Solar Roads May Not Have a Future, But This Is an Example of Fake News

A colleague asked me for my take on solar roadways, and this article in particular.  I respond:

Well, this is pretty clearly fake news. The solar panels in the entire roadway would have only powered a water fountain?  (Must be quite a water fountain.) Half of them were dead on arrival?  (In an industry that has a DOA rate of a tiny fraction of 1%?)  It’s reminiscent of the people who say solar and wind “don’t work,” to which I respond, “You may want to look out your window next time you get in a car. You’ll see some of the 82 GW of wind and 40 GW of solar that are installed in the US alone, working just fine as we speak.”

Having said that, I don’t think there is a huge future for solar roads (though the shot above was taken recently in Normandy, France).  I base this on how cheap ground mounts are, and how easy it is to install solar in areas where the real estate is practically worthless.

Why people make up ridiculous BS and spout it out as truth is beyond me.  I mean, it’s not as if we have any role models for such behavior in world leadership today, right?  🙂