Three Years Later, the French Solar Road Is a Total Flop

Popular Mechanics ^ | 08/16/2019 | David Grossman

[Kid Shelleen]

It was a solar experiment that seemed ingenious in its simplicity: fill a road with photovoltaic panels and let them passively soak up the rays as cars drive harmlessly above. The idea has been tried a few times, notably in rural France in 2016 with what was christened the "Wattway."

Three years later, even the most optimistic supporters have deemed the Wattway a failure.

[Bob434]

again- you keep responding to my posts with these claims- but there is no evidence that man is responsible- as you know- there are differing views on this issue-

[jps098]

No, we don’t.

[Bob434]

climate systems vary wildly all on their own, and pointing out that ‘it should have risen’ such and such a temperature because ‘it did so in the past’ isn’t a valid response- different times, different variables- Different cloud covers due to different conditions etc-

coming out of massive ice age woudl necessarily have created much different conditions, causing much different reactions, and causing far higher temperature rises, especially in oceans, which would have been cooler due to ice age, and not releasing CO2 until a specific condition was met- 500 to the supposed 100 years ago- conditions were much different than they are today- Saying that ocean temps should be such and such today based on past experience in a much different scenario with with much different conditions isn’t valid=-

[[Some of it is, but only a small portion. That portion is probably 5-10 ppm out of the total rise]]

Again, as you know, that is the opinion of people that support the IPCC- not the opinion of all scientists-

Get away from the IPCC propaganda and check into the science and material published by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC),

The rise in temperatures is not due to CO2- It is a natural cyclical warming trend controlled by many variables- CO2 not being one-

[Bob434]

“The same information and data used by the U.N. IPCC was also applied in the NIPCC’s exercise, Singer said.

However, in contrast to the U.N. study, an effort was made in his work to “connect the dots” between greenhouse model outputs and actual observations, Singer explained. In the end, no significant amount of warming resulting from human activity could be detected, he said.

The consequences of these results are “far reaching,” especially as they pertain to public policy, said Singer. Since natural variability is responsible for climate change, it logically follows that warming and cooling periods are unstoppable and that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, he noted.”

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/natural-forces-not-man-causing-global-warming-scientist-says

This just goes to show that when the groups like the IPCC go into the science, they do so not to discover the truth, but to mold the info to fit the narrative- Several prominent scientists on the panel quit and confessed that they were bullied into stating things they knew wasn’t right- so they quit-

[minnesota_bound]

Personally I would use some uranium to boil water to create steam to turn turbines to make cheap electricity.
This would create more jobs as electric rates would be lower.
Prices would be lower for everything else to.

Homes cooled in the summer from cheap electricity would make living more enjoyable too.

[lepton]

Far from expected 790 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per day
In the end, the latter is far from having kept its energy promises. After producing the first year just over 50% of the expected 790 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per day, a total of 149,459 kWh over the year, the equipment generated 78,397 kWh in 2018 and 37,900 kWh since January , as indicated, in early July, the statement of the association for the promotion of photovoltaic BDPV, which lists the production of solar installations in France.

Financed by public funds of € 5 million and supported by Colas (Bouygues Group), the subsidiary Wattway aimed to provide the equivalent of the annual consumption of public lighting in a city. of 5,000 inhabitants.
The general director of services of the departmental council of the Orne made his accounts: “The revenue from the sale of electricity produced by the road should bring us 10 500 euros per year, details Gilles Morvan. In 2017, we received 4,550 euros. In 2018, 3,100 euros, and for the first quarter of 2019, we are at 1,450 euros.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks . Can’t post the titles of the search hits:

http://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+skeptic+solar+road

If you like this guy (I find him hard to stomach), here’s his YT channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2DjFE7Xf11URZqWBigcVOQ

[Rurudyne]

Probably need to make a fake PLA front company to do the bribing though. Unless it involves treason, sedition or other forms of selling us out even the Clintons and Obamas might not take the bait.

[palmer]

I don't think you should assume I listen to the IPCC. I pay attention to facts like that graph. If there was not at least 12C warming in the past 1000 years (in the oceans), then the oceans cannot have produced the CO2. Volcanoes which didn't suddenly increase around 1850. Nor are volcanoes increasing every year and producing the rise in the rise of CO2. Which leaves biosphere. The extra CO2 could come from large reductions in ocean algae or something like that.

But the best fit is fossil fuels and cement making, manmade.

coming out of massive ice age woudl necessarily have created much different conditions, causing much different reactions, and causing far higher temperature rises, especially in oceans, which would have been cooler due to ice age, and not releasing CO2 until a specific condition was met- 500 to the supposed 100 years ago-

The oceans rose in temperature at the end of the glacial period starting about 12,000 years ago. The oceans peaked in temperature in Holocene Optimum about 8,000 to 5,000 years ago. That can't explain CO2 releases now. The oceans then cooled up to and including the Little Ice Age. The Little Ice Age ended in the 1800's. CO2 started rising in the 1800's. Some of the CO2 rise is from the warming. There isn't always a 500-1000 year delay.

NIPCC: Thus it can be appreciated that DMS production in a warming world—especially when augmented by analogous biogenic phenomena—may provide a large moderating influence on the primary impetus for warming that is produced by mankind‘s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-Interim/02%20Forcings%20and%20Feedback.pdf

The NIPCC agrees that the CO2 rise is manmade. They do not believe that the CO2 has caused recent warming. They do not believe it is a threat. Their document that I linked points out many other causes of warming including solar, CFCs, aerosols. They point out the errors in the models "Scafetta notes failure to include these natural cyclical components of climate in current state-of-the-art climate models has resulted in at least a 60 percent overestimate of the degree of anthropogenic-induced greenhouse warming between 1970 and 2000."

Nowhere in any NIPCC document have I found any claim that the CO2 rise is natural.

[GOPJ]

We’d just set up ‘foundations’... set up ‘book sales’ so money can be funneled to them through fake sales.

Worried about dumping all the books that are fake sales? We can give a cut to the publishers for NOT printing excess books. They get the money, the target gets the money and the books don’t have to be dumped in secondary markets.

Then there’s always ‘speeches’... half million for a 40 minute talk is a nice fat legal bribe...

[Bob434]

[[I don’t think you should assume I listen to the IPCC.]]

I should have said ‘to IPCC-like sites or orgs’ - there is no consensus on the rise of temps being man-made

Regardign hte oceans, As I stated- natural variations coudl very well have explained the increases back then coming out of ice ages the atmosphere was likely different- less clod cover- more heat from sun penetrating the earth (for awhile, till ice began melting, causing humidity etc, more cloud cover etc- today the earth is warmer- more tendency toward cloud cover (but not globally) meaning the oceans won’t heat as quick as low cloud cover periods-

[[That can’t explain CO2 releases now.]]

No but like i said- other htigns can- and you can’t extrapolate current trends out to past trends when as explained there are such myriad variables that could sway things-

[[ Nowhere in any NIPCC document have I found any claim that the CO2 rise is natural.]]

I didn’t say that they claim that- I do say that other credible scientists state that- and say that there is not a consensus on the issue one way or the other- the science is not settled on whether the rise is natural or not- which is what i dispute in some of your posts- (or where you infer that)

CO2 would continue to rise unabated despite man ceasing to release CO2-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ROw_cDKwc0

As you know- CO2 has been well above 800 ppm in the past- (some claiming it was more than 1000 ppm) to say that the current CO2 rise from 300 to 400 ‘must be human activity’ ignores that fact- And when there are so many natural variables at play, one can not definitively attribute the rise to man- that is the issue i had with your statements-

[Bob434]

I've posted this before, but it's got some important points in it- even though they are pretty vague- they still show that the whole idea that man is repsonsible is silly:

1. There is “no real scientific proof” that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man’s activity. 
2. Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022% of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.
3. Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.
4. After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions, but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940. 
5. Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher — more than ten times as high. 
6. Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. 
7. The 0.7˚ celsius increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.
8. The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favorable reviewers, not the 4,000 usually cited.
9. Leaked e-mails from British climate scientists — in a scandal known as “Climategate” — suggest that data have been manipulated to exaggerate global warming.
10. A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.

[Bob434]

woops- forgot link

https://humanevents.com/2009/12/23/top-10-reasons-to-say-global-warming-is-not-manmade/

[palmer]

natural variations coudl very well have explained the increases back then coming out of ice ages the atmosphere was likely different- less clod cover- more heat from sun penetrating the earth (for awhile, till ice began melting, causing humidity etc, more cloud cover etc-

That's all true, but the oceans didn't warm by over 12C in the last 1000 years. We have measurements from the past 300 years from the ocean, sporadic, but still don't show it to be a lot colder. About 1C colder 300 years ago. We also have fossil proxies for temperature that show about the same amount of warming, about 1C. The graph I linked above shows 1C of warming to create about 10 ppm of rise in CO2. We have a rise from 280 to 410 (now 415 since we first discussed this). That rise cannot be due to past warming.

There were reasons that CO2 were higher in the past, above 1000 ppm or higher. Those conditions are not present today. My yard is chock full of limestone that once was CO2 in seawater that came from volcanoes combined with calcium weathered from calcite. We don't have an increase of volcanoes right now to explain the rise and acceleration. But increasing use of fossil explains it nicely.

All that has nothing or little to do with warming. There is not enough natural warming to explain the rise in CO2, not even close. But there is nothing in the rise of CO2 to explain all the warming and plenty of other explanations. CO2 causes some warming, that much is generally agreed on. But the amount is in dispute. The entire amount of recent warming is modest and beneficial.

[palmer]

That's a decent link. But this one in particular: "Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022% of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history." is kind of irrelevant. There were huge amounts of CO2 released in geological history. But those don't matter now because it turned into limestone in my back yard. There is CO2 in seawater turning into limestone as I type this. There is carbonate weathering removing CO2 from the atmosphere right now.

The weathering, mainly by the Himalayas, is the reason we were in a period of CO2 starvation. We had the lowest CO2 in earth's geological history and were at risk of extinction of large numbers of species of plants during recent glacial periods when CO2 sank to 180 ppm. Here's a good article describing that: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/30/life-on-earth-was-nearly-doomed-by-too-little-co2/

[Bob434]

[[That’s all true, but the oceans didn’t warm by over 12C in the last 1000 years.]]

The 800+ ppm was long before that period

[[There were reasons that CO2 were higher in the past, above 1000 ppm or higher. Those conditions are not present today.]]

Precisely, so we can’t take evidence from today and state that ‘it should be’ such and such ‘because it used to be’

[[We don’t have an increase of volcanoes right now to explain the rise and acceleration. But increasing use of fossil explains it nicely.]]

As you know, volcanoes aren’t the only causes for rises in CO2 after warming trends start-

[[CO2 causes some warming, that much is generally agreed on.]]

Not universally agreed upon - there is fat too little CO2 both by man and natural causes to cause global warming- we’re talking a very very small % of the atmosphere- there is nowhere near enough to blanket the globe- think about that- only 0.00136% of the atmosphere has CO2 from man alone- (a little more with the addition of Nature CO2- but not much) The rest of the atmosphere is CO2 free- that is over 99% free from CO2

What little IR gets trapped by CO2 is just a small % of what escapes the earth- only a fraction gets trapped- of that fraction, only a smaller fraction actually makes it back to earth as it gets radiated out in all directions-

So- a very tiny % of the atmosphere has CO2- and only a tinier fraction of trapped Ir gets radiated out as heat back to earth-

Cloud cover is more of a cause for warmer climates than CO2 could ever be, and even cloud cover is minimal- most heat, which rises, makes it’s way past the cloud cover in the areas that are cloud free- some does get trapped- but not globally- not enough to cause alarm- -

[[The entire amount of recent warming]]

Is due to cyclical warming trends caused by natural processes

[Bob434]

[[”Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022% of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.” is kind of irrelevant.]]

Well not really irrelevant, because it shows that even though We’ve had massive amounts of CO2 in the past, the total amount of all the CO2 ever released naturally, and less significantly unnaturally by man, is still very very small compared to the 6 gigatons of atmosphere- so our much lower CO2 today is still far too small to be causing any kind of global warming at all- At best- where concentrations of CO2 might be higher, it might- might cause some localized slight warming- but even that is doubtful

[Bob434]

I’m too tired mentally these days to get into this really- we’ll just have to disagree that man’s CO2 is the cause of rise, and the cause of warming- I don’t believe either based on past research into the issue (not professional by any means, just did it for a blog i ran for awhile trying to dispel the myth of man-caused climate change)- I’m burned out on the issue- it’s a losing battle- the left have won the battle on this and the world now believes man is evil and we must give governments all our hard earned money to pay or our supposed enviro-sins - I had corresponded with Marc Morano of climate depot . org and Briefly with James Inhoffe, and both basically indicated that the left have won this issue because the right were too afraid of political correctness police to stand up to the left on this issue- It was too deflating to see these folks, prominent in the effort to bring the truth to people, admitting that the left have won on the lie-

[palmer]

If you are tired of arguing about CO2 rises caused by warming, then you need to embrace the idea the rise in CO2 is manmade and natural warming causes only a small portion of the rise. Look at the graph that I linked, it shows about 10C in warming for 100 ppm rise in CO2. We have had 130 ppm rise in CO2 since 1850 or so. To be caused by warming, there would need to have been a 13C rise in ocean temperature in the past 1000 years, give or take.

That temperature rise did not happen. Therefore the CO2 rise was not and is not being caused by warming. There are other possibilities: volcanoes and related geological process, and biosphere changes. Those are worth investigating. But to argue that the 130 ppm rise, and 2.5 rise every year is natural because warming precedes CO2, is a losing argument. You will get tired of arguing that because you won't win.

Instead you should argue about the causes of warming in the NIPCC link that I linked: solar, aerosols, etc. Your arguments about clouds are valid too. And there are many more arguments for natural warming.

And one more thing: manmade CO2 is a very good thing. Please read the WUWT link that I put up that explains CO2 starvation.

[gogeo]

Actually, I suspect we would have a dept of wall, with plentiful funding but no notable progress.