I am very confused and eager to have an explanation of these complicated matters, as my simple minded brain just cannot wrap itself around this stuff.No need to be a jerk about it with your snide "simple minded PhD" comments, I didn't think I was being rude to you.
There has been work on infrared solar cells, for one thing, and in most office buildings you'll notice that the windows are usually reflective:
... so why not capture some of that solar energy instead of just reflecting it down onto the parking lot? The only glass that's supposed to be 100% perfectly transparent to the entire visible spectrum is found in camera lenses, not in windows.
As for energy from moving cars - the energy expended by the car moving the air in front of it out of the way is wasted, unless you can capture it with a wind turbine overhead or in the median barrier.
Ok. I won't be snide. I will be quite direct. The reason for reflecting light from a building is to decrease heatloads on the building, which have to be removed by airconditioning. Capturing some of it is a losing proposition, since the amount of heat you now trap on the building is more than 10 times the energy you produce. Air conditioning away that heat takes another multiple of several. So for every kJ of heat you absorb, you have to expend several to remove it, but produce 1/10th of a kilojoule in electrical energy to help you remove it with.
If you try to capture the energy in the subvelocity airflow around the car you will increasse the drag on the car, unless you get so far from the car (the median barrier) that most of the flow energy has already dissipated into thin air.
This is not the first guy to try to violate the first and second laws of thermodynamics and he won't, sadly, be the last.
You will find that for every attempt to find a free ride on mother nature there is a pitfal, trap or swindle. You could find it depressing or you could wake up and realize that at least there is a perfectly wonderful opportunity before us already, nuclear power, and so god did not abandon us after all.