The Kony 2012 of Roads - Solar Freakin' Roadways
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2022
- pizzamas.com I think we sometimes get stuck thinking that the only worthwhile solutions are the solutions that solve everything all at once. Certainly that's very exciting, and it would be very cool if we could get some of those for, like, transportation and medicine and democracy, but instead, it's mostly a bunch of work of lots of individuals doing small things that ends up making the world better. I get very skeptical when big simple solutions are proposed to me, and I think you should as well.
A lot of people have done great work showing that solar roads are a bad idea. This video actually came out DURING the 2014 campaign, which is amazing: • EEVblog #632 - Solar R...
And the same guy took a (maybe a bit excessively gleeful!) look at the failure of a large-scale installation in france: • EEVblog #1233 - The De...
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Great video hank except for how you forgot to link to PIZZAMAS.COM, the world's leading (and only) source for Pizzamas-related clothing, Nalgene bottles, floor rugs, football jerseys, and more. Everything at pizzamas.com is available only during this year's pizzamas, so don't wait! -John
Such a non-Pizzamas Pizzamas video lol
Also, I love how at the end he's clearly mouthing "see you on Tuesday" but it's dubbed "see you tomorrow" - old habits are hard to break!
Edit: Oh, and the subject of the video was super interesting, thanks!
Hank’s a busy guy so he definitely used this back pocket video for a pizzamas video. Still a great one 😂
@@JBeAIRocK interesting theory but what about the pizzamas shirt 🧐
Society is in a deep deficit of trust, and that issue is perhaps even more pressing than Climate Change. As you point out, without trust, there is no collaboration, and therefore no solutions.
I want to agree with you about why solar roadways is "fine" but after watching Thunderf00t obliterate their nonsense the fact is that that's money and time and effort that could be put into so many other potential things that could benefit humanity that aren't because people can't see the fundamental problem with it. If they want to continue on their own time and dime then that's fine but they shouldn't be allowed to take tax dollars and should be subject to accountability measures should they over promise and under-deliver to people who invest in them like any other business venture. It's at this point the free market should decide. And if they're not getting public tax dollars that could be going to taking care of homeless and sick people, then that's fine.
I happened to be working at the California Energy Commission at that time, in the R&D department. Some teacher in some town in CA, bless her heart, had her entire class each write a short paper about why they thought Solar Freakin Roadways was or was not a good idea. And then she sent it to the CEC and it landed on my desk somehow. I had a blast reading all those papers and writing a beautiful letter back to the class for the teacher to read. I referred to lots of the individual students and the ideas they had, made movie references, and just generally had fun and wasted lots of California taxpayer dollars working on it haha. Somehow what I wrote made it up to my superiors and I received a commendation from the head of our whole department, who I'd never even met. I never heard back from the teacher but I hope she read it to her class. I disliked that job, but my best memory of it was that stack of class papers about solar freakin roadways.
Thats really neat! I think it prolly meant a lot to them that you wrote back!
Sounds like a fun assignment for both you and the students, I don't think writing a well-crafted letter back to the students was a waste of time. I hope they read it and took some time to dwell on it.
This sounds like the opposite of wasting tax payers money. I hope that teacher did read your letter.
@@duckqueak thank you! I hope so.
@@AlbertTao I meant that mostly as a joke. Thank you :) I don't think it was a waste.
"Big, simple solutions are very rare because everything is very complicated. Soap may have been the last big simple solution." Wow Hank, way to frame it!
When you look at as a chemical engineering problem, soap is actually fairly complex. It only looks simple because scientists and engineers have been working on it for so long that we worked out most of the serious kinks.
@@przemekkozlowski7835 The first version of it was actually a simple observation that no doubt happened by accident. People had learned long ago that wood ash helped to clean your clothing.
I think velcro is a pretty simple one that is pretty broad too. And arguably, the Internet is pretty simple, and solved a lot of problems.
@@Muskar2 the internet caused many more problems. The internet is not simple and saying it solved problems without mentioning the plethora of created problems is well........
@@Muskar2 You missed out duck-tape.
I love how your list points out that the chance of machinery driving over your roof is low, but not zero
I saw this video pop up in my sidebar and I thought UA-cam was feeding me up 8 year old videos again, but nope, a double check of the publish date bought me here!
I practically made a full time UA-cam career out of debunking solar roadways, it's a grift that keeps on giving, rinse and repeat. Glad to hear our good friends the Brusaw's are still milking that spherical cash cow!
I was hoping to see one of you two post.
Scams that worked in the 1950s are still be used today. I don't think solar roadways is going away any time soon. Sadly ignorant voters will elect ignorant politicians who will waste the public's money on scams.
I remember thunderf00t making videos on this as well
@@silentkarma yep that's the other one who I was thinking of. Is he still around?
@@markquintonii Yup, he's making a career out of debunking Musk now and it's a full time job with the amount of insane codswallop he gets into.
I remember feeling sad/guilty I was too poor to donate to the Kony thing. Then when all the “wait what is this actually?” news about it broke I was relieved. I still couldn’t say for certain what happened during that bizarre time. 😅
It was so weird...
Check out the Internet Historian video about Kony 2012 if you want more details on what exactly happened.
I feel like we need more bold, weird attempts to solve things. I just wish it didn't end up draining hope and enthusiasm when the majority of them inevitably fail to live up to expectations. Of course, the need for everything to turn a profit makes that more or less inevitable, because hype almost always sells better than reality.
I remember I did a presentation on the whole fiasco in high school in 2013 but I couldn’t tell you any of the points I hit on in it
And before Kony, there were the kidnapped schoolgirls of Mali and the genocide in Darfur
Solar Roadways was such a great-sounding idea and I was so disappointed with how bad the actual plan was. It was a solid lesson in tempering hope with reality and still not being jaded all the time.
I worry that social media makes it too easy to get hyped up in bubbles, and avoid having to reflect on why yesterday's hyped-up thing didn't succeed. Kony 2012 was such a big thing, but today, would anyone remember it after a week?
Anyone with any vague foundation in STEM could spot this was a scam right away. Sadly as Sagan said, we live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. Of course since solar roadways we've seen an ever increasing number of scam tech fundraisers.
+
A useful thing to keep in mind when prospective technological wonders are discussed is "AM/FM" - Actual Machines versus Fucking Magic. Musk's infrastructure ideas are prime examples of the latter.
@@brandonthesteele great point
Awesome video Hank! Also, nice dub over your usual “I’ll see you on Tuesday”😂
I'm surprised I had to scroll down 9 comments to see this, lol.
I was like, "Am I really gonna set my camera up again??" and then I was like, "No...I am not."
Y'know until someone said something I almost didn't catch that 😂
Moments like these are what the 0.25 Playback speed option were made for😂
Exactly what I came here to say. For a brief moment I thought I was having a stroke.
A big part of maturing is realizing "the more I know, the less I know".
In other words, a deeper understanding usually helps me realize how little I actually know about any subject. Once this becomes foundational, it changes the initial reaction to any new topic - I know that I don't know.
If I want to form an opinion, it is time to deep dive and discover who the actual experts are on that topic. You are one of those who I know does that research and shares resources. THANK YOU!!!!
this is super important
Eh, I don't think it's a big part. As an autist who understood from kindergarten that I knew exceedingly little and never would be able to learn even a percent of all human knowledge, I was absolutely not mature. Just depressed [Edit: because I was already way behind my peers, they appeared to know a lot of things that I did not comprehend. Hyperlexia isn't worth much when you keep failing at basic human knowledge even kids younger than you appear to magically know].
Yes, knowledge is like a bubble. The bigger it is the more outside surface area it has. If you don't know about radio and directional antennas, you won't wonder why it is that when you point a directional antenna at empty sky, you receive noise.
Knowing enough that you realize you know close to nothing is a very valuable, and rare skill on the internet.
Here everyone has an opinion on everything, especially the things they know the least about, because they heard their favorite e-celebrity say something about it, and they never looked any deeper.
Why I spend 90% of my free time just learning new junk I will likely never need but may be cool to know in the future for reference. Do I know everything? No, but at least I have a diverse portfolio. Just love cramming info in my brain. I'd say my worst subject though is still chemistry. Never took the class in school and just seeing videos of it the results just seem utterly sporadic. One day. Maybe...
I donated to the Solar Roadways Indiegogo (it seemed cool!!) and I've never been angrier in my entire life than experiencing Kony 2012 on Tumblr so this video is for me
In fairness, they didn't raise /that/ much and they seem to have used it very efficiently to develop the products they wanted to develop!
I do not blame the conned for being conned but those who played the con
@@vlogbrothers phew that makes me feel better!
I also donated to their campaign and still get the occasional update. Even if their idea can't be the big simple solution, I'm glad they're still at it and contributing how they can.
@@marvintpandroid2213 I don't even think it was a con. It was an idea that they were excited about, even though it wasn't as revolutionary as people hoped it would be. But it's not like the company took the money and ran off; they're clearly still working on it. If it never succeeds at becoming what they hoped it would be, it's still a cool idea and a neat thing to make 🤷🏼♂️
The connection between conspiracy theories and the lack of one’s trust in an expert’s expertise is so intriguing to me. It must be so isolating and hopeless to feel like you can’t trust anyone to do anything to make society better. In fact, I’m pretty sure I read a John Green tweet about this.
And the pipeline from person scamming people with snake oils to people needing to believe in conspiracies and then believing more scammers (and back and forth and back and forth) is really interesting to me.
Yes, it really does put it into perspective. That probably is the initial impulse for a lot of people.
Why is there no cure for cancer? If you think it’s a singular problem and that we have all the tools needed to solve it then you’ll think that the powers that be are suppressing the cure. If you understand that each type of cancer is different and requires different approaches, and that we’ve made huge progress with some but not others then it makes more sense.
@@vlogbrothers capitalism:D
@@vlogbrothers It's like economic cycles, it trends toward a better situation in the long term, but those low points along the way make you want to say, 'you have to be f'n kidding me, right?'.
@@FrancisKoczur The fact we are still looking for the bottom of the current ditch doesn't help matters either. It feels like nothing had happened for a decade and the last 2 years have been the 7 plagues of Egypt.
I've been making a playlist of Vlogbrothers videos about media literacy (most of them, it feels), but this touches on more subjects than any other. A case study about progress, innovation, hope, enthusiasm, trust, cynicism, online discourse, expertise, diversity, complexity... all under four minutes! This is a lot to take in. Hank, you say that nobody can be an expert in everything, but you sure know how to make it look easy.
I don’t know if you’re already aware of this, but John hosts a great Crash Course miniseries on navigating digital information. I thought it was really informative (plus I miss seeing John host Crash Course)
Thanks! I worked on this script for like 4 months.
I love this community
Is there a way to see your playlist? I’d love to binge that XD
@@connierobinson1090 +
Making a road that is also a solar panel is like making a submarine that is also a high-altitude helicopter.
That sounds awesome. But make it an aircraft. Like in sci-fi.
What’s the difference? They’re both pressure insulated? They both have propellers? I see no problems
@@Iselo45 Problem one: A submarine is sealed against pressures pushing *inward,* with some very thick and heavy metal, using water buoyancy to support all that weight. A high-altitude helicopter needs to be lightweight, and thus sealed against pressures pushing *outward* with as little metal as physically possible.
It isn't necessarily physically impossible to build a thing that can function as both, but you can make *either* a submarine *or* a high-altitude helicopter that is far better, far cheaper, and far more useful than a thing that is both of those things at the same time.
@@Woodledude i was making a joke, they’re obviously not the same, about how people focus on irrelevant details, but thanks
And you could do that! That's absolutely a thing that you could build. But WHY would you build that? Why do those two good things have to be the SAME thing? By the way, this is why flying cars don't exist.
I was about to go to sleep, but with a video title like that... It's not possible to sleep without knowing more
Pizza Hank always delivers
I don’t care WHERE the solar panels are I just want MORE SOLAR PANELS (but…maybe they shouldn’t be roads)
Amen to that!
A similar sounding but much better plan is to cover all our large parking lots with panels overhead that also serve as shade. This is one to get excited about.
@@Zakmmr As an Arizonan, PLEASE.
Agreed. I think there's a place that put elevated solar panels in the highway medium and put a biking path underneath the panels. None of the obvious wear-and-tear problems of solar roadways and still has a nice side benefit.
@@Zakmmr That would be loads better than replacing the asphalt with solar panels. Less wear and tear on the panels, better traction in the parking lot, shade in the summer, keeps snow from piling up on windshields in the winter (in places where it snows)...
Did anyone else notice that Hank voice-recorded over the end where he said, "John, I'll see you on Tuesday"?
Also thanks, Hank, for pointing out that big simple solutions that fix everything very rarely exist, while still giving us hope that we *can* solve problems by working together.
Thank you! I'm a transportation planner and people are always proposing what they think is a silver bullet. Travel is a super personal thing that people experience every day. They think about their own commute and seldom do they think about the system, so they 'game' their trip, knowing the traffic signals they use all the time, taking that street instead, getting on this particular train car, traveling backwards one station to get a seat. This makes them think that they understand the complexity when their understanding is limited to a very narrow set of circumstances. There's a whole contingent of people out there who refuse to believe in induced demand because they can't wrap their heads around it, and they believe we just need more lanes or a freaking hyperloop. It's never the simple answer that will address every complex problem in a complex system. Again thank you for saying this!
There is a Farscape episode that is a send-up of Dog Day Afternoon in which a hapless and frustrated alien thief whose efforts to rob a simple space cafe are thwarted in increasingly unexpected ways. Finally, he/it bemoans loudly "WHY SO COMPLICATED?!" And I tell you, Hank, that most days I have this clip running through my head at least three or four times.
Still can't believe that was Ben Mendelsohn.
Why so DIFFICULT
ua-cam.com/video/xdeRF-JiF7E/v-deo.html
This reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer tries (and fails) to build a backyard BBQ pit. Frustrated, he yells "Why must... life be... so... hard‽" while beating his creation with one of the pipes that was supposed to be part of it.
I have no idea what you refer to but that sounds extremely relevant to, like, everything.
Happy Pizzamas, everyone! It’s my first as a nerdfighter and I and so grateful to all of you for creating such an amazing community 💗😃🍕👨🏻
Happy Pizzamas friend!! :D
Happy pizzamas :))))
Happy first pizzamas, and if no one has said it (officially) yet: Welcome to nerdfighteria! We're glad you're here.
Happy Pizzamas! 🍕
Welcome, and Happy Pizzamas. I suspect you've always been a nerdfighter, but didn't know there was a community of us. Have you been practicing the "salute"? 😉
The original Solar Freakin' Roadways has lived rent-free in my head since the day it was released. That said, while I understand the reasoning that makes it a terribly inefficient idea for widespread use, the thing that always really stuck with me as cool is the self-sustaining LED-under-walkable-surface thing is super neat. Glad to see the team is still at it.
Yeah, it is a cool concept, and like Hank said, it still has a market. But the reality is that it could never work as a solution to our infrastructure issues.
THANK YOU. I'm an actual road engineer with an actual science degree and I was willing to fight anyone on this subject. The most important function of a roadway is its function as a STRUCTURE. It needs to be strong enough to hold up vehicles, including 40-ton trucks. It needs to distribute the load. Solar roadways are such a farse. It's a wildly impractical idea for so many reasons.
I literally just found my Kony 2012 hoodie again. Bought it as part of a fundraiser in Highschool and wore it all four years (not so much cause I believed in it but cause it was a comfy jacket and I liked the color red) Its weird that this is all coming back around now.
The issues of trust between those who know and those who don't know are very interesting. Your recomendation of the book "high conflict" helped me do better at listening to people who "don't know" and understand that for a lot of things, "I don't know either".
"...the big problems aren't there because evil people create them. They are there because eight billion people living together on a single planet is difficult."
This is going to be a quote that sticks with me, maybe forever. It's extremely good. Thank you Hank. Thank you for the countless pieces of wisdom you and John have given me over the years that have shaped my worldview for the better.
I don't know if I agree with this quote. It's true sometimes. But like, why don't we have universal Healthcare coverage in America. Mainly because it's making some people, who I'd lable as evil, very rich. Same goes for oil and gas magnates.
@@brainbandaid5802 i'd agree with ”not all the big problems [rest of the quote]"
@@nuklearboysymbiote I do love Hank’s optimism but I agree with this edit much, much more. It is objectively true that some of the biggest problems we have were created by evil people, and it is also true that those problems are exacerbated by a large population (and, of course, there are also many fantastic people part of that population as well!)
@@brainbandaid5802 Another example is white nationalism and systemic racism, those were very intentionally created, and are so maliciously persistent that many of it's effects and policies continue even without active support. (Although there are groups who fight hard to preserve/expand it.)
@@brainbandaid5802 The actual reason is that the majority of Americans vote against things like Universal Healthcare in the U.S.
Same reason why there is no affordable housing: Because the majority of Americans always vote in favour of single-family housing.
No evil plot. Just democracy.
I remember talking with my college roommate about how terrible the solar roadways idea was and how badly she wanted it to be feasible because, like you said, it purports to solve a problem. Such a weird case of everyone getting too excited about something to care if it sucks
Hank, did you initially say “John, I’ll see you on Tuesday,” and then dub over “John, I’ll see you tomorrow”?
I have thought of that 2014 way more times than I care to admit in the last eight years, so I am both excited and relieved to have this video. THANK YOU, HANK!!
Man, the Kony 2012 people came to my highschool in like 2010 with their Invisible Children project and I was soooo bought in. I got the bracelet and the DVD which was supposed to help raise money for destroyed Ugandan schools..
For what it’s worth, Invisible Children is still a legitimate organization working in Uganda. In 2014 they completely pivoted away from their North American outreach/products/dvd model and focus on local work with local employees. The money did build schools, and assist with reunification, and arguably their most impactful thing is the Early Warning radio network. I was in one of their college groups in 2010 and got emails for awhile.
I LITERALLY HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT SOLAR ROADWAYS FOR THE PAST 8 YEARS STRAIGHT IT HAS OCCUPIED A PLACE IN MY BRAIN THANK YOU FOR PUTTING THIS TO REST
Is it just me or did Hank's mouth say "Tuesday" at the end of the video? 😅
1:33 - 2:10 is the most concise version of a thought I've had so frequently lately. Thanks for laying it out so clearly. Sometimes you just need to be okay with sitting back and trusting that the experts who know way more than you are working on something. 99.99% chance they already know about and are working on fixing/ working around the problem you see.
Shout out to all the city planners doing awesome work out there! My mom is a transportation manager(aka boss ladies making cities better). She works so hard, and they do a lot of cool projects I’m not sure most people hear about. Like they were working on a project to allow traffic signals to sense an emergency vehicle coming and change accordingly to increase efficiency and overall safety. They are seriously superheroes that are there but never talked about.
well, there are youtubers dedicated to improving cities. There are civil engineers on youtube.
Most amazingly, you find City Skyline players that use real world arguments to solve problems of a virtual city.
Or they complain about the stupidity of drivers in game - wait until they are on the road on learn how the reality on the road is and how collectively stupid people are (or how smart city planners are by planning out the lanes so that you feel like magically guided to the right lane)
There is real magic happening here on youtube - I am looking forward to generations of city planners that grew up on city skylines that intuitively know that mixed-mode transportation and mixed zoning is a solution to traffic, while add one more line is not. Oh yeah, people do not like noise in the neighborhood - but who cares about the clanking of a car workshop next door, when you work there?
Integrating emergency vehicles and traffic control tech is a very cool idea
learning about the complexity in seemingly mundane things has made me appreciate regular everyday life a lot more than i used to
Can I just say I respect the hell out of Hank for releasing consistent quality videos of very very short length while still saying everything he needs to say! A lesser youtuber would have dragged this subject out for 30 minutes while saying essentially the exact same things
Algorithm-pleasing and potential for ad revenue are big reasons other youtubers would tend to go for the longer video, so I wouldn't say 'lesser'. John and Hank are lucky since they had established names before these kind of big changes to the platform, they can still be successful with the short videos
I was literally talking about Solar Roadways with a friend just last night. I do miss the hope it gave me for the future when I was a teenager. Despite the "pain of knowledge" that comes with actually solving complex problems like those, it brings me hope in my adulthood to know that progress still does happen, albeit slower and less sensational.
The nice thing is that most of the problems that solar roads were meant to solve are actually solvable problems. They just will be solved by applying a lot of complex solutions rather than by applying one simple one.
@@johnathangeorge1109 i think ironically that solar freaking roadways existed because it was more complex than the actually solution.
@@stephenrowley4171 It was appealing because it was an 'elegant' solution. You solved multiple problems at once in a way that seems 'logical'. The problem with the usual 'elegant' solutions is that they tend to assume conditions that are not realistic in a wider application. When you get into the real world, you find that you have to tweak parts of the project to correct for things you did not predict and this tends to un-fix the other issues your solution was supposed to fix as well. In engineering true elegant solutions are the product of dozens or hundreds of previous iterations.
The thing to remember is that it really was just a scam you got fooled by in your youth. Solar panels up on roofs are a great idea. One of the problems you would like to solve, at least, seems to have a solution.
@@stephenrowley4171 in actual implementation it would have been extremely complicated, but the concept seemed simple to lots of people.
I love hearing “John/Hank I’ll see you tomorrow”, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.
I’ve always been a pretty cynical person, so you have been an invaluable resource to me Hank. Giving realistic breakdowns of problems that I all to often feel will overwhelm us inevitably, reminds me that even if pessimism is realism (big if), it doesn’t help a pessimist to give up, it helps them to push on anyway. T
hank you for being a voice of reason that doesn’t strive to sugarcoat, but to educate. To bring everyone together in the fight for a slightly better world.
Thank you Hank and John for all the brilliant work you do to help me escape despair and hope and strive for improvement and change.
(I never thought solar roads were a good idea, this video has just reminded me of many others you’ve made.)
seeing this unlocked a part of my brain that I had forgotten. I vividly remember this video being like EVERYWHERE.
EVERYWHERE
The fact that they're still at it all these years out makes me think they were approaching the project in better faith than we collectively give them credit for. If it was truely a con, then I think they would have taken the windfall of cash and just closed up shop but, they're still spending that money on the project to try and make something work. Then again, I don't know them, I don't know what they really think or feel about the project, I'm just speculating with hopeful naivety.
What does the birth of our lord and savior Jesus Christ have to do with it??
@@hypovisor LOL auto correct. 🤣
I think they were trying to generate hype and income to *attempt* solving some of the problems they claimed solar roadways could solve, and for whatever reason, their campaign became one that the internet latched on to and ran with as though it was already accepted fact. "We have a ton of paved space, is there a way to use it better?" is a reasonable and totally great place to start brainstorming, but their campaign jumped from that question, which was where they were really still at, to "there is!" and then all the way to "and it solves everything!" and that was never going to end well.
They have a factory in Dayton, a DoD contract, and have done a ton of testing and iteration. I'm actually pretty disappointed with how Hank presented the whole thing, especially since the Solar Freakin' Roadways video was made by a volunteer, not the actual company. The company never promised to solve all these problems, but the video had such hype that, why wouldn't they attach it to their campaign?
Nope it's still a con. Grifters grift that's all they know how to do so they keep on grifting until they can't make any more money on that grift. And unfortunately they keep getting money from people in small governments who buy into the grift.
In 2016 I was watching several electrical engineers rip apart the claims about solar roadways, they even brought up a solar bike path in the Netherlands and all the problems that had that would plague solar roadways too. I was also really excited about it when I first heard about it too.
Love this! As someone who started working with state departments of transportation in the past few years, I can attest to the fact that the average person has no idea how complicated roadways and their maintenance are.
loved the Sawbones reference Hank
I love that I became a hard core fan of both of you this year and just discovered that Pizzamas (which I’m loving) is the week of my birthday!!!!! (29 September) Thanks! For everything ❤🎉❤🎉❤
I like how this video is a subtle way of saying, if you are not a expert, just lets people do their job, which I am completely in agreement with
It’s very difficult to see the complexity in a lot of seemingly simple things, especially if you don’t think too hard :/ which is exactly what you’re saying here
I'm really glad you've mentioned that they're still doing some good and making some small progress. Some progress is better than none.
No, they are not doing some good. They are a waste of time, money, and effort and are a complete scam. If you put solar panels on the roof, they make a lot more power at a much lower cost. When all the roofs nearby have solar panels, the local price of electricity will fall to the lower cost they allow for. This means that the solar roadway will always cost more than it is worth.
Now I see one of the reasons you want to talk to Pete. Besides being DOT Secretary,he has a whole book on how trust is foundational to most of the problems we have as a society. This would be a great conversation. I hope he takes you up on it.
I was in 4th grade when this idea came out, and we did an explorevision project on it. And BOY did I think it was going to change the world.
I remember seeing the solar roadways and being very excited. It just seemed so perfect.
To me it seemed so unlikely right up front. I am the sort that looks for problems to fix and then wants to fix them. On solar roadways I saw problems that I couldn't see any path towards fixing. One of them I will mention just to explain what I mean. Solar panels on roofs will be cheaper than ones on the road. When a lot of people install solar panels, the price of electrical power when the sun is out will fall to the cost of producing it which will be driven by the cheaper roof top systems. This is where I said "nope"
I still have and use my Solar Roadways mug. I don’t think I ever thought it could be everything they said (I figured it would not work in my Northern BC climate, for example) but I did think they’d be using it more in places and ways it can be used than they are now. But really what I think I rewarded with my little bit of money was the novel and effective way they got their message out. Of course we don’t want scientists and organizations to way overpromise, but there might be something to learn about reaching people and motivating them from the Solar Freaking Roadways campaign. (And it’s a good mug.)
The people behind Solar Roadways were in no way scientists.
I was more excited about putting utilities under the roads, than glass roadways. That and the ability to replace tiles of road, rather than wait 5 years to repave.
For some reason I now want a solar freakin roadways mug
Ugh this is such a good video. You guys do more to point out the sheer complexity of the world to people who really need to hear about it... than anyone else
Watching and listening to this video is amazing. I love that you're talking about solar roadways, and so much more at the same time. Thank you for reminding us how complex and complicated things require collaboration.
“Big problems aren’t there because evil people create them”
Laughs in Robert Moses
more power than the US uses?? that's wild
Hank, I'm constantly blown away by your ability to contextualize the human knowledgebase of subjects. It's such an important thing to be able to do. I'm going to memorize the part where you say "the division of expertise is the #1 thing that makes societies work, but that stops working when there is no trust."
This was a wonderful video that talks about something I see all the time yet not a lot of people do. Thank you.
i remember hearing about solar roadways when i was in middle school and wondered what happened to em, but thinking about it now the shortcomings of this design seem glaringly obvious
Since 2014 I've occasionally thought back to that solar freakin roadway idea and thought 'why did that never take off? That idea is amazing!'. Thank you Hank for showing me how naive I am
They're still being worked on and still getting grants and passing tests from the Federal Highway Administration and Department of Transportation. They're taking a long time, so I wouldn't count them out yet. They may not solve every problem they claim to be able to solve, but a lot of the criticism has been addressed (like not having traction and such, they passed traction tests). I wouldn't count them out, or expect them to "take off", any time soon. It's going to be a long process.
@@GoeTeeks The problem is, the basic fundamental premise (a solar panel you can drive on) is still not a good idea. You can, and always will, get better results by building a road and then building conventional solar panels next to or over it. "A Road" is a fundamentally bad place to put a solar panel.
"what this relies on is people not understanding how complex something that seems simple is" rocked my work thank u hank
hank you, if you will
It's been so long since I thought about Kony 2012. I dug back through my tumblr archive to try to find the posts I know I reblogged about it. Turns out they were yours and John's! Definitely one of the moments that taught me to be suspicious of my own ignorance.
My English (as a second language) teacher asked us to write down what we thought about Kony 2012.
A day later, the video of the guy running naked in San Diego went viral.
I've been following the Solar Roadways project since the campaign. It's still very much a thing, just quietly chugging along (as Hank noted). For one, that promotional video wasn't produced by the Solar Roadways company. It was a fan hype which they admittedly used but definitely an over estimation of the capabilities. That said the Solar Roadways team has been hard at work, has FCC approval, and continues forward. They had a rough bump in the road recently because one of the co-founders (Scott) had heart surgery last year (you can go read their blog about it). They're investing primarily at this point in doing solar replacements for large concrete areas (think military bases, airport runways, box store parking lots, etc) This might not be a "solve everything" kind of solution but it's pretty incredible how they're moving forward. We should definitely be celebrating small businesses taking on challenges like these. Fair to point out the overhype but don't disparage them. It's good stuff!
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Love the statistic that there is enough road area to generate the energy we need. Gives a sense of scale to the renewables problem.
No, it's still a stupid waste of time and money.
I AM SO GLAD YOU MADE THIS VIDEO. I was totally on the solar roadways train and even still once and a while wondered to myself whatever came of that. And also wondered why we never jumped on what seemed like a perfect solution. Figured it was something like this. But glad I was not the only person still thinking about solar freaking roads lol
These efficient perspective dives into collectively-remembered moments of internet history that also reveal the condition of our society are my absolute favourite.
some pipes and a heat exchanger seems like great idea to put into roads. Simple tech, can be used to melt stuff or collect energy
The thing about roads is that there's so many of them that it's really good if they can be very cheap, and pouring them out of the back of a truck is cheaper than just about anything.
we deal with „big simple“ solutions for the problems that we talk about all the time. tbh, they might be too good to be true but they‘re worth looking into and foremost: they give hope & inspiration in a sometimes dyre world.
Fake hope is net negative
While your looking into it, make sure that it's not a scam like that tesla tunnel Elon Musk made in Vegas.
A decade later, but glad you finally covered it ;) I hope your not running out of content!
Realizing that one size fits all solutions are rarely ever ever feasible or even optimal over the course of my career has made me a far better software engineer. I just wish it hadn't taken me as long to realize as it did.
Thank you for this, I do still think about "solar freaking roadways" every once in a while. For those who are interested in the long list of reasons why they're a terrible idea, Thunderf00t did a really good takedown of them at the time over the course of several videos. He even visited a village square where some demonstration "solar roadway" tiles had been installed in the winter and his footage makes instantly clear all the problems that winter alone would pose to glass roads. Here's an update he did about a year ago: ua-cam.com/video/ff-3MhQ7ri8/v-deo.html
The moment I saw the thumbnail of this video, my instant thought was "THUNDERF000000000T!!!"
I actually think Dave Jones did a much better job on this. He makes actual engineering calculations instead of "we all know that is never going to work".
Yes!
After seeing Hank's video show up recommended to me I thought of Thunderf00t. lol
I saw that video! I will admit that at the time, I was foolishly optimistic and had a couple comment skirmishes over it. I was just so hopeful for all the ideas they could supposedly solve. And being in NY, I really loved the idea of the road melting the snow off of itself while providing solar power. Sorry to the guy I argued with years ago, although you were being a jerk about it the way you debated it.
@@Rob2 don't be a mor0n thunderfoot didn't just say "we all know this is never going to work" there only has to be a few reasons why they are a stupid idea, we don't need to break down every last logistical reason they are dumb. The stupid demo of the "solar roadway" in Idaho was more than enough evidence to how bad of an idea it is.
Hank - I'm an architect and just recently learned about Mitrex panels, which promise solar capture on any facade of a building and are supposedly cost-competitive to a lot of highrise-suitable sidings out there. I struggle to believe it, though, because of the same kind of issues you talk about with solar roadways. But I can't find much out there talking about possible downsides, and it's so new (~2yrs on the market) that there aren't a lot of testimonials. Thoughts??
Check and see if the wiring is included in the cost. Sometimes it's like "This material isn't that expensive" but it also makes installation way more complicated which increases costs. So it's not the material that costs more, but the labor and also potentially other changes that might need to be made to the design.
Just from your description, it would certainly avoid the wear-and-tear problems inherent to solar roadways as people don't tend to drive on the sides of buildings. You also wouldn't have to worry about snow or leaf buildup that can potentially happen with traditional panels. I can also imagine that the cost-competitiveness is based on factoring in the value of the electricity generated (so the initial installation cost may still be much higher).
Now it's probably less efficient in terms of electricity generated per square meter than a rooftop panel installation since they'd spend less of the day in direct sunlight. However it doesn't sound like they'd have the same fundamental problems that solar roadways would.
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@@vlogbrothers The labor definitely pushes up the cost! My team is weighing whether or not we suggest it to our client. It feels like the kind of thing that /should/ be everywhere, but it's hard to get excited about it precisely because it feels too much like a cure-all. Maybe it's just more expensive to install, that would be great - but I also worry about hidden ways that it could fail and be a bad call in retrospect.
@@Traxicus there's also Solar Window out there. A chemist friend of mine worked for them and says their coating is good, but at least 5 years ago they were having trouble scaling it up. If they've fixed that part he says optically it's great, from a chemistry perspective.
I remember excitedly telling my dad about this kickstarter and asking him to donate and he was like "yeah...that sounds like b.s." I owe you one, dad
I don't understand how Hank and John can be so full of insight all the time.
I think Solar Roadways was the first time I experienced what the internet of today would be: getting convinced of an amazing idea, then googling to learn more and coming upon elaborate news features from an actual experts explaining with some exasperation why the idea made no sense and would cause more problems than it would solve
The great thing about the Captain Planet cartoon was that it felt empowering. The terrible things were that it made the problems seem like they are simple, solvable by a small number of people, and caused by explicit action by overtly evil people.
RIP Hans B. Pacejka, the man who dedicated his life to understanding how tires work.
Man. Solar Freakin' Roadways. What a nostalgic time.
10 years later I work in energy policy.
As someone working in local government budgeting who gets asked frequently why different local problems exist, this really hit home. I’m going to use this video so much 🤣
Oh wild, the other day I was just wondering what came of Solar Freakin Roadways lol. I was wondering if it ended up being a big scam, I'd have to look into it more but it sounds like it's not the case if you're willing to shout out what they're up to near the end.
Yeah, I guess "too good to be true" is a universal constant. Honestly on a very small scale I can imagine this technology could be pretty cool on small scales, More power to them if that's what their doing. Thanks for jogging my memory, this is making me wanna do more research on this group!
It's easy to call it a scam because what they were promising was ultimately not possible...but I don't think they knew that. Also the people who make the product didn't make the video. It was a friend of the family who really wanted to support them, I think.
Ultimately, I do think it could be a product that people use...just not for very many things.
Their website is fairly informative. They have more detail on their research and projects than I would have expected.
We watched this in my 6th grade class because my teacher loved showing us cool new videos and every so often "solar freakin roadways" pops into my head and no one ever knows what I'm talking about
The funny thing is, I feel like asphalt itself was a Big Simple Solution to roads. It's relatively cheap and easy to work with and almost 100% reusable. You can grind it up, melt it down and lay it out good as new. It's THE most recycled material in the United States.
But like most Big Simple Solutions that actually work, it's just been around so long that we take it for granted and think we can improve upon it easily.
I remember trying to explain some of the basic problems with solar roadways and being shouted at a whole lot. It's not like I didn't want the idea to work, I just knew it wasn't going to be nearly as simple or effective as it was promoted to be.
Thunderf00t shout out
*gets soul violently ripped back to my mid teens*
love this summary of big solutions usually don't solve as much as promised. makes me think of the failure of the cook stove sector, how people for the past 40 years have been trying to get folks to use a 'universal' improved cook stove. everyone cooks so differently and companies haven't spent enough time learning about the user experience
Thanks for shining some light on this issue because roads definitely don’t get enough of that.
I would like to point out that while yes I'm not naive enough to believe that evil people *create* large problems, I know for a fact they have a hand in keeping those problems around. Saying otherwise would be ignoring obvious greed and lack of power checks. Great video otherwise as always Hank.
Haha it was a good concept, but we can't even finish the roads we've been working on for years 😂
It was a nuclearly terrible concept. At least as pitched.
Yeah, I threw some money at Solar Roadways when they were fundraising. I have been learning since then why it was an infeasible project. I now research more carefully and try to donate where it's effective, but I'll still donate with hope in my heart!
As I've been going through my senior year in college, I've realized that nearly all of the classes I take are basically, "Here's a whole other field that you know nothing about, but here's a taste to see if you like it". And the upper level classes just get to be more specific versions of that. Learning all this stuff has made me less willing to share my knowledge with others in casual conversation because I know I've only just begun to chip the paint on the subject. Specialization is crazy.
First?
Yep! Beat me by 3 seconds 😂
And me
I completely forgot about this!! Thank you for jogging that memory.
Another Vlog brothers video that reinforces why I enjoy John and Hank Green and the community they have created. Thank you Hank, great explanation.
I was thinking about solar roads earlier this week and never got around to figuring out what happened, thanks for doing it for me (while also explaining a fantastic point!)
Love these reminders that most of my favorite creators are friends/fans of each other in a now-a-days-Midnight-in-Paris kind of way (Green brothers, McElroys, (ex)Polygon and Dimension 20/Drop out)
As a research engineer at a fortune 500 I have a different take. I see that the general public have decided that enthusiasm can replace scientific fundamentals. Batteries are a great example, we are limited by the fundamental physics of atoms what we can get out of a battery, yet I look at the headlines for the past decade on innovation in the space and it always comes down to someone saying they see something the experts missed because they had the energy and enthusiasm unlike people who dedicate their lives to the problem.
I talked about these roads the other day and everyone said I was crazy and had no idea what I was talking about. This was validating that other people remember.
honestly really happy to hear that the outcome of solar roadways was "not nearly as good as advertised," rather than "actively bad for the world" or "a scam"
Trust is huge, I think you are 100% right, and that in society, we are lacking a reputable, but still entertaining and engaging organization that can sift through and advocate for innovative ideas that are ready for large scale use, and a public push actually does something. I think CrashCourse could be something close.
It is extremely frustrating knowing there is a problem, there are adequate (if not optimal) solutions, that just aren't being implemented.
The separation of "BREAKING NEW TECHNOLOGY" and "practical, widespread use" seems to be insurmountable.
I am at a trade school learning how to work on wind turbines, and just started a class covering other parts of the renewable energy field, and got shown that exact youtube video for the first time a few days ago. Then I looked it up and saw it has done essentially nothing.
Sorry I guess this is a bit of a rant, but I am very grateful to you for covering this, and see that other people are frustrated with it, but can look at it rationally.
I remember Solar Freaking Roadways but never actually saw the breakdown of why they wouldn't work (didn't look that much into it at the time, just thought it sounded amazing). Thanks for breaking down why they wouldn't work!
I remember this video and wow the internet is a weird place and also reminds me that we had a school wide assembly about Kony 2012. In short, this video made me feel the passage of time.
I know that KONY 2012 came to my high school and that we all went to their presentation, but it's such a fever dream memory at this point....