DATTATREYA MANDAL Feb 7 2011
This “article” was less of a conventional article and more of a list of new innovative ideas on how to get renewable energy sources to be more common. It also explains how they would go about doing this and such. There are 7 things in the list but I will only share the ones I thought could really work or are very interesting. The first one that I thought was very different was a solar road. It makes it so that the entire road is completely mad out of solar cells and as well as making solar energy it can sense damage and other things that happen on the road. The next one I liked was the turbines on the side of the highway. Instead of the green pole like objects atop a concrete wall to separate the two sides of the high way there could be wind powered turbines that would be affected by the passing cars. I also thought that the solar arch was not a bad idea. It is an arch going over a road that has solar panels on top of it. It is not a bad idea but it will probably be very costly overall these ideas were pretty good.
The picture is of what a solar roadway might look like.
I think that these are generally good ideas that are worthwhile looking into but some of them seem as if they could be very expensive. There is also the possibility that in a car crash these devices could be ruins or at least damaged. This would put drivers at more of a financial risk if they do get into a car crash. If these do happen, they could be creating a ton of energy for the communities around them, so overall I think that they should be looked into but they defiantly need further research before actually investing.
1. Which do you think is the best idea? Why? How could it be improved?
2. Which do you think is the worst idea? Why? How could it be improved?
3. What would be some pros and cons of these ideas? Do you think that they are worthwhile?
This sounds like a really good idea and should be put into into use. The roads we have obviously sit in the sun almost everyday, besides when it is cloudy, so we could generate tons of energy from the road. Putting this into effect would be really costly because most solar panels are really expensive. The arch sounds like a really good idea because it would also generate energy and many roads tend to be out in the open. So that would generate some more energy but at the same time would be really costly because of the solar panels. Having wind turbines separating the sides of the highway might be dangerous to the cars, otherwise it seems like a good idea.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of how so many houses have solar panels on their roofs. On the way back from New Jersey some neighborhoods have almost all of their houses covered in solar panels. It seems like we are trying to think of new ways all the time to generate alternative energy. It also reminds me of how there are so many solar farms out in the mid-west and how they generate a lot of energy to be used.
I think the best idea is the solar roadway because even at the most expensive it seems like it will be the most useful. We should be able to generate a lot more energy because it would span for a long time and just bask in the sun almost all day. The only problem I see is that during traffic some spots may not be absorbing the suns energy that well.
Overall I really like the ideas you decided to share from the article. I think they're rather interesting, unique ways to accquire needed alternate energy. I woner what it would be like driving on the solar panel road- would it just absorb the sun's heat and look like a normal road, or would there be a fancier way where there would be glass panels and the heat goes through a more diverse process? The only problem with the panels being made from glass is that the sun could reflect off them into peoples' eyes and make it difficult for them to see and navigate... Overall the inventions seem like they could be pretty useful!
ReplyDeleteThis article reminded me of a commercial I saw once a while ago, especially the solar panels part of the article. In the commercial, there was a group of people in a car driving over a road that had special devices underneath the road that when you drove over it and had the radio on, it picked up the sound waves from the equipment and played one of beethoven's symphonies. It was really cool, idk if this road actually exists, but if it does, I wanna drive over it!!
3. Some pros and cons of these ideas could be a number of things. For both, they obviously generate alternate energy, but can both be unreliable (rainy weather= no solar, no wind= no wind energy.) Also the solar panels if made from glass can cause temporary blindness like I stated earlier. And the wind propellers to the turbines could be loud and distracting and may cause more accidents.
--Emily
These ideas sound very well thought of, make energy while we're using it. However, if something small happened to anyone of them, the expenses would be quite overwhelming and most likely bankrupting.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the different types of buildings someone mentioned a while ago in their blog. A couple students designed buildings they thought would be most helpful to a country. In both cases, there are great up-sides, but detrimental down-sides.
2. I think the solar power roads would be the worst idea because during most of the day it would be covered by cars. Therefore, it wouldn't be very useful or productive. Maybe it could be improved by sparingly using it in areas less frequently traveled on and over bridges an on top sky scrapers and other tall buildings (the original purpose for solar panels).