Scott Brusaw is a 53-year old electrical engineer from Sagle, Idaho who may have found a way to save the nation’s economy billions of dollars in snow removal equipment and weather damage to roads.
Brusaw believes solar powered smart roads made of a super-strong glass and solar cells inside the glass surface can produce enough heat capable of melting snow and ice. The solar cells would harness energy from the sun, fueling embedded heating elements. These heating elements would melt snow and ice reducing the need for treating roads with salt and snow plowing. The heating elements would work "like in the rear window of your car," said Brusaw in an interview reported by CNN. Brusaw estimates that each mile of a solar road would cost $4.4 million to install. With those figures, the cost to build the roads would exceed road repair budgets of most states, including the West Virginia Division of Highways.
The WVDOH currently has a budget of $29.5 million dollars for road treatment and repair. And these funds are allocated by total miles, climate and position of a county in the state. More funds usually go to the counties that are located in the northern part of the state or in a mountainous region. In Charleston, The city’s Public Works Department decided to curtail its use of salt because of a dwindling city supply. These kinds of allocated costs and shortages would be eliminated if solar powered smart roads were implemented.
The Federal Highway Administration has given Brusaw a $100,000 contract for his continued work on the effort. In Massachussetts, The National Science Foundation and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative awarded a grant to civil engineer Rajib Mallick and his colleagues to develop stronger more heat-absorbing pavements.
Advances across the county are being made towards implementing solar smart roads. But unless more private and federal support is given towards the research, snow plows and salt trucks will continue to be an added expense towards the nation’s economy.
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