the dump...
1) This is just a staged scene for the purposes of the video. I highly doubt that's their actual process for obtaining their glass.
2) The recycled glass they use isn't the tempered glass they use for the surface. There's other glass used in the modules and that's what they use the recycled glass for.

The whole pogo-stick, "It'd be nice if we could do it, but we can't." part...
1) What does this exaggerated pogo-stick analogy accomplish, exactly? How are solar roadways in any way the same thing as wanting a pogo-stick that can jump to the moon? That's an absurd comparison, and he plays it off like it's totally legitimate.

"I want to try to innovate something that might have some problems we need to work out, but all the pieces are in place and we've even made a prototype."

"Well, that's like trying to make a pogo-stick that can jump to the moon!"

"... Umm... I'm gonna go talk to someone helpful now."



Again, skepticism has it's place, but it needs to actually be reasonable and evidenced. All this video does is exaggerate minor problems to seem insurmountable, and declare things are impossible when they actually aren't. Nice try, but I'm gonna wait and see how this actually turns out. 

The mathematics behind it are sound. And so are the material sciences that show it as impractical. And then add on the economic impossibility of the endeavor.

I get it, you're invested personally in the pipe dream, you want it to be true so bad, but if you can't take a moment to divorce yourself from that, there's no point in explaining it or citing it further.

I've got a better idea, find me one scientist (ThunderF00T AKA Phil Mason is a PhD in Chemistry) that says this concept is even remotely possible.

I've never seen anyone with even a modicum of academic credence show how this Solar Roadways is possible, and that's all the proof I need.

Again: citation needed, as that bad video's poor use of calculating costs is dishonest at best.

I have a degree in electronics, and know some BS and MA's (not Ph.d's in engineering (inb4 Howard joke) and we all think it's good.

I'm sure there's more backing it, but I'd have to take time off from killing these leeches to do so, and I have a time restraint today, so I'll get back to you.

It's all a scam.

How do you go about determining that the state wanted it? There are people there that didn't want it.

Just like there are people that did and didn't want on the national level.

You can't really make an argument like that without defining the qualifiers.

Two polls released this week both ask a question that you would hope wouldn't need asking: how many people support the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)? Unfortunately, in all four countries surveyed, the answer is greater than zero, and by a lot.

Here is a chart of the results of the polls. The first, by ICM Research, asked people in Germany, France, and the UK whether they had a favorable or unfavorable view of ISIS. The second, by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, asked Gazans whether they support or oppose ISIS. Here are the results.





This is alarming, in part because a growing number of Europeans, often from predominantly Muslim immigrant communities, are not just expressing their support for ISIS in polls: they are traveling to Syria and Iraq to join up. The ISIS fighter who killed American journalist James Foley on video last week spoke with a strong London accent. European governments are rightly worried about the implications of this for their own national security.

But there's more going on here. It's no secret that far-right politics have been on the rise in Western Europe, which includes a growing willingness to embrace extremism and greater intolerance of all kinds. It is ironic but by no means impossible that far-right Islamophobia would rise in Europe alongside a greater approval of the Islamist group ISIS. Extremism is often reactive and ideologically contradictory.