Solar Powered Roads Can Collect Electricity, Melt Snow, and Wake Sleepy Drivers

Written by geri Thursday, 15 July 2010

An Idaho man envisioned "electric roads" way back in his early childhood. Now, in his own state-of-the-art electronics lab, he is building the panels for a solar roadway he hopes will make petroleum-based asphalt obsolete.

Scott Brusaw's Solar Roadways company is busy with a prototype incorporating all the best ideas for highway design: Roads and sidewalks embedded with solar cells to collect energy, which could pay for the cost of the panels; heating elements in the surface to eliminate the need for snow plows; and LEDs embedded to provide illuminated road lines that light up the road for safer driving at night.

In 2009, the company won a contract from the Federal Highway Administration to build a Solar Road Panel prototype for the US government that would be capable of handling today's heaviest loads under the worst of conditions, yet still protect the electronics layer powering the heart of it.

Eventually, Scott believes electric roads infused by the sun will deliver power -- and broadband -- to our homes, charge the batteries on our electric cars and eliminate all need for coal and gas. If every street, driveway and parking lot were replaced with his invention, he says it would supply three times as much energy as the entire country needs and create 2.5 million jobs in assembly alone.

WATCH the video below, and visit the website: SolarRoadways.com