Blast into the Future: Alternative energy is revolutionizing the world. Solar collectors are everywhere and everything: they are home pathways, roof shingles, parking lots, roads, supermarket pavements, airport tarmacs…
Roads and parking lots as solar collectors? Is that the newest revolutionary innovation since the term “alternative energy”? Capturing solar energy from pavements has been perfected for years now.
Researchers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute will unveil Tuesday, August 19, 2008 the findings of a research project on the concept of using the heat absorbed by pavements. Rajib Mallick, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, who was the team leader will hail the achievement as “revolutionary”.
By using the heat from asphalt, the researchers have developed a solar collector that could turn roads and parking lots into invisible and cheap sources of electricity and hot water.
The research team will prove that asphalt has a lot of advantages as a solar collector. It is known that the blacktop stays hot and could continue to generate energy after the sun goes down, unlike traditional solar-electric cells. In addition, there is already a massive acreage of installed roads and parking lots that could be retrofitted for energy generation, so there will be no need to find additional land for solar farms.
Because roads and parking lots are typically resurfaced every 10 to 12 years, it will be ideal for retrofits to be built into that cycle, while cooling the asphalt surfaces by the heat extraction process without any visibility.
The team believes the key to successfully turning asphalt into an effective energy generator will include a specially designed, highly efficient heat exchanger that soaks up the maximum amount of the heat absorbed by asphalt to create a potentially important future source of renewable, pollution-free energy.
Mallick worked on the project with Bao-Liang Chen, a PhD candidate at WPI, and Sankha Bhowmick, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth.
They will present a paper, Capturing Solar Energy from Asphalt Pavements, showcasing the revolutionary energy capture methods before the International Society for Asphalt Pavements (ISAP) symposium on Asphalt Pavements and Environment between August 18th and 20th, 2008 in Zürich, Switzerland.
Image credit: Striatic at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
Asphault as a heat collector.
Please don’t focus on heating water. How much heating hot water do you need?
I think the concept is brilliant. But the asphault heat gets just so hot.
The question is how do you create energy from moderate heat sources versus intense heat sources.
The 175+ degree heat from engines. The 160 degree heat from asphault. The 140 degree heat from attics.
Solve that problem for any of these and you will solve them for all.
The practise of using asphalt roads passing through the rural areas for drying crops has been in vogue from a long time in India,much to the chagrin of motor vehicle drivers
I read recently about a co-generation product that is able to generate electricity with lower temps like these. I’ve searched all over looking for that article again but haven’t found it. Any one know about this?
they could use a massive Stirling engine it can do work on even the lower heats. it has a very high thermal efficiency and uses heat as its energy. but that might cost allot of money to build on larger scales.
Yes every sustainable and environmentally friendly source of energy has to be a distinct plus – we have really and collectively not been really serious about exploring more enlightened options.
That has to change!
There are many alternative ways of producing renewable and/or clean energy. Important thing is not my or other peoples’ thoughts, but the VIPs’.
G-8 leaders decided to decrease CO2 emissions 50% until 2050. That means they are very happy with the fossil fuel economy and warming climate, which will supply more fossil fuel sources at the north pole.
A simple use of under pavement piping is water for a heat pump as this would be cheaper than digging a well.
Another use is a water heater but this will take more controls and storage than conventional solar water heaters.
Propylene glycol is used in some solar collectors. It is also used in some ground-source heat pumps. You can Google to get more information on this.
I also commend an article Heat from the Street that appeared in the Economist. If you have a place to store heated water, you can use it to heat space and to heat the asphalt and melt snow in the winter. You reverse it in summer, to cool space and cool the asphalt. Asphalt degrades if it gets too hot and you drive on it, so this is a maintenance plan as well.