In the United States there is a huge network of highways and thoroughfares. You can drive to nearly any destination.
Many of these highways have medians and easements which are basically bare land. Wood lines are cut back and the area bordering the highways have a section of land set aside as imminent domain (lane expansion). In cities, divided highways have collision avoidance barriers which separate the traffic direction. You often see signs and lights built in these areas.

Lately (the last 20 years or so) the lights are powered by small solar collectors on top. They have light sensors which turn on and off the lights according to the daylight hitting the sensor. Landscape lighting works much the same way but on a smaller scale.

As solar energy collection and conversion technology advances, it stands to offer a lo-cost option for electrical power for cities and towns.

In these "dead" parcels of land lining our transportation grid, we could erect high efficiency solar collectors and battery sub-stations. This additional electrical power could then add to current power resources in cities and towns, lowering the cost of electricity for millions.

It wouldn't be hard. Much less expensive than constructing and maintaining road surfaces. Ya dig a trench for the wire cables. You erect a pole and put a solar collector on it. Every so often you install a capacitor and a battery substation.

In cities, where lighting already exists, a full canopy could line the dividers. At my local VA, there has been recent construction of solar panels over parking areas. Electric car charging stations have been installed. It looks pretty cool and very modern and doesn't distract from the aesthetic look of the campus. I think its a brilliant and forward-thinking idea.

If you think about it, there's many areas where solar arrays would not destroy the aesthetics of an area. There's lots of ... 'dead spots' ... which could house solar arrays.

California experienced rolling blackouts. As more people use more electricity, these blackouts will continue to plague us. This is because most electrical grids are dependent on limited sources. With solar array saturation, rolling blackouts could be a thing of the past no matter how much electrical demand.

The technology and resources exist right now to start making this happen.
Communication industries have been switching to fiber optic. They don't lose money from it, they make more. Sure, there's a cost involved with setting it all up but the payoff assures quality service in the future.

If you have a solar home you can sell back your excess power to the electrical company. Why can't cities and town sell back their excess solar power to the electrical company? Not only would it be prudent for the electrical companies it would be for cities and towns, businesses and home owners as well.

What do ya think?

Great, now instead of them charging you $8,000 for a new sign or barrier if you go off the road they will charge you $500,000 for knocking the power out along with the new solar panels. It is a better idea then what they are doing now covering farm fields with solar panels. Like anything it all sounds good just like water power back in the day. But sooner or later there is always some kinda issues involved. Right now the government is giving so much money and tax breaks away that many are taking advantage of it. But when the government is paying for something we all know where that money is coming from. Not the rich, not the poor, but the hard working people trying to make ends meet. It takes materials and energy to make, install, and maintain solar panels and everything else. How many consider this? Maybe the reason they don't want us burning fossil fuels is really because they need it for all the plastic we waste every year. I just recently heard that often times burning wood puts less carbon in the air then to just let it for, and not all forests or trees are really doing as much as people believe. There is plenty of roof and wall space available for solar panels if people really want to do it. And many places are, or use sky lights for light and heat. There is a lot that can be done with out the US government spending $6 trillion on it.

Some very good points.

Just an idea I had while thinking about rural electric car charging stations.

Remember back in the 1960s when people didn't think dumping waste into the rivers was bad? Then that river in Ohio caught fire.

Petrol fueled cars is a problem. Mainly because there's really a lot of internal combustion engines. Electric cars is the future. Hydrogen is to dangerous.

Many people don't realize our electical efficiency is getting better with time.
Things which run on electricity, use less now. Things operate at lower voltages.

If they ever work the kinks out of wireless power transmission, power efficiency will get even better. Less wires, less resistance.

I wasn't figuring on the federal government building the highway grids. I was thinking city, town, county and the people would vote on it. The electric companies could also offer incentives and infrastructure support.

As for the cost of accidents, with self-driving electric cars just charge Tesla. LOL

There are a lot of buildings and dead space which could house solar arrays.
I liked what the VA did.
It looks good and its forward thinking.



An additional benefit is the fact the roofs divert winds from the gulf into the air. Handy in a hurricane prone area.

I remember reading about a scientific test which tested piezoelectric flooring at a mall. Road beds tend to float on the dirt. Road construction has many layers of building materials. It would be cool if someone came up with a way to use piezoelectric in road construction. Traffic itself would generate power. Not sure how that might be done? Might even include railway systems. Ever watch the rails move when a train goes past? Movement is energy, it'd be cool if we could find a way to tap it.

I think every sane person likes the idea
of low cost electricity.

Has a safer way to mine lithium for the batteries,
and Bleu's meds, been developed?

When I was married I lived very rurally and the house had an air source heat pump. It was on 24/7 and it was used to heat a 15 room house including a 30’ kitchen and a 30’ conservatory at a cost of £30 per month (or $42). It was so cheap to run and as it was classed as renewable energy the government paid us £112 (or $158) every quarter so it cost us absolutely nothing to heat the house. We also had solar panels fitted on the roof and that gave us our hot water.

I believe that a lot of new build houses in north of Scotland are now being built with either air source heat pumps or ground source heat pumps.

In the house I’m in now which is a 2 bed house I’m paying £80 (or $113) per month for gas and electricity. That’s some difference.

I have an idea floating around in this weird mind of mine for a far-future energy source. The technology doesn't exist and I'm not sure if it could ever exist but it would change life as we know it.

It has to do with atomic properites of matter. All atoms have electrical energy forces. One such force is electromagnetic force.
The idea I have is to tap the atomic electrical force of atoms so the atoms of a device, power the device.
No more wires, no more batteries, no more power plants, electrical lines or capacitors.

As time marches on, we have been innovating devices to work on lower and lower electrical requirements. When I started wotrking on cars in 1973 the electrical devices were 12 volt standard. Now, many devices in automobiles work on micro voltages. Wires which were 10-12ga are now 18-22ga. The devices are smaller yet still perform the functions they are designed for.
You can see this trend in everyday life, not just automobiles.

Imagine a world where devices have power no matter where they are. They don't get hot. They never run out of charge. How small could a cell phone get without batteries and power circuts? Imagine going camping and taking your oven, stove and fridge with you.

Add in advanced nanotechnology and you could have nearly anything which works anywhere. Add in advanced solar panel technology and every roof, wall and window could power your factory.

Granted, far-future and possibly an impossible idea but imagination drives invention and innovation. Such an invention would be bigger than the discovery of fire or the wheel.

The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to use.
Of all the types of civilization levels in the Kardashev scale none of them mention a civilization able to tap the power of atomic force.
The highest level is a civilization which can tap the power of the Universe but tapping the electromotive force of an atom is tapping the power of the Universe and no extreme measures need to be used besides advanced physics. It could be done right here on this planet.

MIT came up with something.

http://scitechdaily.com/mit-engineers-have-discovered-a-completely-new-way-of-generating-electricity/

Interesting find RockGnome.

A new material made from carbon nanotubes can generate electricity by scavenging energy from its environment.

This is the same mechanism which makes a lead-acid (car) battery work.


It is not, only the materials used is new.


The thing about carbon nanotubes is the fact they have to be manufactured and the manufacturing process is expensive and complicated.
I remember reading an article on Space Elevators which proposed using carbon nanotube lattices to construct the ribbon. The problem wasn't the nanotubes themselves but the nanotube manufacturing process for such a large number of nanotubes.
Nanotubes are tiny, like buckyballs.
To build large structures takes a lot of nanotubes because they need to be woven to create structures.
Each nanotube is a single molecule composed of millions of atoms and the length of this molecule can be tens of micrometers long with diameters as small as 0.7 nm


Now. look at how a lead acid battery is constructed and causes electrolysis.






The most significant factor in this process.

Strano’s lab has already begun building robots at that scale

One significant road block to nano construction is the fact we do not have the ability to manufacture nano assemblers and disassemblers. We also have no way to manufacture their control mechanisms (atom-sized nano computers). Without the control computers nanobots could self-replicate using all available atoms. This could result in the dreaded 'grey goo' scenario.

From this article I do see a limited application for this. Along with modern micro-voltage devices, a 'packed bed reactor' could be attached to any mechanical micro structure as a continuous power supply. A plus for any small device requiring small electrical supplies. It could be incorporated into the electronic circuit boards of computers.
Its not going to run your fridge in the desert.
You're not going to cook food with it using your electric oven.
Its not going to power cities.

What makes this invention interesting to me is...
It could possibly be the first 'baby steps' to the atom powered devices I suggested in an earlier reply. However, in my suggestion, no additional devices need to be used to power the devices because they are powered by the atoms which make up the device itself.


I find it comforting to know science is already on the job of finding new and improved energy solutions.

Other interesting papers and studies based on nanotechnology for electrical energy production:
Electrical Power Generation from Wet Textile Mediated by Spontaneous Nanoscale Evaporation
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b02783

Unprecedented Room-Temperature Electrical Power Generation Using Nanoscale Fluorite-Structured Oxide Electrolytes
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.200700715

Nanoscale devices for solid state refrigeration and power generation
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1320444

Nanoscale Thermoelectrics
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-02012-9

Impacts of propagating, frustrated and surface modes on radiative, electrical and thermal losses in nanoscale-gap thermophotovoltaic power generators
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep11626

Nanoscale design to enable the revolution in renewable energy
https://pubs.rsc.org/ko/content/articlehtml/2009/ee/b821698c