Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have just done a
batch of research that they hope will help turn the world's
roads into cheap collectors of solar power. They started with
the assumption that asphalt gets frakking hot when the sun
shines on it, and then started making some serious leaps. First,
they decided to figure out what part of the asphalt gets
hottest, which turns out to be about two centimeters below the
surface. Then they tried to figure out how to make it even
hotter. The painted an anti-reflective coating to their test
blocks, and then added highly thermally conductive quartzite to
the mix. The result is blacktop that gets even hotter and stays
hotter for longer than regular asphalt. Of course, this left
them with the problem of how to get the energy out of the road.
By laying down a series of flexible and highly conductive copper
pipes before pouring the asphalt they were able to pump water
through the asphalt, picking up the heat, for use in power
generation. However, project leader