 |
Use Roads As Solar Energy Collectors
A Dutch company is touting a system that can collect solar energy form a 200 yard stretch of road and a small parking lot. The excess energy goes to heat a 70-unit apartment building in the village of Avenhorn.
A similar system is used in the nearby city of Hoorn; heat stored during the summer from 36,000 square feet of pavement keeps buildings in an industrial park warm in the winter.
These systems use a buried latticework of pipes held in place by a steel grid. Asphalt covers it; its black color makes it the perfect solar heat collector (as anyone who has walked barefoot on asphalt on a summer day knows). As water in the pipes is heated, it is pumped deep under the ground to natural aquifers where it maintains a fairly constant temperature of about 68 F. The heated water can be retrieved months later to keep the road surface ice-free in winter.
Overall, the system saves about fifty percent on heating bills.
A similar system is used on a bridge in Japan.
(Bridge in Japan uses stored summer heat)
This is a closed-conduit system, in which heat-radiating pipes built in the bridge surface and 378 piles (42 rows and 9 columns) embedded 1.5 meters apart into the riverbank are connected through a circulation pump. During daytime in summer, the circulation pump operates automatically as the bridge surface becomes hot, carrying the heat to the underground storage piles. This system warms to 35 degrees Celsius a section of the riverbank measuring 15 meters wide, 64.5 meters long and 23 meters, and maintains the temperature until December for snow melting.
Finally, take a look at the very nicely done sequence of pictures at Invisible Heating Systems, a UK company that installs this passive solar heating system in parking lots.
(Asphalt being applied to UK solar heating road)
Via Use of Asphalt Paved Surfaces for Solar Heat[Slashdot].
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 1/2/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")
Tiny LEDs Developed For Dust-Sized Computers
'They use sparkles to talk to each other...' - Neal Stephenson, 1995.
Seabreacher, H.G. Winter's 1939 Torpoon
'Ken lay full-length in the padded body compartment, his feet resting on the controlling bars of the directional planes, hands on the torpoon's engine levers.' - HG Winters, 1939.
Project Soli Radar Gesture Chip Now FCC Approved
'He waved his hand and the circuit switched abruptly.' - Philip K. Dick, 1955.
Implosion Fabrication Shrinks 3D Objects To Nanoscale
'Carter had watched miniaturization a hundred times...' - Isaac Asimov, 1965.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
Michelin Self-Sealing Tires On Ford's Explorer
'...a seal of compressed plastifoam to save the air.'
Mushroom Eats Plastic, Saves Planet
Fungus Amongus, SaveUs!
Juggalo Face Paint Disrupts Facial Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Mojipic Smart Voice Vehicle Emojis
KITT, what's your response?
Unusual Twist On Woman Dates Robot
'My hearing, vision and awareness went along with that excellent imitation of a young Adonis...'
BrainNet Triple Telepathic Gaming Threat
'In the gloomy half-darkness the three idiots sat babbling.'
AVAS Noisemakers Required For EVs By EU
'...a sound tape to supply the noise of a soi-disant "[internal combustion]" engine...'
Pun Generation Via Neural Nets
'You said you wanted him to be able to distinguish between laugh-power in different gags...'
Blood Battery Robotic Fish
'With one fluid motion, it surged forward, plunged, and was gone.'
Lightyear One Solar-Powered Electric Car (Design By Heinlein)
'It drew its power from six square yards of sunpower screens on its low curved roof.'
'Agression Detectors' Don't Work When Spying On Students
'The professional agitators had also learned how to modulate their voices below the danger level...'
Mining Of Golden Asteroid Foretold In 1898 Science Fiction
'This must be a golden planet—this little asteroid.'
Miners! NASA Wants To License RASSOR Excavator
'The borers had been dismantled and packed away.'
Bee+ Robobee Now With Four Wings
'It was a tiny thing, scarcely more than an inch and a half in length...'
CNSILK Robotic Spider Builder
'We could certainly spin a web right through the Solar System, if we can think of a good use for one.'
Starshade Will Help Space Telescope To Search For Exoplanets
'When it found planetary systems in its field, automatically shifted upon them a higher powered telespectroscope ...'
