This is actually a few months old now, but I just found out about it today :
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways
For those who don't want to click the link, a summary is that these guys have generated 2.2 million in crowd-sourcing funds for their idea. They want to replace all roadways in America with glass panels, that are a sort of combination of solar panels, and LED displays.
As happy as I am to see crowd-sourcing funding an engineering R&D project, this idea seems too reaching to me.
If you take the component parts of the invention, a lot of them seem like good ideas. Heated roads. Parking lots that have LED lighting so you can change or expand the patterns. A giant solar panel grid (I believe they are wanting their own distribution system for the power as well.
All of these sound like good things, but when you cram them all together you get something that just grates on common sense. Like the thought of driving on a solar panel made of glass. A solar panel that you can't angle toward the sun.
Am I wrong though? Science and engineering have produced results antithetical to common sense before, what do you think about it?