Apparently walking on solar panels damages them as the first solar roadway is broken in first week – IOTW Report

 Apparently walking on solar panels damages them as the first solar roadway is broken in first week

Roughly 25 out of 30 panels installed on it broke within a week after developers pumped $3.9 million into it over 6.5 years of development.

Despite massive internet hype, the prototype of solar “road” can’t be driven on, hasn’t generated any electricity and 75 percent of the panels were broken before they were even installed.

Of the panels installed to make a “solar footpath,” 18 of the 30 were dead on arrival due to a manufacturing failure. Rain caused another four panels to fail, and only five panels were functioning shortly thereafter. The prototype appears to be plagued by drainage issues, poor manufacturing controls and fundamental design flaws.

If it had worked, the panels would have powered a single water fountain and the lights in a restroom, after more than $500,000 in installation costs provided by a grant from the state government. The U.S. Department of Transportation initially handed $750,000 in grants to fund the research into the scheme, then invested another pair of grants worth $850,000 into it. The plan, dubbed, “Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways” raised another $2.2 million dollars in crowd-funding, even though several scientists publicly debunked the idea.
ht/ refuse/resist

24 Comments on  Apparently walking on solar panels damages them as the first solar roadway is broken in first week

  1. Let’s compare to, say, Uber. Zero government investment, yet valued at tens of billions. Point being that a business with a viable product has plenty of private capital awaiting it. That a solar business has trouble finding any suggests that the product isn’t viable.

  2. Another Obama green energy debacle.
    Who got the contracts, who were their contacts in the Whitehouse and how many thousands of Obama’s books will they have to buy?
    Not merely stupidity, it’s corruption.

  3. The prototype appears to be plagued by drainage issues, poor manufacturing controls and fundamental design flaws

    Hang in there, Trump is still getting his arms around it all.

    Oh, this isn’t about the Swamp? never mind..

  4. Oh, I don’t know. After seeing all the solar and green energy companies crashing and burning with a whole lot more government money down the crapper it almost seems like this one could be described as a win in that it only lost a couple of million in Federal and State funding. Triples all around!

  5. Another massive waste and ripoff of federal taxpayer dollars and a royal shafting of the taxpayer. The whole thing is fully underwritten by useless agencies like DOE. If the venture fails, the taxpayer gets to eat the entire thing. If the venture is a success, the investor makes profit. Such a deal, eh? Where do I sign up for that type of no-lose business venture? Solar power is an absolute fantasy dreamed up by morons who do not understand jr high school physics and thermodynamics, and cannot balance a checkbook. I wonder why we are $20T in debt. I can’t wait to grab my ankles for the IRS in a couple of weeks. It’s good for ‘murica.

  6. “I’m surprised Idaho red voters let this boondoggle get past them.”

    Their state senate just stopped a bill that would allow firearms safety training in public schools. I think Idaho is turning the BAD direction.

  7. Sandpoint, Idaho is where I thought this failed demonstration of a solar powered road took place. It was located on the town square just off of downtown Sandpoint. I love Sandpoint but sometimes I think that there are too many nuts and green weenies living up there for it’s own good. Why do all the eco weenies and etc. have to try to destroy one of the best places in N. Idaho? It won’t stop me from going up there but I just wish all the enlightened do gooders would go elsewhere, like maybe Vermont.

  8. A lot of “it’s never been tried before” is seriously expensive, compared to the expected benefit(s) before it’s tried. How expensive was it to send humans to the Moon, just to prove Tang really worked?

  9. Pend Oreille (Ponderay) Lake where Sandpoint is located is one of the most beautiful and extremely deep lakes (the Navy has a small acoustic sub base and training facility at Bayview on the lake) in this part of the country. Leave it alone, please. Sometimes I think the extreme weather especially in the Winters around here keeps the riff raff away. It’s a great area for skiing up on Schweitzer Mtn. and this winter they’ve had a phenomenal amount of snow up there as well as the surrounding area.

  10. DAMN geoff the aardvark, your advertising that place, sounds beautiful. The riff raff won’t stay away as they first become city council chimps, then state rep/senator trash and finally go to the federal level where they only are there when it’s nice and fly back to DC to fully foul the nest. I’m formerly born and raised in Colorado and I can tell you why I ain’t there anymore…keep this knowledge to yourself and those that you love….

    Ben Stein writes about Sand Point on a regular basis….you’ll be lousy with smegma from both coasts soon if you ain’t already…

  11. Only 3.9 million dollars. Let’s see, that equates to 390 thousand six packs of hi-test beer, or about 1 million six packs of miller lite.

    The government should stick to making bullets and roads.

  12. Willy I’m a native to this area and am well aware of all the creeping in of progtards from elsewhere. I haven’t and will not give up on what I consider to still be one of the last best places in America. And besides Coeur d’ Alene, Id. and Post Falls as well which are less than 30 miles from Spokane have radically changed as well, mostly for the good and some for the worse, especially population wise. My grandparents who settled as small farmers there in the 1930’s and raised 5 children there couldn’t afford to live there now and wouldn’t even hardly recognize it now 50 years after their deaths in the mid 60’s. But I still know where all the good places are left and I’m not telling about those. I barely even recognize where my grandparents farm was, my Dad took me there last Summer and a rather expensive house sits on the property where they had a small 10 acre truck farm growing vegetables and flowers with a roadside stand to sell to the public. My Dad could’ve kept the farm when my grandparents died but couldn’t raise a family of 4 boys since he was also a mechanic and owned his gas station here in Spokane which is a shame. It might have been too much work but sometimes I wish he would’ve kept it.

  13. Doesn’t matter whether or not it works.
    The narrative works, $millions were stolen from the taxpayers, nobody got charged with fraud, and nobody got hanged by angry mobs.
    It’ll happen again … pretty soon, too.

    The sheeple said “Bahhh” and went back to sleep.

    izlamo delenda est …

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