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Forget roofs, are solar roads the next big thing?
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Washington Post blog


Washington Post blog, May 20, 2014
Posted: June 2nd, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/05/2...

While the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that installing solar panels on every home in America would produce 3.75 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity a year, ... photovoltaics still account for no more than 1.13 percent of Americas power production. [What] can municipalities do? Its not like they can pave the streets with solar panels. Thats where the husband and wife team of Scott and Julie Brusaw would beg to differ. Since the mid-2000's, Scott, an electrical engineer, and Julie, a psychotherapist, have been developing special solar cells encased in rugged, hexagonal-shaped glass. Lay enough of these mechanical cobblestones together and youve built yourself a kind of hybrid driveway/solar array. For the Brusaws, the prototype, while impressive, makes up but a tiny chunk of a much more ambitious vision. According to their calculations, covering the nations nearly 28,000 square miles worth of roads, highways and parking spaces with these special panels would produce three times the nations total energy consumption. [In their vision], the panels would serve as the foundation for a do-it-all smart roadway system thats capable of not only harvesting energy, but also making roads safer by using heat to remove surface ice and lighting up dark pathways with embedded LEDs. The Solar Roadway project, which the Brusaws proposed, was promising enough that, in 2009, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration awarded them a series of contracts to further their concept.

Note: To watch the fun video about these solar roads, click here. For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.


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