Solar PV on Our Roadways?

What if we covered our roadways with solar PV?

As this article suggests, there is no reason in theory that this can’t be done, since, apparently, durability isn’t an issue.  And obviously, there is a lot to like about the idea, especially that it’s a fabulous use of already-dedicated public space, i.e., there are plenty of roads in sunny climates that would make excellent candidates for such an enterprise. Also, as noted in the caption under the photo here, they claim to keep themselves free of snow, though, when you think about it, this can’t possibly be true.  What happens when they get two feet of snow between dusk and the following dawn?

That, of course, is a nit.  I would suggest that the author, Douglas Elbinger, needs to focus on two major areas: 

• Affordability:  He writes. “What about cost? The production costs of the panels are not yet known, but if estimates of the electricity generated were close to accurate, they would pay for themselves.”  Sorry, but this is a bit too cavalier.  Obviously they’ll pay for themselves if we’re prepared to wait long enough, but that has no real meaning/value.

• Political feasibility.  The people who build and maintain our roads (in the public sector) aren’t the same people who generate, transmit, and distribute our electricity (largely investor-owned utilities); they don’t have even the remotest connection to one another.  Pulling this off would require a wholesale restructuring of both our transportation and our energy industries.  The onus is on the author to suggest how this is even vaguely possible – considering that we live in a country that still can’t figure out how to provide medical treatment to its wounded soldiers when they return from war.